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Are gay people really born and not made? Is this the end of the nature vs nurture debate? Lesbilicious spoke to some experts to find out more…

Recent research on brain structures seems to suggests that people are born gay. At face value this seems to be a victory against hate groups who believe that homosexuality is unnatural, immoral, a choice, or an illness to be cured. But not all human rights groups approve of the research, with some arguing that what matters is not why people are gay, but how society treats gay people.

Why study the origins of sexual orientation?

Dr Qazi Rahman from Queen Mary University of London believes that research into the biological differences of heterosexual and homosexual people is crucial for both advancing knowledge about human biology and psychology, and for improving the health of gay people.

“Looking at gay and lesbian people helps us narrow down the factors which causes sex differences in human behaviour generally,” Dr Rahman told Lesbilicious. “We know that women suffer from more depression and anxiety than men (and men have higher rates of other mental health problems). We also know that this might be partly due to the way women’s brains function.”

“Gay men also have higher rates of depression and anxiety (similar to women) so if we understand more about their brains we may understand more about risk towards getting particular types of mental health problems. This way we get a rounded scientific understanding (both the biological and nonbiological factors, such as stigma and discrimination) that contribute to gay-straight differences in mental health.”

What about bisexuality?

Peter Tatchell of gay rights group Outrage! believes that the research has merit, but that it fails to address important issues. Speaking to Lesbilicious, he asks, “If our genes, hormones or brain structures determine sexual orientation how do we explain bisexuality and people who switch in mid-life from happy heterosexuality to happy homosexuality (and vice versa)?”

The answer is that sexuality is fixed, believes Dr Rahman. “Sexual orientation is mostly binary (almost definitely for men) and fixed (again more so for men)” he argues, citing several large population-level studies in which men were found to identify almost exclusively as heterosexual or homosexual. “The idea that sexual orientation is completely fluid and not fixed is a myth.”

However, Dr Rahman believes that although bisexuality is very rare in men, it is more common in women: “It [sexual orientation] is more fluidic for women. For women, there is more bisexuality, but on the heterosexual end [of the scale].”

Dr Rahman adds, “Bisexuals don’t fit into this research just yet because a) there are too few true bisexuals, and secondly b) no one has done the work yet, probably because it’s so hard to get funding to do this.”

Will the research reinforce prejudice?

The most concerning element of the brain structure research is not the findings themselves, but the way that the information may be simplified and misinterpreted.

It’s all too easy to jump from ‘gay men share some brain structure similarities with women’ to ‘gay men have female brains’ – an inaccurate but not offensive statement, until it’s meant as a misogynistic and/or homophobic insult.

“Gay mens brain are NOT completely female and neither are lesbians brains completely male,” says Dr Rahman. “What this research shows is the diversity of people’s brains. Gay men and lesbian women have brains which are ‘sexual mosaics’ with both male and female typical traits; the best of both worlds.”

Perhaps one of the reasons why the research is being applauded so cautiously by gay rights groups is that seems to be perpetuating – and scientifically supporting – old stereotypes of feminine gay men and masculine gay women.

These concerns are unfounded, believes Dr Rahman. “This research simply reinforces the notion of diversity,” he argues. “Also, it paves the way for looking at differences within-sexual orientation groups.”

“So while it is true that, on average, gay men are more feminine and lesbian women are more masculine, we can now begin to look at differences between more masculine identified versus less masculine identified gay and lesbian people. No one is imposing particular roles on anyone, people are free to vary in their behaviour – and they do.”

So are we born or made gay?

Whether we really are born or made gay is still up for debate, believes Peter Tatchell. “Clearly, no one sits down one day and decides to be gay or straight,” he says. “Most queers say they felt different from a very young age, long before any awareness of sexual desire. While this suggests that sexuality is formed unconsciously by early childhood at the latest, it does not necessarily mean we are born with a pre-fixed sexual orientation.

He adds, “Born gay? No. Human sexuality is too varied and complex to be reduced to a simple equation of genes plus hormones.”

Dr Rahman believes that while there is still a lot of work to be done, biological differences do seem to indicate that homosexuality is a biological trait. “Other differences that cannot be learnt exist between gay and straight people, such as in tiny sounds emitted by the inner ear, eye-blink startle responses and handedness,” he says.

What’s more, it’s not that being gay makes your brain work a certain way, but that your brain being a certain way makes you gay. “Brain function and microstructure can change due to behaviour, we know this from animal studies,” says Dr Rahman. “But when it comes to sexual orientation this is unlikely.”

“There is no known evidence that having gay sex or straight sex, lets say, makes you have a particular pattern of brain structure or function. The bulk of evidence from genetics, developmental biology, neuropsychology and neuroscience shows that particular brain wiring produces sexual orientation, not the other way around.”

“This new study adds to this scientific work and supports the notion that we are born, and not made, gay or straight.”

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