"What the Gay Brain Looks Like" Time mag

I checked to see if anyone else has posted on this article and I did find a couple of posts regarding the study and its outcomes but not much else.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1815538,00.html


"What makes people gay? Biologists may never get a complete answer to that question, but researchers in Sweden have found one more sign that the answer lies in the structure of the brain.

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute studied brain scans of 90 gay and straight men and women, and found that the size of the two symmetrical halves of the brains of gay men more closely resembled those of straight women than they did straight men. In heterosexual women, the two halves of the brain are more or less the same size. In heterosexual men, the right hemisphere is slightly larger.

Scans of the brains of gay men in the study, however, showed that their hemispheres were relatively symmetrical, like those of straight women, while the brains of homosexual women were asymmetrical like those of straight men. The number of nerves connecting the two sides of the brains of gay men were also more like the number in heterosexual women than in straight men.


Maybe I am making a big deal out of nothing but the title of the article in Time upsets me.

First before knickers get in a wad - I believe that homosexuality, heterosexuality is not a choice but how you are born. And I don't think its a switch that is flicked of either you are gay or straight but a continuum. For the most part I would say I am hetero, I am married to a man, but I hesitate to say that I am straight (one because I hate labels) because I have been attracted to some women. Just like I am not attracted to all men, I am not un-attracted to all women.

I say this because I am not arguing that there is science and biology involved in sexual attraction. But the title "What the Gay Brain Looks Like" for whatever reason reminds me of "science" articles that said whites are smarter than blacks because of brain size and thereby a justification for discrimination. Same goes for studies that state men are smarter than women - and used deny women equal rights.

This article DOES NOT state that the 'gay brain' is less intelligent than the 'straight brain'.

I am not making sense and I am rambling so please DUers help me with this. When I read this article I picture FOX news pundits citing it to say see - "gay men are more feminine and are like women" and thus feeding into stereotypes. And I fear that hacks who think that being gay can be "cured" will now start trying a new type of lobotomy.

A older friend of mine has Tourette's and survived 2 frontal lobotomies when in the 50's that was seen as a cure for mental illness and any type of "deviant" behavior. I am not linking homosexuality to mental illness - just using the example of prejudice in the name of science.

I am already defensive in my post - waiting for the flamefest of someone misinterpreting my words so let me be clear - I believe all people are created equal and deserve love, respect, happiness and equal rights - no ifs, ands or buts. The hatred I have seen expressed toward the GLBT community at times keeps me awake at night. To hear my own mother say that gays should not marry because people will use it to take advantage of health benefits made me so pissed I pulled over (we were in the car) and I lectured her for a good half hour on the side of the interstate. To hear presidential candidates say that gays can have civil unions but not marriage because oooooh thats a straight right pisses me off. To know that there are gays willing to serve our country but are not allowed to pisses me off. To hear people talk of being "cured" of homosexuality like its a disease or "accused" of being gay like its a crime pisses me off...you get the point.

I have no idea why this article upsets me so - and maybe I will be the only one and then thats my problem. But to me it is obvious that brains are going to be different, and 90 scans hardly seems like a representative sample, and how do they know that some of the gays or straights aren't bisexual? What is the point of printing this article in Time?

You know, like our brains have something wrong with them.

Also to emasculate gay men by saying they are really "women" at the root of it all. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

In any case, thank you for your support. :hug:

The core of the fundy prejudice towards gay people rests heavily on the idea that being gay is a choice.

A study that classifies homosexual brains as being inherently different shores up the fact that homosexuality is inherent and cannot be Jesus'd/tortured/beaten out of someone.

I know that genetics and psychology have been twisted in the past by evil factions to justify eugenics/hate, but that doesn't make them inherently evil fields. Science is simply the study of what is.

I think that this is very exciting stuff.

good...but a"gay' brain vs "straight" brain? that seems too simplistic... who determines the gayness or straightness...if it is self-identified, well how scientific is that?

Even if it is self-identified a great deal of things are. If I tell you I'm hungry, I'm probably hungry. Test enough of these people who claim to be hungry and you can still perform reliable statistics on the "hungry group".

Besides the assymetry of hemispheres between men and women can be pretty stark. While it's only a tendency (there are some men with more "women typical" brains), it's a pretty widespread tendency for men to have a larger right hemisphere. Also women tend to have a thicker and better developed area between the hemispheres where the two halves of the brain talk to each other. Though again you see that sometimes in men. Einstein for example had an ENORMOUS Corpus Callosum. It is thought that this might have had a lot to do with his ability to combine various schools of thought into his theories.

