From alt.lefthanders Frequently Asked Questions:
Pshaw! I’m left-handed and I want answers, dammit! However, the FAQ I linked to is pretty darn poor. So should I turn to to fight my ignorance about the very condition which affects so many aspects of my life? I hear dis 'ere Straight Dope has der answers, wot?
Question the first: why am I left-handed?
Information I can find: (1) no, left-handedness is not inherited; (2) well, maybe it does run in some families; and (3) maybe it’s brain damage!
From Scientific American
Years ago, a medicine student I was drinking with observed how I tilted my beer and slurred that the reason I used the ‘wrong hand’ was that my unborn brain had suffered some critical deprivation of oxygen at some stage and had developed ‘on the wrong side’. I scoffed - my medical friend was pretty far gone at that stage… and he was only a third year student - but I see an echo of his words (if an echo can be more coherant than the orginal sound) in the above quote.
Negligible evidence for the genetic theory: my father and my brother are also left-handed.
Question the second: who else is left-handed?
I’ve heard 5%, 10%, 13%, 30%… this kind of ambiguity calls for an IMHO poll! I’ve set one up in that forum to settle the score.
Moderators: I’ve carefully considered whether this constitutes cross-posting. On balance, I decided to launch both threads: this one in GQ for the strictly factual questions and another in IMHO for the polling. I hope this is okay… I simply didn’t want to turn what is a thread posing questions of fact into a survey. I believe both threads fall within the descriptions of the respective forums in which I have posted. :: grovel, grovel ::
Question the third: is there a link between left-handedness and homosexuality?
A touchy area perhaps, but I was intrigued to read that a disproportionately large proportion of gay men and women are left-handed. The article I saw (which I shall endeavour to dig up) cited only empirical evidence. Has anyone come across a more solid basis for a link, if indeed one exists?
Question the fourth: do left-handed people die younger than right-handers
Ack! Again the conversations of the past come back to haunt me! Back in primary school, a rather dim-witted boy I sat with sought to distract from my brilliance. He would fortell an early death for me, citing my left-handedness as cause. Foolish rightie, I would reply; but did dim Alan have something on me? Preposterous, no?