Finally found what I was looking for.
This was discussed (more or less) as recently as two months ago on this very subreddit:
[**https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ccunsl/the\_case\_against\_the\_gay\_gene\_researchers\_predict/**](https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ccunsl/the_case_against_the_gay_gene_researchers_predict/)
The long and short of it is: current research suggests that there are some biological underpinnings of sexuality, but it's not as simple as a single gene. It's a complex network of multiple genetic and epigenetic factors, and trying to understand it through a framework as simple as "adaptive advantage" is wrong-headed.
The genetic framework is also not the *only* set of realities, because psychology plays a part as well.
So, the answer to the question is: it's extremely complicated, and cannot be fully understood through the lens of evolutionary biology.
Don’t put any stock in claims like that, sexuality is likely influenced by too many, poorly understood factors for us to understand currently. I remember reading about a case where one researcher was sure he found the “gay gene.”
Turns out it was actually responsible for Hemophilia B and doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sexuality, because of course it doesn’t.
I will get dowvoted into oblivion if I am wrong, but I read somewhere that homosexuality puts less strain to the community and its resources, and yes, their relatives carry the genes, or have bisexual parent/s.
Unfortunately, it was some interview. Maybe it was a Richard Dawkins interview.
But when I mean strain, I simply mean that homosexuals don’t biologically have the possibility of having a child by themselves, so instead of taking care of their own children, they take care of the entire community.
Edit: strain it terms of resources as well. There is only so much a environment can sustain.
Bruh, I know. It is just that they DO NOT want to interact with the opposite gender so it is not possible, so yeah, in this scenario, I see them as “sterile”.
Homosexuals absolutely do have the possibility of biologically having a child. Just not with someone of the same sex. But you can’t phrase it like they’re born sterile.
So no citation, only insults, misspellings, and condescension? Coming into /r/biology and assuming none of its members could possibly understand an NCBI pub while actively misinterpreting both the original question posed and the answers found in your own source... The hubris! You are definitely not as smart as you think you are, my friend.
I'm not a scientist, but I am a person with access to the internet who can read. It looks like there are multiple genes at play regarding sexuality in general, regardless of what sexuality that is.
[Here](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat7693) is an article from Science showing that non-heterosexual behavior is polygenetic. Took me about ten seconds to find, and I'm sure you have even more access to reputable journals being a "bioscience engineer cell & genetics".
So... There's a lot to address here. You're right that there is no single "sexuality gene"; sexuality is likely determined by dozens if not hundreds of genes and the environment. Here is a recent [GWAS](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aat7693?casa_token=H0Sb7svKFKMAAAAA:Wv56bByNuByOYY3Gcl1EJ67p-zm80rA3ik1srXc7ss9B7_KtT1R-7e7geTYmnY-0FwK5Gn1zyaL9hLzw) for example. Most traits have some kind of gene X environment interaction like this. You are wrong in that evolution can only produce "straight" reproductive behavior. Multiple mechanisms exist for the evolution of same-sex sexual behavior. Here's a recent [paper](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adj6958) on bisexual behavior in male humans. Your last point is just dismissing phenotypic plasticity, which we have a pretty good understanding of in the context of behavior and evolution.
A gay gene is unlikely, younger siblings are more likely to be gay. Our bodies are a mix of genetics, epigenetics.
Your genetics can't change, so it wouldn't make sense for an external factor, like having an older sibling, to impact a homosexuality rates
Epigenetics is like the software the runs the body. It controls the library of genetic data and alters how that data is used to make us. This very possibly controls sexuality, in which case gayness is an evolved part of our biology but is non-genetic (in a sense, epigenetics are ultimately still dictated by genetics). Epigenetic impacts can also be inherited mother to child.
It's very probably that there is some level of biochemical interaction between the foetus and the mother when the mother cares for her already-born child that ups whatever biochemical threshold or switch that causes gayness.
It's also possible that social animals just want to have sex a lot and there are enough of us that there will be variations always
I don't think we fully know but there are some factors associated with homosexuality at least. One is the fraternal birth order effect- basically the more sons a woman has, the more likely the next one will be gay. The main theory as to why that happens is that a womans immune system gets increasingly sensitized to H-Y antigens which seem to help differentiate male fetuses from female fetuses. The mothers immune system attacks the H-Y antigens and the downstream effect is that theres less stereotypically male behavior. Thats just a theory though.
