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Many Genes Influence

Same-Sex Sexuality, Not
a Single ‘Gay Gene’
The largest study of same-sex sexual behavior finds the
genetics are complicated, and social and environmental
factors are also key.

Benjamin Neale, a geneticist at the Broad Institute at M.I.T. and Harvard University and a lead researcher in the study.
Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

By Pam Belluck

Aug. 29, 2019 547

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How do genes influence our sexuality? The question has long been
fraught with controversy.

An ambitious new study — the largest ever to analyze the genetics

of same-sex sexual behavior — found that genetics does play a role,
responsible for perhaps a third of the influence on whether
someone has same-sex sex. The influence comes not from one
gene but many, each with a tiny effect — and the rest of the
explanation includes social or environmental factors — making it
impossible to use genes to predict someone’s sexuality.

“I hope that the science can be used to educate people a little bit
more about how natural and normal same-sex behavior is,” said Sign up for Science Times
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Benjamin Neale, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and the wonders of the human body,
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research also suggests the genetics of same-sex sexual behavior
shares some correlation with genes involved in some mental
health issues and personality traits — although the authors said
that overlap could simply reflect the stress of enduring societal
prejudice.

Even before its publication Thursday in the journal Science, the

study has generated debate and concern, including within the
renowned Broad Institute itself. Several scientists who are part of
the L.G.B.T.Q. community there said they were worried the
findings could give ammunition to people who seek to use science
to bolster biases and discrimination against gay people.

One concern is that evidence that genes influence same-sex

behavior could cause anti-gay activists to call for gene editing or
embryo selection, even if that would be technically impossible.
Another fear is that evidence that genes play only a partial role
could embolden people who insist being gay is a choice and who
advocate tactics like conversion therapy.

“I deeply disagree about publishing this,” said Steven Reilly, a

geneticist and postdoctoral researcher who is on the steering
committee of the institute’s L.G.B.T.Q. affinity group, Out@Broad.
“It seems like something that could easily be misconstrued,” he
said, adding, “In a world without any discrimination,
understanding human behavior is a noble goal, but we don’t live in
that world.”
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Discussions between Dr. Neale’s team and colleagues who
questioned the research continued for months. Dr. Neale said the
team, which included psychologists and sociologists, used
suggestions from those colleagues and outside L.G.B.T.Q. groups
to clarify wording and highlight caveats.

“I definitely heard from people who were kind of ‘why do this at

all,’ and so there was some resistance there,” said Dr. Neale, who is
gay. “Personally, I’m still concerned that it’s going to be
deliberately misused to advance agendas of hate, but I do believe
that the sort of proactive way we’ve approached this and a lot of
the community engagement aspects that we’ve tried were
important.”

The moment the study was published online Thursday afternoon,

the Broad Institute took the unusual step of posting essays by Dr.
Reilly and others who raised questions about the ethics, science
and social implications of the project.

“As a queer person and a geneticist, I struggle to understand the

motivations behind a genome-wide association study for non-
heterosexual behavior,” wrote Joe Vitti, a postdoctoral researcher
at the Broad Institute, in one essay. “I have yet to see a compelling
argument that the potential benefits of this study outweigh its
potential harms.”

In a way, the range of opinions by scientists who also identify as

L.G.B.T.Q. underscores a central finding of the study: Sexuality is
complicated.

The study analyzed the genetic data of 408,000 men and women
from a large British database, the U.K. Biobank, who answered
extensive health and behavior questions between 2006 and 2010,
when they were between the ages of 40 and 69. The researchers
also used data from nearly 70,000 customers of the genetic testing
service 23andMe, who were 51 years old on average, mostly
American, and had answered survey questions about sexual
orientation. All were of white European descent, one of several
factors that the authors note limit their study’s generalizability.
Trans people were not included.

The researchers mainly focused on answers to one question:

whether someone ever had sex with a same-sex partner, even once.

A much higher proportion of the 23andMe sample — about 19

percent compared to about 3 percent of the Biobank sample —
reported a same-sex sexual experience, a difference possibly
related to cultural factors or because the specific 23andMe sexual
orientation survey might attract more L.G.B.T.Q. participants.

Despite its limitations, the research was much larger and more
varied than previous studies, which generally focused on gay men,
often those who were twins or were otherwise related.

“Just the fact that they look at women is hooray,” said Melinda
Mills, a professor of sociology at the University of Oxford, who
wrote a commentary that Science published alongside the study.

There might be thousands of genes influencing same-sex sexual

behavior, each playing a small role, scientists believe. The new
study found that all genetic effects likely account for about 32
percent of whether someone will have same-sex sex.

Using a big-data technique called genome-wide association, the

researchers estimated that common genetic variants — single-
letter differences in DNA sequences — account for between 8
percent and 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior. The rest of the
32 percent might involve genetic effects they could not measure,
they said.

Researchers specifically identified five genetic variants present in

people’s full genomes that appear to be involved. Those five
comprise less than 1 percent of the genetic influences, they said.

And when the scientists tried to use genetic markers to predict how
people in unrelated data sets reported their sexual behavior, it
turned out to be too little genetic information to allow such
prediction.

“Because we expect the sum of the effects that we observe will vary
as a function of society and over time, it will be basically
impossible to predict one’s sexual activity or orientation just from
genetics,” said Andrea Ganna, the study’s first author, whose
affiliations include the Institute of Molecular Medicine in Finland.

