How do people die-off from altering with their genetics? And also, how would a grown person change their genetic structure? You’d have to alter every cell.
People die off because instead of being altered to be more healthy they are altered to gain some sort of advantage. Just look at all the dog breeds. The mutts are much healthier.
Changing one cell is beyond us right now. Changing every cell will probably be an eaiser leap than changing just one.
Can I just say Sheesh!
Here I was all worried people would assume I was against homosexuality (which I’m not) and the majority of posts were pertaining to the insane idea that homosexuality is genetic!
I thought I made it pretty clear that the idea was to give a foetus (thru injection or via the mother) testosterone to change their sexual preference. I understand the nature vs. nurture debate going on here, but lets get some facts straight:
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The idea behind this testosterone booster plan is based on the knowledge that the 4 natural testosterone boosts occur in a developing child to create it’s gender. We all should realise that we start off female and change to a male in the womb (ok that’s a bad way of putting it but I’m sure you understand) and the original post I made mentioned that 1 was for the body, 1 for the reproductive organs, and 2 for the brain.
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The theory of homosexuality comes from the hypothesis that a lack of testosterone for one or both of the brain boosters causes an insufficient amount of, shall we call it, male type development in the brain.
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If no testosterone is given in these boosts, the brain will develop female and thus have a female sex drive which kicks in at puberty, thusly, you have a male homosexual.
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If the child is female, and an excess of testosterone is given during this stage, the brain will develop male, and so you’ve got the reverse, male sex drive, female body, lesbian.
Ok ok, so if the mother has a genetic history of a low or high testosterone count, you could concievably have a higher chance of getting a homosexual baby, but we’re talking the ability of choosing your child’s sexual predisposition to suit what you’d prefer, kind of like Gattica or whatever that movie was called. Am I right in saying it is possible to give a developing child hormones to change its sexual preference, or is this a load of hooey, ethical considerations aside (since we all know the ethical considerations and that can be left for a different post, lest this one become far too big and samey).
Thats only because it probably is.
Probably not. IMHO its more likely that some babies cannot absorb all the horomones that are in the mother and so they only develop attraction for one sex.
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*Originally posted by Sterra *
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Absolute crap. The whole nature vs. nurture debate is such a farce because it’s different for everyone. Genes cannot sufficiently explain bisexuals or those who have had one or two homosexual experiences and never looked back. If gay men can live in denial and get married and have kids, certainly straight men can do the opposite. I don’t mean to say that homosexuality is NEVER genetic, or that genes NEVER play a role, but to explain it all away as genetic is a gross oversimplification of a complicated process.
And the thing that bothers me most about the nature vs. nurture debate is that many who argue it (not all…) seem to take the view that homosexuality being genetic somewhow makes it more acceptable. Homosexuality is “acceptable” because people have the right to love who they want, not because their genes give them some kind of permission.
Having said that…gosh…I’m sorry the OP has been hijacked to the extent that it got moved to GD, because now the thread is packed with wankers like me with lots of opinions but no scientific knowledge whatsoever. Can homosexuality be bred? Well…first of all, are children born one or the other to begin with? Can a pre-pubescant child be said to be gay or straight? I ask this because even if you deliberately produce a child who has a genetic tendency toward homosexuality, there is no guarantee that they will stay that way…there are all sorts of formative sexual experiences to be had that could screw up your experiment.
So I guess my answer is that you could produce a child with a genetic tendency toward one or the other, but the child’s own experiences may screw things up along the way.
Alright…in retrospect “absolute crap” was a bit much. Especially since the content of my post contradicts that claim. Sorry.
How about “pretty crappy?”
Why not? It seems to me that genes explain bisexuals perfectly and that some straight people will experiment.
Maybe our definitions are just different. When I say homosexuality I mean attraction to the same sex. I don’t mean only people who claim to be attracted to the same sex. A person’s actions have nothing to do with it.
Huh? These people would both be transsexuals, not homosexuals. There is a difference.
Hey, let us not confuse the issue by misappropriating terms.
Okay, contemplate the following:
[li]XX chromosome = genetic female; XY chromosome = genetic male.[/li]
[li]presence of male genitalia and secondary sex characteristics = biological male; presence of female genitalia and secondary sex characteristics = biological female.[/li]
(Note that their surgical removal or intersexual status is beside the point for purposes of this discussion.)
A biological male who desires to have sexual relations as a male with other males has a homosexual orientation; likewise a female with females. A biological male who desires to have sexual relations with a female as a male has a heterosexual orientation. And of course, a person who desires to have sex with another regardless of what equipment each has is bisexual.
Now, a biological male who has an inner gender identity of female is a transsexual. The same is true of a biological female with the reverse inner identity. This means that for this person, “although I have a penis and testes, I feel that I am a woman” or “although I have breasts and the appropriate complex of female parts, I feel that I am a man.” Such a person can undergo sexual reassignment surgery to receive the proper genital equipment and, through hormones, grow the appropriate secondary sexual characteristics to have the overt characteristics of the gender identity which he/she feels him/herself to be.
Note that a transsexual may be either homosexual or heterosexual with reference to his inner identity. A man who feels himself to be a woman and who desires to make love to another woman as a woman is homosexual. (No “inner Lesbian” jokes, please!) Likewise a man who feels himself to be a woman and who desires to make love to a man as a woman is a transgendered heterosexual, since despite not yet having the equipment to do so, what he desires is “normal straight sexual relations.”
And, as Sister Coyote noted, Who cares? The only conceivable answer on why one might have such concerns, other than a sinful desire to project one’s own moral code by force on another, is simple intellectual curiosity about how this particular complexus of human behavior comes to be. (Although I suspect one could make a case for pursuing the research with the end of assisting gay people who want to become straight, or straight people who want to become gay for that matter, in accomplishing their desires.)
Polycarp and Pizzabrat have it there. I actually realised the other day that I’d been mis-quoting my source. My above mentioned statements (including the start of this thread) state that homosexuality is created by a lack or excess of testosterone during development. This was pointed out by the both of them as incorrect, which is true.
So therefore we must first assess what ‘causes’ homosexuality, and then move to ask whether we can artificially create these effects in a developing child. Sort of a ‘gay pill’ excuse the language.
Alternately we could pose the question as to whether it’s possible to create a transexual through the methods mentioned in previous posts. I don’t really see too much point though, unless someone can give a definitive response on the ability to affect hormone levels in a foetus. Any takers?
I’d like to see any secret facility and research group that is able to hold a captive breeding populations for human for some 6 to 10 generations that it would take to create a breeding population for such an experiment.
“What 100 room hotel? Oh the one behind me? Its not a hotel… its umm a concrete storage bunker, there’s nothing in there.”
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If a woman is impregnated during a Barbra Streisand song or movie and the child is a boy, then that boy will be gay!
Works the same way with lesbians except they are conceived during Xena episodes.
I was the product of the first case. **
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I thought is was if the mother is listening to Melissa Ethridge the child will be born a lesbian…Which all works out for the heterosexual supporters, if the child is a boy…
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A person’s actions have EVERYTHING to do with it! Assume for a moment that there is some kind of genetic test you could do to determine if someone has homosexual genes. What do you do with the people who have been living happily as homosexuals but display no sign of homosexuality in their DNA? People, in other words, whose sexuality has been created entirely by their conditioning rather than by their genes. For a person such as this, their actions are the only outward sign of their homosexuality.
Do you believe that there are genes for preferring vanilla to chocolate? What about guys who date almost exclusively Asian girls? It just doesn’t make any sense that one’s sexuality, whether it is something as small as blonde vs. brunette or as big as man vs. woman, can be explained away completely and every time by their genes.