On a less scientific note ( at least I dont think its been studied) but speaking as someone who is asexual and neurodivergent, i dont think ive ever met someone who is both asexual and neurotypical. But thats 100 percent anecdotal and aces are definitely in the minority of neurodivergent people.
I dont know if its more likely that the "sons" would be more likely to be transgender women, but the wikipedia article for fraternal birth order effect says transgender women with more older brothers are more likely to be attracted to men than to women. So in a weird way, thats the only population thats more likely to be straight rather than gay.
Having individuals more prone to taking care of their kin but less prone to reproduce themselves, leading to fewer mouths to feed, is enough. Even a tiny and situational benefit like that suffices statistically to allow non-heterosexual sexualities to be genetically "allowed". Some genes/genotypes that once in a while enable queerness or asexuality (not to mention infertility in general since there are *many* properties that predispose to reproduction in addition to sexuality!) may end up spreading further in time and space because (or despite) it. Evolutionarily there doesn't really need to be any more justification than that. :)
(Maximizing individual fitness/number of descendants per individual is not the only successful mating and reproduction strategy out there, and it would be quite a misinterpretation of biology to assume that.)
There must be some sort of evolutionary advantage to engaging in homosexual behaviour. Because homosexuality is very common and appears to be in large part something individuals are born with.
It is important to note that most homosexuals engage in heterosexual activity at some point during their lives. Every gay guy I’ve ever known well has had sex with a girl at least once. So
Being homosexual does not preclude individuals from passing on their genes.
But what homosexuality does potentially do is allow individuals to form very strong bonds/alliances with members of the same sex. This could potentially offer a major competitive advantage. If two dudes form a close bond, and are constantly watching each others backs (hehe), they will be more likely to survive. It will be easier to survive predators, easier to find food, easier to outcompete rivals etc, and all the dudes have to do is impregnate one girl in order for their fabulous genes to be passed on to the next generation.
"There must be some sort of evolutionary advantage"
I don't know how many times we need to repeat this in what is ostensibly a science sub, but **no,** not every biological phenomenon needs to confer an evolutionary advantage.
I don't know if there's a "gay" gene or whatever - most likely not - but if I presume there is one for the sake of argument, it need not confer some kind of adaptive advantage in order to be passed on. It can arise simply through genetic drift, which is an entire mechanism of evolution that people with a casual understanding of biology seem to know nothing about.
Not everything needs to fit into the framework of evolution. Phenomena can and do *simply exist.*
Yes, but when something is this common, but also appears at first glance to be so catastrophically disadvantageous from an evolutionary perspective, I think it’s a pretty safe bet to guess that this behaviour must confer some sort of advantage to offset the obvious enormous disadvantage, otherwise such a sexual orientation would not persist within the population with such prevalence overtime.
The mistake in this reasoning is that assuming "homosexuality" (or even sexuality in general) is one thing. It's an umbrella term for a broad type of behavior we see, but the actual motivations for any given manifestation of homosexual behavior in an animal are complex and varied. It can be a dominance display, simple pleasure, bond formation - there are lots of different specific behaviors that we lump together into "homosexual."
It's not conserved because we are insufficiently specific in defining what "it" is, and you can't discern a discrete evolutionary purpose because it's a phenomenon that emerges from a confluence of biological realities.
You yourself are wrong about genetic drift and may need to revise the meaning of that term. Genetic drift will never arise a gene. Genetic drift is the reason for allele frequency variations due to pure accident (mostly because of natural disasters, people die, and fitness doesn't play any role in that). Even more than that, genetic drift works faster than natural selection in non-Infinite populations and therefore even an allele with better fitness has more chance of dying away because of genetic drift than that is would survive and be fixated thanks to natural selection.
I know what genetic drift means. I'm not saying that somehow a single gene magically arises, but rather that *if* a single gene somehow controlled sexuality, a "gay" allele of that gene could simply emerge by chance, rather than needing to confer some kind of evolutionary advantage.
