The lack of a gay gene does not mean sexual orientation is a choice; environmental factors include neurodevelopment

A study recently found there was no gay gene, and determined that environmental factors are responsible for homosexuality. Unlike the 1990s left, the new intersectional left is very pleased to report this. However, environmental factors include neurodevelopment, which genes provide the building blocks for but not an exact map to guide. The likelihood of genes creating any one outcome in neurodevelopment is calculated by means of twin studies.

If one identical twin is gay, there is about a 50% chance of the other twin also being gay. i.e. placing people with the same genetic makeup, 1 in 4 with certain combinations of genes will be gay. Among those without that heritage, none will be gay, according to the current literature.

Bisexuality is incredibly rare, and homosexuality, seems to only occur in very specific circumstances. It being largely down to environmental factors and a number of genes interacting in specific ways, actually puts it on par with most neurodevelopmental conditions. Most of the conditions you hear of, bar the very extreme ones - which prevent breeding almost 100% of the time, and thus are almost always new variations occuring at conception itself by random mutation - are inherited, and carried in families.

The ways in which brain wiring doesn't occur in the ordinary path are many but the results tend to be quite finite.

There is definitely choice involved for gays: act in their orientation to the same sex or don't. However, the body of science indicates sexuality is not a spectrum. Bisexuality is rare, and homosexuality only tends to occur with people with specific genetic heritage.

Just because something occurs at the stage of neurodevelopment and not the stage of conception, does not mean it is a choice or the result of childhood and not innate.

In some cases it is a choice, cultural influences (much like in the case of rapid onset gender dysphoria), brain damage, or childhood trauma, but the statistical analysis of twins and modern knowledge of neurodevelopment suggest that sexual orientation is not a spectrum (bisexuality is incredibly rare); although studies have found that it can be, and often is, temporary, changing to the norm upon maturation of the brain.

Understanding the latest study on what is a fascinating thing to neuroscience, a difference which almost always causes individuals to not breed and to not pass on their genes, by choice, requires a better understanding of the genetic influences on neuroscience themselves.

Essay by Marc Evan Aupiais.