Sexual orientation.
60 minutes had a great piece tonight about the factors that influence sexual orientation. They made quite a compelling argument that sexual orientation is affected by some combination of genes and hormone exposure in the womb. If that's the case it suggests we might be able to control sexual orientation before birth. Given that choice, will homosexuality be effectively eliminated from society? If you ask a gay man whether he'd rather have been born straight, the answer would probably be the same thing everyone says: I can't imagine being anything other than who I am. But given the choice to assign the sexual orientation of your child, how would you decide straight or gay? If everyone chooses to have straight babies, then society will lose out on the unique qualities of people who aren't like everybody else, and that seems like a shame. The burden of our increasing control over nature is that we must decide what is best and what is right, and that's not as easy as you might think.
Comments
This individual may be openminded enough to accept people of different orientations, but still this statement shows an askewed way of thinking nevertheless.
The fear that gays may oneday become extinct is as fanatical as the fear that gays are taking over society and will make humankind goextinct
No one should create a gay person so that this "breed" may exist. Conversely no one should try to prevent a person from being born gay so that this kind of individual no longer exists.
The point that society will "miss out" on the unique qualities of gay persons is to say that gay people predictably, and reliably, behave a certain way, look a certain way, and just do certain things that define them as being gay. It is not just the fact that they just have attractions for the same gender or sex. But what does a gay person look like, sound like, or typically do that makes for the "difference" ? This is to say that being gay is about culture, about being a stereotype. As true as it is that many gay males go into decorating profesions and gay females become athletes, there are gay women who stay home to cook and clean, and gay males who fight in the military, and drive trucks. No limp wrists.(of course many female plumbers and male nurses are not gay).
Posted by: L | March 14, 2006 11:18 AM
The real shame here is that so few people recognized that the young boy who stated " I was supposed to be a girl but my mommy wanted two boys so I was born a boy" shows at this young age the signs of gender dyshphoria that all transexuals experience.
Gender dysphoria is a birth defect as so clearly pointed out by this young child. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation but is about who you are.
As realization of who we are is not apparent at birth and takes years of development before we have a sense of self, this has been incorrectly listed as a "mental disorder". What happens in the fetal development 3 or 4 years prior to when self realization begins, is too hard to trace back as what may have caused a hormonal shift in the fetal development so that the body and brain do not match.
About 1 in 3,000 male and 1 in 12,000 female births have this birth defect. If it were readily visible like a cleft palatte or club foot, society would be accepting that gender dysphoria is not a choice.
Isn't strange how a mental disorder can be cured by plastic surgery?
Societial acceptance and early medical assistance would allow those born with this birth defect lead longer happier lives.
Posted by: Susan | March 14, 2006 09:37 PM
So L, your position is that even if there is a well defined cause and effect for being born straight or gay, we shouldn't meddle with it? Leave it to chance? That's certainly a valid point of view, but I asked the question from a philosophical perspective. Is there a right answer? I don't know, but I put out there the "uniqueness of gay people" as a reassurance that my intention was not to undercut the existence of gay people by posing the question. Point taken though.
Posted by: stark | March 15, 2006 01:33 PM
Gay and straight are two poles. What about everything in between? Genetic variation is the stuff of evolution hence you see XXY and YYX as well as XX and XY. Until very recently the central question was "Do you want to reproduce, leave a line of descendants, or are you trying for a whole new species?"
Posted by: Bob | March 22, 2006 05:34 PM
Awesome blog. Peace out until next time TabathaOster
Posted by: TabathaOster | May 18, 2006 07:10 AM