Claim: There's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is genetic.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Simon LeVay
text: AIDS. LeVay cautioned against misinterpreting his findings in a 1994 interview: "It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain. The INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than a part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior." Some critics of LeVay questioned the

title: Queer Science
text: criticized LeVay for ignoring the literature on the "nature versus nurture" controversy. He also questioned LeVay's attempt to use genetic evidence to support the claim that homosexuality is immutable, arguing that the existence of genes that influence the development of homosexuality does not mean that homosexuality must be immutable. He noted that genes associated with particular behaviors "are probably often expressed in the way they influence individuals to respond to their environments" and that because a gene could influence the development of homosexuality in various different ways, for example by affecting how open a person is to "same-sex seduction", genetic

title: Biology and sexual orientation
text: was given strong support by the 2004 Italian study demonstrating increased fecundity in the female matrilineal relatives of gay men. As originally pointed out by Hamer, even a modest increase in reproductive capacity in females carrying a "gay gene" could easily account for its maintenance at high levels in the population. The "gay uncle hypothesis" posits that people who themselves do not have children may nonetheless increase the prevalence of their family's genes in future generations by providing resources (e.g., food, supervision, defense, shelter) to the offspring of their closest relatives. This hypothesis is an extension of the theory of

title: Biology and sexual orientation
text: stated that "There is considerable evidence that human sexual orientation is genetically influenced, so it is not known how homosexuality, which tends to lower reproductive success, is maintained in the population at a relatively high frequency." They hypothesized that "while genes predisposing to homosexuality reduce homosexuals' reproductive success, they may confer some advantage in heterosexuals who carry them". Their results suggested that "genes predisposing to homosexuality may confer a mating advantage in heterosexuals, which could help explain the evolution and maintenance of homosexuality in the population". However, in the same study, the authors noted that "nongenetic alternative explanations cannot be

title: Biological determinism of human gender roles
text: a single cause has not been determined as the cause of homosexuality, many scholars theorize that a combination of biological and social causes determine one's sexual orientation. Gay rights advocates believe that proving that homosexuality has a definite biological basis will prove it to be an unchangeable characteristic, thus allowing homosexuals to be protected under the Fourteenth Amendment in the United States. One area of research that has been a valuable tool for gay rights activists has been Dean Hamer's work studying the "gay gene". Another researcher who worked with Hamer in finding evidence for biological influence in male homosexuality

title: Biology and sexual orientation
text: in and of itself, for the expression of such a phenotype. Some studies have found correlations between physiology of people and their sexuality; these studies provide evidence which suggests that: Whether genetic or other physiological determinants form the basis of sexual orientation is a highly politicized issue. "The Advocate", a U.S. gay and lesbian newsmagazine, reported in 1996 that 61% of its readers believed that "it would mostly help gay and lesbian rights if homosexuality were found to be biologically determined". A cross-national study in the United States, the Philippines, and Sweden found that those who believed that "homosexuals are

title: The Science of Desire
text: homosexuality, and argued that some of his claims were incorrect, that more work needed to be done to confirm or refute his genetic findings, and that his use of the term "gay gene" was misleading. Hamer's treatment of psychology and psychiatry was also criticized as biased. Hamer argues that human sexuality can and should be studied scientifically and discusses his findings about Xq28, a region of the X chromosome. According to Hamer, he shifted his area of research from metallothionein to the genetics of homosexuality after reading the naturalist Charles Darwin's "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to

title: Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why
text: inheritance of a limited number of "feminizing" genes might make males more attractive to females by giving them increased empathy and kindness, or rendering them less aggressive, in turn making them more successful in reproductive terms, while a larger number of feminizing genes might result in male homosexuality. LeVay writes that a study has provided supporting evidence. Reviewing his work on the hypothalamus, LeVay defends his 1991 study from the criticism that the differences in brain structure between gay and straight men which it found were simply a side-effect of AIDS, which all the gay men in the study had

title: Sexual orientation
text: homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual. Current scientific investigation usually seeks to find biological explanations for the adoption of a particular sexual orientation. Scientific studies have found a number of statistical biological differences between gay people and heterosexuals, which may result from the same underlying cause as sexual orientation itself. Genes may be related to the development of sexual orientation. A twin study from 2001 appears to exclude genes as a major factor, while a twin study from 2010 found that homosexuality was explained by both genes and environmental factors. However, experimental design of the available twin studies have made their

title: Homosexuality
text: not believe that sexual orientation is a matter of choice. The American Academy of Pediatrics stated in "Pediatrics" in 2004: The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and National Association of Social Workers stated in 2006: Research into the causes of homosexuality plays a role in political and social debates and also raises concerns about genetic profiling and prenatal testing. Despite numerous attempts, no "gay gene" has been identified. However, there is substantial evidence for a genetic basis of homosexuality especially in males based on twin studies, with some association with regions of Chromosome 8 and with the Xq28 gene