While many genetic variants tend to have the same effect in both
men and women, Dr. Mills said, two of the five variants the team
found were discovered only in males and one was discovered only
in females. One of the male variants might be related to sense of
smell, which is involved in sexual attraction, the researchers
report. The other male variant is associated with male pattern
balding and sits near genes involved in male sex determination.

Steven Reilly, a geneticist on the steering committee of the Broad Institute’s L.G.B.T.Q. affinity group,
objected to the publication of the study. “It seems like something that could easily be misconstrued.”
Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In a finding that could be especially sensitive, the researchers

found that whether someone ever engaged in same-sex sexual
behavior showed genetic correlations with mental health issues,
like major depressive disorder or schizophrenia, and with traits
like risk-taking, cannabis use, openness to experience and
loneliness.

They emphasized that the study does not suggest that same-sex
sexual behavior causes or is caused by these conditions or
characteristics, and that depression or bipolar disorder could be
fueled by prejudicial social experiences.

“We are particularly worried that people will misrepresent our

findings about mental health,” Dr. Neale said.

“That right there is the big issue with looking for the genetics of
sexual orientation — social context could be a big part of the
expression of the trait,” said Jeremy Yoder, an assistant professor
of biology at California State University, Northridge, who is gay
and follows genetic research in the field.

Dr. Neale said younger study participants were much more likely
than older ones to report same-sex sexual experiences, possibly
reflecting increased social acceptance. He and others noted that
older participants came of age when homosexual behavior was
criminalized in Britain and that for much of their life
homosexuality was classified as a psychiatric disorder.

Dr. Reilly and others said such stark differences between older and
younger participants show the trickiness of trying to draw
representative biological information from a study population so
strongly influenced by society’s changing attitudes. People steeped
in a culture that demonized same-sex intimacy might only have the
gumption to reveal it in a study if they were risk-takers to begin
with.

Later, the researchers compared the genetic underpinnings of

whether people ever had same-sex sex with their answers to what
proportion of same-sex partners they had. They found there was
little genetic correlation between answers to the “ever-never”
question and whether someone ended up having a bisexual mix of
partners, said Dr. Neale, who sees those results as a genetic
reflection of the variety of sexual orientations within the
expanding alphabet of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

The researchers also looked at answers to other questions in the

23andMe survey, including people’s sexual identity and what
gender they fantasized about. There, they found considerable
genetic overlap between those results and whether people ever
engaged in same-sex sex, suggesting that these aspects of sexual
orientation share common genetics, they said.

Dean Hamer, a former National Institutes of Health scientist who

led the first high-profile study identifying a genetic link to being
gay in 1993, said he was happy to see such a large research effort.

“Having said that, I’d like to emphasize that it’s not a gay gene
study — it’s a study of what makes people have a single same-sex
experience or more,” said Dr. Hamer, now an author and
filmmaker. The gene he identified was on the X chromosome, one
of the sex chromosomes, a location the new study did not flag as
being significant for same-sex sexual behavior.

“Of course they didn’t find a gay gene — they weren’t looking for
one,” Dr. Hamer said.

Experts widely agree that the research was conducted by first-rate

scientists.

“I kind of held my breath when I first saw the study — I thought,

oh no,” said Dr. Mills of Oxford. “But it’s the top geneticists and
some of the top social scientists in the field working on this, so if
somebody was going to do it, I’m glad they did it.”

Indeed, Dr. Neale, who also consults for several pharmaceutical

companies, said one reason his team did the study was to ensure
less careful researchers would not tackle it first, “given how
sensitive and hot-button this topic really is and how personal it is.”

Robbee Wedow, a member of the research team who also belongs

to Out@Broad, served as a kind of bridge, organizing meetings
between the researchers and their Broad Institute critics.

“I grew up in a highly religious evangelical family,” said Dr.

Wedow, a research fellow with the Broad Institute and Harvard’s
sociology department. “Being confused about not being attracted to
women and being attracted to men, being convinced it was a sin
and that I would go to hell.”

For a long time, “I definitely tried to pray it away, tried to like girls,
tried to have girlfriends,” he said. “This wasn’t something I, of all
people, would have chosen. There must be some sort of biological
background.”

He concluded: “Saying ‘sorry, you can’t study this’ reinforces it as

something that should be stigmatized.”

Outside L.G.B.T.Q. groups that were consulted did not seem as

strongly concerned as some of the Out@Broad members, he said.
Zeke Stokes, chief programs officer at GLAAD, who was shown the
findings several months ago, said, “Anyone who’s L.G.B.T.Q. knows
that their identity is complicated and to have science sort of bear
that out is a positive thing.”

Over all, Dr. Neale said he believes the study shows that “diversity
is a natural part of our experience and it’s a natural part of what we
see in the genetics. I find that to actually just be beautiful.”

Related

Opinion | Steven M. Phelps and Robbee Wedow

What Genetics Is Teaching Us About Sexuality
Aug. 29, 2019

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Pam Belluck is a health and science writer. She was one of seven Times staffers
awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for coverage of the Ebola
epidemic. She is the author of “Island Practice,” about a colorful and contrarian doctor
on Nantucket. @PamBelluck

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 30, 2019, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the
headline: Research Finds Not One ‘Gay Gene,’ but a Multitude of Influences. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper |
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