GenQ
http://www.generationq.net/news/GLBT/Proof-of-Gay-Gene-9108.shtmlFinally Evolutionary Proof of the Gay Gene
Studies of homosexual men in the remote Pacific have led scientists believe that homosexuality and other gender-queer behaviors may have an evolutionary function.
Studies of homosexual men in the remote Pacific have led scientists believe that homosexuality and other gender-queer behaviors may have an evolutionary function World Science has reported.
A second assertion to emerge from the work is that psychologists should reconsider the way they classify as a “disorder” transsexualism—a strong desire to be the opposite sex.
The research focuses on a remarkable group of men who have sex with men, though they defy much conventional wisdom on what being “gay” is. They form a broadly accepted social class in Samoa, a south Pacific island nation.
The studies are directed in part toward resolving a scientific mystery: why does homosexuality persist in the world? It seems to make little evolutionary sense.
It’s the first study to offer real evidence for the kin selection hypothesis’ basic prediction, “that gay males should direct more altruistic behavior toward kin than straight males.
Evolutionary theory, the lens through which most scientists study biological traits, holds that in each population, the genes of members who reproduce the most come to dominate the gene pool. That’s because these individuals, unsurprisingly, spread their genes most widely.
By that logic gays, who reproduce little, shouldn’t exist. Yet they do, along with some evidence their tendencies may have a genetic component. What gives?
The explanation, many scientists argue, could be that the childless homosexuals put extra efforts into helping raise nephews and nieces. That would boost the children’s chances of survival, and someday reproduction. These youths, even if not gay, might share with their aunt or uncle a few genes promoting homosexuality—ensuring a clutch of “gay genes” in every generation.
One problem with this proposal: it has failed past scientific tests. A few studies have found gays aren’t especially helpful to their families. Those results have worked in favor of an opposing argument, that homosexuality has no evolutionary function. Scientists who back this view say homosexuality is an aberration, so it has about as much biological function as a birth defect—none.
Mainstream physicians no longer consider homosexuality a disorder, but it was only in 1994 dropped from the American Psychiatric Association’s handbook of mental disorders. Transsexualism, or “gender identity disorder,” is still listed, though the manual says it’s only a disorder if it causes the patient significant distress.
In the new studies, Canadian psychologists sought to test some of these competing ideas by visiting Samoa, a relatively un-westernized land. By studying people who they said live closer to the ways of humanity’s “ancestral” past, the researchers said they hoped to assess possible evolutionary functions for homosexuality and the roles of other gender-blurring behaviors.
The idea about gays helping their kin, called the kin-selection hypothesis, might have failed past tests because these were done in modernized Western societies, the researchers said. Gays might help relatives more in traditional, tribally-based cultures, the scientists claimed, because these often have tighter-knit families and fewer anti-gay biases that could alienate gays. Moreover, the researchers argued, the traditional environment is more appropriate to study, as it’s more like the setting in which humans mainly evolved.
Men who habitually have sex with men are socially accepted in Samoa, where they’re known as fa’afines. Some characteristics of fa’afines, the psychologists said, are quite foreign to Western concepts of homosexuality: notably, they have sex only with men who are considered “straight,” not with each other. But they are Samoa’s equivalent of what Westerners would call gay men.
Based on fa’afine responses on questionnaires, compared to responses of heterosexual Samoan men, the researchers concluded that fa’afines put “significantly” more effort into raising nephews and nieces. The childcare activities that saw stronger input from fa’afines included babysitting, buying toys, tutoring, exposing the children to art and music, and contributing to day-care, medical and education expenses, the surveys indicated.
It’s the first study to offer real evidence for the kin selection hypothesis’ basic prediction, “that androphilic [“gay”] males should direct more altruistic behavior toward kin than gynephilic [“straight”] males,” the team wrote in a report of their findings. The paper appeared in last May’s issue of the research journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
But more studies will be needed, wrote the authors, Paul Vasey and colleagues at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. A stronger study would compare the fa’afines to childless non-fa’afines, they noted. In their own study, 58 percent of the “straight” respondents had children, who might have diverted their attention from nephews and nieces.
In another study, Vasey and Nancy Bartlett of Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia concluded that psychologists’ assessment of transsexualism as a disorder, at least for children, should be revised.
The relationship between transsexualism and homosexuality, if any, is unclear, though some experts say that many boys with “gender identity disorder” become gay.
Vasey and Bartlett wrote that fa’afines they interviewed seldom recalled being “distressed” by feeling or acting like a girl in childhood. Most such distress—the researchers concluded based on that and other factors—arises in Western societies because of the stigmatization of such children.
Thus, the researchers wrote, the diagnosis of “gender identity disorder in children” should no longer be listed “in its current form” in the American Psychology Association’s handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Some gay activists have called for the condition to be de-listed completely. Vasey and Bartlett didn’t go that far. But in their study, in last fall’s issue of the research journal Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, they did write: “There is no sound evidence that cross-gender behaviors or identities, per se, cause distress.”