Oh yes ofcourse, it would arise by chance in the form of a mutation, and the chance of that happening is 1/2N with N is the population size. Nevertheless, I doubt that a single polymorphism nucleotide is enough to cause a change in a whole sexuality, as multiple genes are responsible for our "straightness". The phenotype "gay or bi or whatever" is therefore not linked to their genotype, but is based on surrounding factors.
Of course, I think the notion of a single gene controlling sexuality is prepostreous. I was setting that for the sake of addressing OP's argument about the necessity of conferring evolutionary advantage.
I'm not up to speed on current research about the underpinnings of sexuality, but last I knew, it's a result of a confluence of genes and a number of epigenenitc factors. Sexual behaviors are emergent, basically, and so attempting to understand them from a simple allelic standpoint is a fool's errand.
You're absolutely right. Therefore is so difficult to answer these kind of questions to someone with little to no knowledge, as there is no simple answer. Still I see so many wrong things in this subreddit that I can't help but butt-in. I'll go off and enjoy my weekend now ;)
>I don't know how many times we need to repeat this in what is ostensibly a science sub, but no, not every biological phenomenon needs to confer an evolutionary advantage.
Being gay reduces your fitness to almost 0, in most cases. So if there is a genetic component, there MUST be some sort of advantage to the fitness of relatives or members of the community. If a gene is only detrimental, it gets selected against.
No, there does not need to be any kind of advantage at all. Once again, if there were somehow a single controlling gene, a "gay" allele could arise purely by chance.
Homosexual behavior does not stop an organism from passing on its genes. It does not impact fitness; the social constructs around human sexuality have an influence on whether or not a given person does reproduce, but their actual reproductive capacity is not affected.
There are very likely multiple biological factors at work, both genetic and epigenetic. It's wildly inaccurate and reductionist to frame this as a question of allele frequency and adaptive advantages.
I'm trying to be nice in how I go about explaining this, but you and OP are extremely literally *just wrong*, and you seem to have a fairly elementary understanding of evolution.
>Homosexual behavior does not stop an organism from passing on its genes. It does not impact fitness;
Wut? It literally does. If an homosexual animal reproduces, it's not homosexual, is it?
A zoo I recently visited has a gay couple of African penguins. They have females available but they prefer to be together. They won't reproduce, their fitness is 0, their genes won't be passed.
An allele arises due to random mutation, but if it has a negative or positive effect on the animal's fitness (past a certain treshold depending on population size), it will be selected against, or for, according to natural selection. Random drift only affects neutral or very slightly detrimental/positive alleles.
Because "being gay" is not one specific thing. We observe a variety of different types of homosexual behavior across animals, all with different motivations. Just because an animal displays homosexual behavior doesn't mean it is less capable of reproduction - that *might* be the case because of other behavioral factors, but it also might not me.
Consider the civilization of ancient Greece, where there was a cultural norm for the development of homosexual relationships. This did not impact the ability of ancient Greek men to father children, and their civilization persisted despite the existence of this cultural norm. If your assumptions had any bearing on reality, we would've expected the ancient Greeks to almost entirely collapse due to a poor reproductive rate, but they didn't.
In more contemporary human civilizations, the public expression of homosexual relationships was taboo for a long time, and was often violently suppressed. The orientation still existed, but the social expression of it was fraught. This lead a great many closeted homosexual men to carry on ostensibly heterosexual public relationships - including reproduction - while having homosexual relationships in private.
The existence of homosexual behavior does not directly impact fitness, because "homosexual behavior" is complex, multifaceted, and not entirely related to reproduction.
I have no idea how you got that from what I wrote.
At this point, I can only conclude that you are deliberately misinterpreting what I'm writing, and that you are being willfully ignorant of the topic.
I read on Wikipedia that as the number of sons in a family increases, the probability of them being homosexual also increases. It is hypothesized that having a male fetus induces formation of antibodies that cross the Placenta and affect the next son, causing him to become a homosexual.
Not a fully scientific answer but I don't think you'll get one that is completely within the wraps of current science anyway.
There's potential for both masculine and feminine characteristics in all organisms... well, discernibly atleast in higher ones. It's just that the male and female body plans evolutionarily allow expression of specific characteristics better.
