"I think this is an example where the results of scientific research can have important social implications," Camperio-Ciani said. The research may shed light on a complicated and controversial topic: whether homosexuality is a choice, or whether it is caused by factors beyond a person's control. "We're still working on lesbianism, but were not getting to the same result, and possibly we'll come out with a completely different explanation," he said. This system does not address causes of homosexuality in women, he said. " results are consistent with a growing number of studies that suggest that the female relatives of male homosexuals are more fecund than those of male heterosexuals," Vasey said.Ĭamperio-Ciani and his team hypothesize that the genes they modeled may cause people of both sexes to be extremely attracted to men, which would lead men with the genes to pursue relationships with other men, while causing women with the genes to have more sexual partners, and become pregnant slightly more often than an average woman. They found that the mothers of fa'afafine produce more offspring than the mothers of heterosexual men in that society. The scientists studied homosexual men in Independent Samoa, known locally as fa'afafine ("in the manner of a woman").
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Research by Paul Vasey, a psychologist at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, and his graduate student, Doug VanderLaan, provides preliminary support for the Italian team's results.
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"If it is replicated, that's a very interesting finding. "I would like to see the first observation reproduced in a different population and possibly with a larger sample to make sure that this holds up," he said. He said the system studied by the Italian team seems plausible, but that it's too soon to be convinced. This effect is not thought to be caused by genetics, but rather by antibodies produced by the mother's immune system during pregnancy.Įric Vilain, a professor of human genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has studied possible biological factors influencing homosexuality. I think it's also safe to say that there is at least one non-genetic influence."īlanchard found that with each older brother in a family, the odds increase by about a third that a boy born later will be gay. "My personal view is that there is probably more than one biological mechanism contributing toward homosexuality. "I think it's almost beyond a doubt that genes have some influence," said Ray Blanchard, a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, who studies the effect of birth order in predicting whether a male will be born homosexual. Other factors, both genetic and social, likely also play a part. While many researchers now agree homosexuality is probably caused by a mixture of nature and nurture, they are still hard pressed to explain the particulars.Įven if this sexually antagonistic genetic system is at work, it can only account for a portion of the overall causes of homosexuality in men, Camperio-Ciani said. The question of whether homosexuality is genetically inherited has been perplexing scientists for years. We found that sexually antagonistic selection is operating also in our species, and we found it in a very important trait, which is homosexuality." "There are a large quantity of these traits found in insects, for example, and recently in deer sexually antagonistic traits have been discovered, showing that high-ranking males produce rather unsuccessful daughters.
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"Sexually antagonistic selection is an old idea by Richard Dawkins, but this has never been proven in humans," Camperio-Ciani told LiveScience. Since gay people are less likely to reproduce than heterosexuals, many experts have wondered why, if homosexuality is caused by genetic factors, it wouldn't have been eliminated from the gene pool already.īut if the same genes create both homosexuality in men and increased fertility in women, then any losses in offspring that come about from the males would be made up for by the females of the family. If this scenario turns out to be true, it could help explain the seeming paradox of hereditary homosexuality. The researchers detail their findings in the June 18 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.