Syndrome, i lack a Mirror Region in my brain which assists in goal orientation, have only minor left brain activity as the Neuro-Typicals (NT's) put it. i have an IQ of 164 but am only functionally literate, i perceive in visual images, but i am a technical savant, i have concentration skills far beyond the average person, i have worked for Shell Research Development Corp doing taxonomy on bacteria 4 people with big degrees couldn't do, i built flight/life critical avionics controls for the F22 and Delta3 Rocket and built 2.6 times more boards than anyone else on a 22 person team, everything i did passed first time every time.. and i had time to fix everybody else's errors/damage too.. i was once a jeweler/goldsmith for 3 stores at once for 12 years, never had anything returned or any complaints, increased their sales 27%, studied under 3 european master goldsmiths 2 of which said i did the best work they ever saw.., but i was put in classes for the mentally retarded in public schools. i presently work in aerospace.

rule one, research is rarely if ever final/finished.. it is an ongoing process of understanding the world, in a fairly unbiased method, tho people do mess that up too..

i have been treated like dog shit most of my life regardless of what i achieved when no one else could do it, but the word is that Microsoft recognizes the value of Aspies and assigns "Buddies" to them, to help them with social interactions, translate for them what is going on socially, they get emails instead of having to attend boring meetings where people are close together, where they are expected to look at peoples faces.. etc. some aspi programmers can work 14 hours straight on a program and don't like to be interrupted. i never could get that job i really wanted because i was always told i was over qualified.. no you're getting a really good deal here.. never worked

gay people have valuable qualities, many apparently inherent in the structure of their brains.. this research may eventually assist them into a niche where they excel, where others cant, or be recognized in whatever they do. i have known, admired and respected many gay people for their capabilities, which were often special. i have seen horrible prejudice against gay people.

if this were counting the bumps on their heads, i wouldn't have finished the article.. but i found it interesting, their group was a bit small, needed to cover more variables.. but a beginning, and it indicates gay isn't a choice, some day many bigots will be over whelmed with the truth.. one step at a time. but obviously some never will.. and their karma will be being born gay in their next life.

i am doing the best i can, not too good with words some times.. if you got a problem with hate .. get counceling dont bother flaming me

Well, that sounded hostile, to tell you the truth! :) You were doing fine until your closing. It's just a conversation, nothing to get heated about.

:shrug:

I am curious. In a "scientific study" of any sort trying to find the reason for homosexuality WHY would you only study gay men, straight men and women? By women do the mean straight women? A mix of straight and gay women, what? If brain size has *anything* to do with sexual orientation than I would expect ALL four groups to be tested. I often times get really tired of the lesbian community hollering "hey what about us, why is it gay men get all the attention" but in this case I think it is vitally important to ask that question. Hell why stop at 4 subgroups, what about bisexual men, bisexual women, transgendered men and transgendered women? It seems that this "reason for homosexuality" is just a little too convenient.

Therefore, they start with a smaller universe.

Also science is little steps little steps.

did I read that wrong?

are the way they are because they're deliberately and wickedly choosing to flout conventional modes of behavior.

Personally, I think it's like hand preference. The majority are strongly right-handed, some are strongly left-handed, a few of us (me, for instance) are mostly one or the other but use different hands for different activities, and a small number are equally comfortable using either hand in any context. (I once had a colleague who took highly detailed minutes during faculty meetings, starting with one hand and switching to the other when she got tired.)

I think the famous Kinsey report pretty much established that. Since almost no one is exclusively gay or straight, this idea that we can study how "gay" brains and "straight" brains are different is pseudo-scientific garbage, akin to the IQ "debates".

Its orientation - preference implies there is a choice and is used by anti-gay extremist because of that.

Its not pseudo-scientific garbage either - it a known fact that both men's and women's brains are different - and GLBT persons. This study is hardly the first to show that. Care to go read the study and point out whats wrong with it?

Here is the abstract:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0801566105v1

So much of this inquiry is culture bound, imho. Why does the hypothesis have to be LGBT people's brains are somehow "flawed" when compared with heterosexuals?

which is why rw'ers love crap like this: If 90% of people are straight, and the other 10% aren't then it is abnormal and there must be a cause for it (and the term cause implies a lot there).

Of course, start asking them about red heads, people with green eyes vs blue, etc and so on and suddenly it all does not matter as god made us all different :rofl:

Yeah, gays aren't 'normal' mathematically speaking when you are discussing just one subject. But then, we are all fucking abnormal on some levels. I can't help it I have green eyes or that my wife is a red head (and here in southern ca she is really abnormal).

I don't want to be made to feel by all those blondes with blue eyes like I am crap because I am not like them, but in their world they are the norm and I am not.

Welcome to freaksville, population everyone, where studies are done just to see what makes you and I different instead of just saying 'fuck it, I accept you for who you are and do the same for me please'.

I don't care if someone is gay anymore than I do if they are straight - it is not gonna keep me from having great sex with the wife, smoking some cigs, and having something good to drink at the end of the day.

Someday the rest of the world will feel the same way - even if gay was a choice it is still none of their fucking business.

I guess I won't be happy until the scientists give equal time to what specific genetic markers or biological characteristics determine a heterosexual orientation. Which, to tell you the truth, seems just as ridiculous to me as looking at brain hemispheres, the lengths of one's fingers, one's birth order, etc. in order to understand same-sex attraction. :crazy:

We used to think the universe revolved around the earth (imagine!). I'm hopeful that there's a Copernicus or Galileo out there who studies sexuality because I'm unhappy with the current research.