title: Epigenetic theories of homosexuality
text: regard to strength and variability. Identical twins have identical DNA, which leads to the perceived conclusion that all identical twins are either heterosexual or homosexual. However, it is evident that this is not the case, consequently leaving a gap in the explanation for homosexuality. A "gay" gene does not produce homosexuality. Rather, epigenetic modifications act as temporary "switches" that regulate how the genes are expressed. Of the pairs of identical twins in which one twin is homosexual, only twenty percent of the other twins are homosexual, which leads to the hypothesis that even though identical twins share the same DNA,

title: Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays
text: on the billboard were stock photos of one man who identified himself as being "openly gay and happy my entire life", and criticized PFOX and their billboard. Many of PFOX's views on the developmental causes of homosexuality and gender identity are in the minority of popular opinion. PFOX's assertion that being gay is a choice relies heavily on two scientific studies which deny the existence of a "gay gene." The results of one of the studies, which was conducted in 2000, was later disputed by its main researcher. The American Psychological Association has studied the efforts of people seeking to

title: Biology and sexual orientation
text: the gay men had more gay male uncles and cousins on the maternal side of the family than on the paternal side. Gay brothers who showed this maternal pedigree were then tested for X chromosome linkage, using twenty-two markers on the X chromosome to test for similar alleles. In another finding, thirty-three of the forty sibling pairs tested were found to have similar alleles in the distal region of Xq28, which was significantly higher than the expected rates of 50% for fraternal brothers. This was popularly dubbed the "gay gene" in the media, causing significant controversy. Sanders et al. in

title: Arthur A. Goldberg
text: texts and scientific study to get to the individual root causes of same sex attraction and help those who are unhappy with their lifestyle reassert their gender identity and change their life." In 2008, he wrote "Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change". In the book, Goldberg claims that there is no genetic cause of homosexuality, and argues that homosexual orientation can be changed through reparative therapy. In 2012, former clients of JONAH represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and two other law firms, sued JONAH and its founders for consumer fraud. After drawn-out court

title: Biology and sexual orientation
text: promotes fertility in the mother and homosexuality in her male offspring. The connections discovered would explain about 20% of the cases studied, indicating that this is a highly significant but not the sole genetic factor determining sexual orientation. Research conducted in Sweden has suggested that gay and straight men respond differently to two odors that are believed to be involved in sexual arousal. The research showed that when both heterosexual women and gay men are exposed to a testosterone derivative found in men's sweat, a region in the hypothalamus is activated. Heterosexual men, on the other hand, have a similar

title: Environment and sexual orientation
text: sexual behavior, shared or familial environment plays no role for men and minor role for women. By contrast, in a study doing genetic analysis of 409 pairs of homosexual brothers, including twins, strong evidence was found that some homosexual men are born homosexual. The study, including approximately three times as many people as the previous largest study on this subject, indicates that it is significantly more statistically reliable. It links sexual orientation in men with two regions of the human genome that have been implicated before. Lead author of the study, Alan Sanders, however, states that "complex traits such as

title: Biological determinism
text: different backgrounds, or were newly arrived immigrants, or were illiterate. The results were used to oppose immigration of people from southern and eastern Europe to America. Lynda Birke argues in her 1992 book "In Pursuit of Difference" that biology explains sexual differences by the mechanisms of chromosomes, genetics, and inheritance. However, hormonal differences are not absolute, and people can be born with intersex characteristics, for example as a genetic mosaic. Homosexuality can be attributed to both biological and social causes. Dean Hamer has studied the so-called "gay gene". The neuroscientist Simon LeVay in 1991 studied the difference in hypothalamic structures

title: Biological determinism
text: between homosexual and heterosexual men, finding that the INAH-3 suggested a partial cause for homosexuality. Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon Kamin's book "Not in Our Genes" discussed a study of girls who were relatively "masculinized". The biologists John Money and Anke Ehrhardt looked for ways to describe femininity that fitted their own social standards, such as clothing preference or using makeup. The experiment, in Lewontin's words, "ignores the existence of societies in which women wear pants, or in which men wear skirts, or in which men enjoy and appropriate jewelry to themselves." Gender differences in work are becoming less

title: Heterosexuality
text: a brief by the Council for Responsible Genetics, it was stated that sexual orientation is not fixed either way, and on the discourse over sexual orientation: "Noticeably missing from this debate is the notion, championed by Kinsey, that human sexual expression is as variable among people as many other complex traits. Yet just like intelligence, sexuality is a complex human feature that modern science is attempting to explain with genetics. Research on brain size, hormone levels, finger length, and other biological traits have yet to yield evidence for this, however. It is important to note that traits such as these

title: Genetic sexual attraction
text: Genetic sexual attraction Genetic sexual attraction is a concept in which a strong sexual attraction may develop between close blood relatives who first meet as adults. There is no direct evidence for "genetic attraction" being an actual phenomenon and the hypothesis has been criticized as pseudoscience. The term was coined in the US in the late 1980s by Barbara Gonyo, the founder of "Truth Seekers In Adoption", a Chicago-based support group for adoptees and their new-found relatives. She developed sexual feelings for her son when she met him after he was adopted away, but he did not want to be