Reply #9: I'd like to argue with you about that.

[SnowGoose]

Is it just possible that you're adding a layer of your own upon this factoid? As support for my suggestion, I pose the following fictional statement: left-handed people are more likely to have had mothers who took diet pills. Since there's no presumption in our culture that something's wrong with left-handedness, would you feel that left-handedness was being portrayed as a birth defect, or simply that this was an interesting and unexpected biological surprise? What if it were found that "smart" people had such mothers? Isn't it only because of the unspoken presumption that homosexuality is something less than ideal, that you would draw this conclusion?

Why would I bother bringing this up? Well it's because I did a paper a couple of years back on maternal exposures to various compounds and what's called sexually dimorphic (different between the genders) brain development. Most of the work was in animal models - which has the benefit of removing 'culture' and 'choice' issues and brings it right down to biology.

What did I learn? It's real - doesn't matter what we think of it, there are maternal exposures that influence offspring to exhibit both structural and, yes, even behavioral characteristics typically associated with the opposite gender (I'm talking about things like same-sex mounting behaviors not observed in unexposed animals).

However, just because it's real doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. I think it's important, because fighting these data is fighting biological realities before we really even understand them yet. It seems to me that since you can take equivalent animals with essentially the same genome and end up with both 'gay' and 'straight' animals - as well as intermediates - it shows that each of us has this full range of potentials within us. Maybe I'm just letting my own values in here, but I find it pleasing to think that each and every one of us contains a little of everything when it comes to sexuality.

Even more, I feel like understanding how this unfolding of genes into functioning organisms will enable us to understand the various potentials hidden within the genes, whether it is right/left handedness, coat color, or sexual preference. Whether that is a defect or a valued trait is simply a bullshit social construct.

It also removes us from this 'choice' thing, as if orientation were equivalent to whether you prefer plaid or paisley. It's biological - showing it in animals makes that clear.

There's science, and there's how we use it.

Feel to think I'm an asshole (with my blessings), but that's how I see it.