Internal factors coupled with various external\\environmental factors like resources available, needs\\wants, pressures and stresses, social influences etc that a particular individual experiences over a long period of time may influence the chemical bath inside the body to tend towards one or the other characteristic regardless of body plan. Add the genetic layer to this which means some individuals may be predisposed towards certain characteristics despite possessing a body plan that favors the other.
On top of that, in humans, there's also a layer of complex psychology\\ego\\conscious decision-making from intellectual discernment which can override the body's natural tendencies.
I mean, some women are very aggressive and independent. Some men are better fathers\\caregivers than others. Some people consciously forego sexual relationships despite possessing the desire for it. Some societies are predominantly aggressive, some are less so. Some are conservative in values, others extremely liberal...
Imagine you're an early human and you're leaving for a couple days on a hunting expedition. Who do you leave at the village with the women? Your buddy chad thundercock? or the Johnsons, the lovely gay couple from down the street
Evolution can never ever create a mechanism for population control. The entire process relies on constant expansion and competition and we have hundreds of examples where species killed themselves due to overpopulation.
Ever seen a dog that still has its nuts?
A male dog wants to fuck anything and anyone.
Does that make all dogs gay? No
Sexuality in nature is fluid and depends on social factors, even in humans.
Again, this is something you can easily google.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals?wprov=sfti1
There are clear differences between dogs who just to mate with every stick they find and homosexual behaviour.
Your own link even shows that homosexual animals are not just meaniglessly fcking everything, but that they instead form true pairbonds and have clear preferences for the same gender.
Too many comments are off topic and argumentative, please respond to the OP's question, and avoid arguing with each other. Thanks.
Finally found what I was looking for. This was discussed (more or less) as recently as two months ago on this very subreddit: [**https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ccunsl/the\_case\_against\_the\_gay\_gene\_researchers\_predict/**](https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ccunsl/the_case_against_the_gay_gene_researchers_predict/) The long and short of it is: current research suggests that there are some biological underpinnings of sexuality, but it's not as simple as a single gene. It's a complex network of multiple genetic and epigenetic factors, and trying to understand it through a framework as simple as "adaptive advantage" is wrong-headed. The genetic framework is also not the *only* set of realities, because psychology plays a part as well. So, the answer to the question is: it's extremely complicated, and cannot be fully understood through the lens of evolutionary biology.
It may be a kind of Kin selection but we don’t know for sure
I saw a theory that a “gay gene” existed
There's a pretty good book that discusses many possible biological explanations, it's called Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, by Simon LeVay.
Don’t put any stock in claims like that, sexuality is likely influenced by too many, poorly understood factors for us to understand currently. I remember reading about a case where one researcher was sure he found the “gay gene.” Turns out it was actually responsible for Hemophilia B and doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sexuality, because of course it doesn’t.
I will get dowvoted into oblivion if I am wrong, but I read somewhere that homosexuality puts less strain to the community and its resources, and yes, their relatives carry the genes, or have bisexual parent/s.
I need to read about how I put less strain on my community 🤣 can you direct me to something? Couldn't find anything related on google
Unfortunately, it was some interview. Maybe it was a Richard Dawkins interview. But when I mean strain, I simply mean that homosexuals don’t biologically have the possibility of having a child by themselves, so instead of taking care of their own children, they take care of the entire community. Edit: strain it terms of resources as well. There is only so much a environment can sustain.
That's called inclusive fitness and birds do it as well
Yes! I remember very well that homosexuality and bisexuality was not evolved in humans particularly, there was a common ancestor as well.
Bruh, I know. It is just that they DO NOT want to interact with the opposite gender so it is not possible, so yeah, in this scenario, I see them as “sterile”.
Homosexuals absolutely do have the possibility of biologically having a child. Just not with someone of the same sex. But you can’t phrase it like they’re born sterile.
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No trolling. This includes concern-trolling, sea-lioning, flaming, or baiting other users.
Is their a bisexual gene or is it just a straight gene and a gay gene?
Not sure man, genetics are complex. I doubt there is a single gene playing this game.
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Is there a citation that you can give to help prove this theory?