Seems like they were more saying that gay men more resemble straight women, and gay women more resemble straight men. What is wrong with that?

The dominant culture (hegemony) can't contextualize anything independently of "itself".

I think it's thought provoking to imagine a predominantly non-heterosexual world where scientists explain male and female heterosexuality in terms of insufficiently masculinized or feminized brains. In other words, you too would be a lesbian (on our fictionalized gay world) if only your brain were more masculinized -- like most women.

But back to reality. Do we know what causes heterosexuality? Can we be certain that heterosexuality is explained by whatever the researchers found in the control group regarding the size of various areas of the brain?

Nor did it try to explain it. It simply pointed out a correlation.

Maybe the sunset isn't as pretty for knowing more about it, or maybe it's prettier, but I hardly think that anyone can fault science for trying to find out what's different between a sunset and a sunrise.

What makes people gay? Biologists may never get a complete answer to that question, but researchers in Sweden have found one more sign that the answer lies in the structure of the brain.

Sounds to me as if science is trying to find evidence of a "cause".

I think it's important to remember that not all "science" is about benevolent enlightenment. In fact, their are some malevolent "scientists" involved in human biodiversity studies. Here's a thread from the LGBT forum that others may find interesting: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=76895&mesg_id=76895

Why can't I fault science if I have concerns that this line of research has a whiff of eugenics about it?

And discovering a genetic basis for homosexuality would be a positive thing, and is HIGHLY likely given the fact that about the same percentage of people among all people on the planet are gay.

I'm not gay but I don't view being gay as a choice. I know that my attraction for women has a strong genetic component. I would like to see people afford the same respect and acceptance for homosexuals desires for the same sex.

Eugenics to my understanding is an argumnent for descriminating against "others" on the basis of "science". If someone came out and tried to make an argument that gay people were more likely to commit murder or theft based on their genes then I would be concerned. But simply exploring the biological mechanisms that may underly sexual preference has a good potential to advance acceptance of homosexuals imo.

not so much the research

In the right amounts it helps "protect" them. Wrong amounts it can "kill" them.

But I don't think that it has anything to do with relational hemisphere size.

Faaaaabuuulousss

it's "a" study. I take 'em all with a FWIW attitude. I'd seen an article on this study some time back. With all the psychobabble used to justify atrocities like the HomoNoMo (concentration) camps (which I liken to attempts to gold-plate a turd), I give all these kinds of writings a "feh" and move on. But I do appreciate you posting a link to Time's version of it. (Forewarned is forearmed and education is armament... you never know when you need to grab a reference or an "I know where you got that mess from" when dealing with RW'ers.)

As for apologizing and freaking out, don't, Dear One. I live on these terms: no-one can take my dignity or personhood away from me, unless I let them. I don't ever intend to let them. With my own dignity and personhood I was born and with those I'll die. On my feet. I will not apologize to the RW for allowing them to make me and mine out to be somehow aberrent or even subhuman. Whatever sillyarsed conclusions the RW'ers will draw, they're gonna draw and attempt to use against us. Nothing new there. But I'm a strappin' farmboy; ain't skeert.

(nice garden) :hi:

Glad to be here and glad to "meet" a lot of really good people. :grouphug:

I guess you would have to find it first.

Should women be prohibited from having abortions for the purposes of not having children with a sexual preference they do not agree with?

The take away message seems to be that gay women=straight men and gay men=straight women. But further in the article it states that only some portions of the brain are similar, and I would strongly suspect that even this varies strongly among individuals. Additionally, there are a variety of, say, lesbians. Some are butch, some are femme, some are androgynous, some are nerdy, some are sporty. The butch ones can be very mellow and the femmes very aggressive. Or vice versa. Likewise, for gay men. Examine all these brains and I suspect the picture would get more complicated very quickly.

Time and most media are often sensational.

But still its interesting to find biological correlates for behavioral patterns so important to our lives. It could point us to better understanding of all sexuality, not just homosexuality.

On the other hand, sadly, there is very little data can do to change hate. The hate just adapts to the new information. For example, where as once the fundie homo-haters universally said it was a choice they changed their position to "genetic abnormality" now that science is showing biological correlates and lineage studies are suggesting genetic foundations. And they think science should "fix" them the way they would with any genetic "defect".

There is a growing body of evidence that homosexuality is a natural biological phenomena and not a corruption of the soul as some would have it. I think it's an overall good that these findings be presented to the general populace, because I think it naturally softens negative attitudes toward homosexuals, in that they "can't help it," so to speak. And having befriended many gay people in my life, I think it's fairly self-evident that many if not most gay men tend to be more feminine and lesbians more butch.

It may be indelicately put (as no doubt what I just wrote was), but to educate the people who need to be educated on this subject, you have to put it in terms they find accessible.