<p>[The</a> gay culture war is about to turn chemical. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/id/2193841/]The ”>The gay culture war is about to turn chemical. )</p>
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A new study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, hints at what’s coming. Previous gay-brain studies focused on structures or responses that might have been shaped by social interactions. To screen out social factors, authors of the new study relied on brain scans rather than behavioral responses, and they targeted structures known to form during or shortly after gestation. “That was the whole point of the study, to show parameters that differ, but which couldn’t be altered by learning or cognitive processes,” the lead author explains.</p>
<p>The sample consisted of 25 straight men, 25 straight women, 20 gay men, and 20 lesbians. In overall symmetry and amygdala activity, the brains of gay men resembled the brains of straight women, whereas the brains of lesbians resembled the brains of straight men. Previous work has connected such differences to fear, anxiety, aggression, and verbal, spatial, and navigational ability. It’s not just a matter of preferring men or women. The broader implication, one expert argues, is that “in gay men, the brain is feminized.”</p>
<p>Are the differences genetic? Not likely. “As to the genetic factors, the current view is that they may play a role in male homosexuality, but they seem to be insignificant for female homosexuality,” the authors conclude. “Genetic factors, therefore, appear less probable as the major common denominator for all group differences observed here.”</p>
<p>So, what’s the common factor? If the study’s design rules out learned influences, and if the results in women rule out genetics, that leaves what the authors call “hormonal influences” or noncognitive differences in the infant environment. According to the Guardian, the same research team has “begun another study to investigate brain symmetry in newborn babies, to see if it can be used to predict their future sexual orientation.” If it can, that will scratch postnatal factors off the list, and the search will narrow to hormones in the womb. Already, the authors point to evidence that homosexuality may be caused by “under-exposure to prenatal androgens” in males and “over-exposure” in females.
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<p>What’s your take on being able to control whether or not your child is homosexual while s/he is still in the womb? Is this ethical? Are we so far off from being able to genetically engineer the perfect children?</p>