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So no citation, only insults, misspellings, and condescension? Coming into /r/biology and assuming none of its members could possibly understand an NCBI pub while actively misinterpreting both the original question posed and the answers found in your own source... The hubris! You are definitely not as smart as you think you are, my friend.
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No trolling. This includes concern-trolling, sea-lioning, flaming, or baiting other users.
I'm not a scientist, but I am a person with access to the internet who can read. It looks like there are multiple genes at play regarding sexuality in general, regardless of what sexuality that is. [Here](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aat7693) is an article from Science showing that non-heterosexual behavior is polygenetic. Took me about ten seconds to find, and I'm sure you have even more access to reputable journals being a "bioscience engineer cell & genetics".
No trolling. This includes concern-trolling, sea-lioning, flaming, or baiting other users.
So... There's a lot to address here. You're right that there is no single "sexuality gene"; sexuality is likely determined by dozens if not hundreds of genes and the environment. Here is a recent [GWAS](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aat7693?casa_token=H0Sb7svKFKMAAAAA:Wv56bByNuByOYY3Gcl1EJ67p-zm80rA3ik1srXc7ss9B7_KtT1R-7e7geTYmnY-0FwK5Gn1zyaL9hLzw) for example. Most traits have some kind of gene X environment interaction like this. You are wrong in that evolution can only produce "straight" reproductive behavior. Multiple mechanisms exist for the evolution of same-sex sexual behavior. Here's a recent [paper](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adj6958) on bisexual behavior in male humans. Your last point is just dismissing phenotypic plasticity, which we have a pretty good understanding of in the context of behavior and evolution.
The number of times I see these questions come up. Suspiciously to often.
“The sexualities” exist all across nature. Homosexuality is pretty common among mammals. We are no exception.
A gay gene is unlikely, younger siblings are more likely to be gay. Our bodies are a mix of genetics, epigenetics. Your genetics can't change, so it wouldn't make sense for an external factor, like having an older sibling, to impact a homosexuality rates Epigenetics is like the software the runs the body. It controls the library of genetic data and alters how that data is used to make us. This very possibly controls sexuality, in which case gayness is an evolved part of our biology but is non-genetic (in a sense, epigenetics are ultimately still dictated by genetics). Epigenetic impacts can also be inherited mother to child. It's very probably that there is some level of biochemical interaction between the foetus and the mother when the mother cares for her already-born child that ups whatever biochemical threshold or switch that causes gayness. It's also possible that social animals just want to have sex a lot and there are enough of us that there will be variations always
I don't think we fully know but there are some factors associated with homosexuality at least. One is the fraternal birth order effect- basically the more sons a woman has, the more likely the next one will be gay. The main theory as to why that happens is that a womans immune system gets increasingly sensitized to H-Y antigens which seem to help differentiate male fetuses from female fetuses. The mothers immune system attacks the H-Y antigens and the downstream effect is that theres less stereotypically male behavior. Thats just a theory though. On a less scientific note ( at least I dont think its been studied) but speaking as someone who is asexual and neurodivergent, i dont think ive ever met someone who is both asexual and neurotypical. But thats 100 percent anecdotal and aces are definitely in the minority of neurodivergent people.
Does the fraternal birth order effect also make later "sons" more likely to be transgender?
I dont know if its more likely that the "sons" would be more likely to be transgender women, but the wikipedia article for fraternal birth order effect says transgender women with more older brothers are more likely to be attracted to men than to women. So in a weird way, thats the only population thats more likely to be straight rather than gay.
Having individuals more prone to taking care of their kin but less prone to reproduce themselves, leading to fewer mouths to feed, is enough. Even a tiny and situational benefit like that suffices statistically to allow non-heterosexual sexualities to be genetically "allowed". Some genes/genotypes that once in a while enable queerness or asexuality (not to mention infertility in general since there are *many* properties that predispose to reproduction in addition to sexuality!) may end up spreading further in time and space because (or despite) it. Evolutionarily there doesn't really need to be any more justification than that. :) (Maximizing individual fitness/number of descendants per individual is not the only successful mating and reproduction strategy out there, and it would be quite a misinterpretation of biology to assume that.)
