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 Are we born as a homosexual? 
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My boyfriend told me about a conversation he had with a man last week that dealt with homosexuals. This guy told my boyfriend that homosexuals could not help the way they are because they were born this way. So my question to you is, do you think people are born as a homosexual or even a transsexual?

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Christin Peterson


Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:28 am
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Actually I was just talking about this. I think that yes you are born with those feelings, but I also feel that some people either hide how they feel to fit in with the norm and that others change becuase they are not comfortable with who they are. I do not know... this is such a hard topic to dicuss. I also think about the Bible when I think about this question.. but that is a can of worms I dont think I want to open!

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Kirstin Lynn Blanchard


Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:54 am
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I agree...I think that homosexuals are born with these feelings because I feel that homosexuals are out the norm and I do not think that wish it upon themselves. With the issues that they face because it is out of the norm and since homosexuality is in conflict with the Bible regarding man and women, its is a possiblity to view homeosexuality as genetic defect..since they are born with these feelings? (Just a thought)

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Ashley Lee Wise


Tue Nov 28, 2006 1:37 pm
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I have a cousin who is a lesbian, and especially after watching the kinds of things she has to go through and all the hate she has to face, I can't imagine why in the world someone would choose that. That's just who she is and has always been.

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Lillie Jones


Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:11 pm
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It's hard for me to accept that someone is born as a homosexual, although i've heard many, many people say so. I am a Christian and believe in creationism, and my faith tells me that God would not create someone like that if He is not in favor of it. This might be a little bit preachy, but from what I know about Jesus Christ, He doesn't desire that anyone be unfavorable in His sight. I truly believe that He creates us all with the ability to choose our actions and lifestyles. Now, do i think that people who are homosexual have chosen to be "outcasts" or to go through what they may face, no. But i truly do believe that it is a choice.

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Julie Marie Troutman


Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:10 pm
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Nature v. Nuture : An Old Debate

This goes into the twin studies that I mentioned in class awhile back. These studies* found a good correlation for twins separated at birth having the same sexual orientation. If one sibling was straight, their twin was too and vice versa. So it should follow that homosexuality is genetic, or natural. But as Dr. Turner emphasized, such studies cannot determine the cause of sexual orientation. Another set of studies* recognized that parental nurturing could not be ignored because parents construct the social and cultural world for their children. If parent's say that being gay is unnatural, then children grow up in a world where heterosexuality is normal. I think this ties into Jennifer's comments about her Dad telling her sister (or niece ... I can't remember which) that dating a black guy is wrong; we cannot ignore the influence of adults on minors, like we, the teachers, on students.

So studies seem to contradict each other, at first. I wrote a paper in Cultural Anthropology about this very subject and found a middle ground. Dr. John Money, a psychiatrist at John Hopkins who was mentioned in one of our assigned readings, said the genetic factor is exaggerated. He argued a point that I think mothers will find very interesting in prenatal care:

Quote:
[Sexual] development is governed not by the genetic code directly, but by sex hormones that program the sexual differentiation of the brain. ... The evidence from clinical studies supports the hypothesis that there is in human prenatal development a sex-hormonal effect on sexual brain differentiation, but that it does not have a hormonal-robot effect of the described for sheep and other subprimate mammals.


Essentially this is a kind of inbetween nature versus nuture hypothesis -- things aren't set in stone. Of course our genes control many hormonal processes. They determine whether we are male or female as I said in a previous post, but the hormonal levels can change from how they were initially setup. We can change them or our body changes them. Transsexuals change themselves physically, and maybe behaviorally, by taking hormone supplements. Women's hormones change when going through menopause, a natural process of the body -- although supplements can also help mood, aka. behavior --, or women change their hormonal levels when taking some contraceptives, as I understand it. Faking pregnancy or ending menstruation are not directly sexual but both affect physical things related to sex, so I can see something similar for sexual attraction and orientation. But I strongly disagree with calling what happens prenatally a "defect", otherwise we need to call menopause a defect.

So the studies and conclusions I've read indicate that genes and hormones initiate sexual differentiation and attraction at some natural level while socio-cultural context can affect sexual orientation at a nurturing level, including the choice to act on sexual attractions. Some religiously devout people chose to become asexual, aye? Heck! studies now say that a person's smell can attract you! so I don't find this a stretch. All these reasons led me to believe that nature v. nurture is a false dichotomy; it's not just one or the other.

* FYI: if you're interested in reading these studies, some popular ones are "Homosexuality in Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart", "The Homosexual Role: A Reconsideration", and "Gender-Transposition Theory and Homosexual Genesis"

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Justin Pittman


Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:07 am
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