60 Minutes has just had a fascinating report on the science of being gay. I have gay friends that have told me it’s not a choice, that they wouldn’t choose it if they had a choice. This is a very controversial topic as Lesley Stahl said in her report. Scientists have taken videos of many people both gay and straight, then changed the video to outlines of the subjects and removed the sound. Then people watched the videos and guessed whether the subject was gay or straight by looking at mannerisms. They were right. And when they listened to a series of voices, they were right again. The controversy falls on the reinforcement of stereotypes.
In fact, through all this research and viewing home movies of when kids were young, it seems most can tell at childhood whether or not the child will grow up to be gay. There seems to be some sort of feminizing of the brain. Genetics? Hormones? Something else? View the report on cbsnews.com, it’s very fascinating.
The most interesting finding was that the more older brothers a boy has, the greater the chance the boy will be gay, as long as he’s right handed. Sounds strange but there’s been an overwhelming number of studies to show it.
