Study links diet pills, having gay children

[liontamer]

"Researchers found that mothers of lesbian women were five times more likely to have taken thyroid medications in the early stages of their pregnancies than those of heterosexual women. Additionally, they were nearly eight times more likely to have taken amphetamine-based diet pills.

Conversely, mothers of straight men were 70 percent more likely to have taken anti-nausea drugs than those of gay men."


http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2004/12/06/4

[Caution]

oh fer crissakes...now being gay is a birth defect?

When will these friggin people ever sinmply learn to accept?

[noamnety]

5. You could look at it the other way around

Taking certain anti-nausea drugs could cause you to have a boy with the heterosexual birth defect. :D

Seriously, without seeing the methodology, it's hard to tell what's the cause and what's the effect. Maybe it's genetic, and linked to thyroid problems?

[liontamer]

7. it's just a correlation

don't take it too seriously. Maybe not being treated for your health problems is what inhibits the normal incidence of homosexuality.

[SnowGoose]

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

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.

[readmoreoften]

12. So what do you think of Ann Fausto-Sterling's research...

such as Sexing The Body?

[Sanity Claws]

1. Send this to Lynne Cheney

She acts ashamed of her lesbian daughter. Sending this should give her a nice guilt trip.

[liontamer]

2. I think the chief use of this study is to make mothers feel guilty

"See mom, you were so concerned with looking thin, you brought this on yourself"

[latteromden]

3. Sounds ridiculous, but both true in my case... very odd. (n/t)

[KurtNYC]

4. I think all data on "gay" people is skewed toward

upper income people. In order to be identified as "gay" in one of these studies, the person has to self-identify in some way. In my experience, that is much easier for people of higher incomes. They are more likely to live on their own, have a suitable income and generally be more insulated from the problems that come with being identified as a gay person in this country.

So when I see a study like this I think they could have tied just about anything that skews toward upper income with being "gay." Access to health care is only one thing but they probably could have statistically tied gayness to Cadillacs, BMWs, college education, cable TV, broadband internet connections, foreign travel, etc.

[liontamer]

6. that's the problem with studies where you can only rely on correlational

data. You can probably find lots of statistically significant correlations in their raw data. An interesting study would be to take two groups of pregnant women and give them the drugs randomly, and then see if their kids are gay. Of course that's one study that will never get funded.
And even an animal model of the study would be difficult, because it would be difficult to deduce how an animal identified.

[KurtNYC]

8. Penguins

http://www.emperor-penguin.com/gay-penguins.html

I love the interview section of that article.

That's how they flirt?

That's how they talk to each other. It's one of the body postures. Giovanni and Gomez are sitting with their backs to us. Curly just approached them and was like, "Hey, baby." And Gomez was like, "I don't think so."

[TaleWgnDg]

11. Exactly. A double blind study would be the most efficient way

to establish a result . . . In the meantime, I await reading and analyzing this study discussed in this thread when its published in the medical peer review periodical mentioned.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

[readmoreoften]

13. Um. There are tons of people who self-ID as gay who are

poor as shit, on the streets, and struggling to survive. There are also tons of gay working class folks.

There are also closeted wealthy people who never come out because they are afraid to lose their cushy Wall Street jobs and their inheritances.

the assumption of gay identification=rich means you're watching too much Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and not going to gay bars in working class towns.

[TaleWgnDg]

10. Wait. Wait. Wait. If this is true, then will our rightwing congress

want to enact a law prohibiting the sale of prescription and over-the-counter drugs to pregnant women? What if our illustrious Attorney General seeks to remove the state licensure of pharmacists who fill these prescriptions? You know, similar to his seeking removal of MDs state licenses when they prescribe "medical" marijuana in Oregon?

Today it's anti-gay marriage, tomorrow it's the *cure* for homosexuality!




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[davidinalameda]

14. my mother ate oreos with me

maybe that's why I'm gay

[Deja Q]

15. Mom ate well & took care of herself. And lo and behold, a fruit loop was

born 6 months later at 2.65 pounds. :eyes:

These studies border on the obscene if they weren't so ludicrous.

[HockeyMom]

16. Mother of gay daugther

I weighed 105 lbs when I was 20 and do so now at 56. NEVER dieted in my entire life. Never took ANY meds either except for birth control pills or occasionally antibiotics. Personally, I think has more to do with the fact that I had a gay aunt and my husband had a gay uncle. His sister has TWO gay kids (out of 4) and we have one (out of 2). If we aren't a case study for GENETICS, don't know what is.