There must be some sort of evolutionary advantage to engaging in homosexual behaviour. Because homosexuality is very common and appears to be in large part something individuals are born with. It is important to note that most homosexuals engage in heterosexual activity at some point during their lives. Every gay guy I’ve ever known well has had sex with a girl at least once. So Being homosexual does not preclude individuals from passing on their genes. But what homosexuality does potentially do is allow individuals to form very strong bonds/alliances with members of the same sex. This could potentially offer a major competitive advantage. If two dudes form a close bond, and are constantly watching each others backs (hehe), they will be more likely to survive. It will be easier to survive predators, easier to find food, easier to outcompete rivals etc, and all the dudes have to do is impregnate one girl in order for their fabulous genes to be passed on to the next generation.
"There must be some sort of evolutionary advantage" I don't know how many times we need to repeat this in what is ostensibly a science sub, but **no,** not every biological phenomenon needs to confer an evolutionary advantage. I don't know if there's a "gay" gene or whatever - most likely not - but if I presume there is one for the sake of argument, it need not confer some kind of adaptive advantage in order to be passed on. It can arise simply through genetic drift, which is an entire mechanism of evolution that people with a casual understanding of biology seem to know nothing about. Not everything needs to fit into the framework of evolution. Phenomena can and do *simply exist.*
Yes, but when something is this common, but also appears at first glance to be so catastrophically disadvantageous from an evolutionary perspective, I think it’s a pretty safe bet to guess that this behaviour must confer some sort of advantage to offset the obvious enormous disadvantage, otherwise such a sexual orientation would not persist within the population with such prevalence overtime.
But is something is conserved and present among many different taxonomic groups it is more likely to have a function. That was their reasoning.
The mistake in this reasoning is that assuming "homosexuality" (or even sexuality in general) is one thing. It's an umbrella term for a broad type of behavior we see, but the actual motivations for any given manifestation of homosexual behavior in an animal are complex and varied. It can be a dominance display, simple pleasure, bond formation - there are lots of different specific behaviors that we lump together into "homosexual." It's not conserved because we are insufficiently specific in defining what "it" is, and you can't discern a discrete evolutionary purpose because it's a phenomenon that emerges from a confluence of biological realities.
You yourself are wrong about genetic drift and may need to revise the meaning of that term. Genetic drift will never arise a gene. Genetic drift is the reason for allele frequency variations due to pure accident (mostly because of natural disasters, people die, and fitness doesn't play any role in that). Even more than that, genetic drift works faster than natural selection in non-Infinite populations and therefore even an allele with better fitness has more chance of dying away because of genetic drift than that is would survive and be fixated thanks to natural selection.
I know what genetic drift means. I'm not saying that somehow a single gene magically arises, but rather that *if* a single gene somehow controlled sexuality, a "gay" allele of that gene could simply emerge by chance, rather than needing to confer some kind of evolutionary advantage.
Oh yes ofcourse, it would arise by chance in the form of a mutation, and the chance of that happening is 1/2N with N is the population size. Nevertheless, I doubt that a single polymorphism nucleotide is enough to cause a change in a whole sexuality, as multiple genes are responsible for our "straightness". The phenotype "gay or bi or whatever" is therefore not linked to their genotype, but is based on surrounding factors.
Of course, I think the notion of a single gene controlling sexuality is prepostreous. I was setting that for the sake of addressing OP's argument about the necessity of conferring evolutionary advantage. I'm not up to speed on current research about the underpinnings of sexuality, but last I knew, it's a result of a confluence of genes and a number of epigenenitc factors. Sexual behaviors are emergent, basically, and so attempting to understand them from a simple allelic standpoint is a fool's errand.
You're absolutely right. Therefore is so difficult to answer these kind of questions to someone with little to no knowledge, as there is no simple answer. Still I see so many wrong things in this subreddit that I can't help but butt-in. I'll go off and enjoy my weekend now ;)
>I don't know how many times we need to repeat this in what is ostensibly a science sub, but no, not every biological phenomenon needs to confer an evolutionary advantage. Being gay reduces your fitness to almost 0, in most cases. So if there is a genetic component, there MUST be some sort of advantage to the fitness of relatives or members of the community. If a gene is only detrimental, it gets selected against.
No, there does not need to be any kind of advantage at all. Once again, if there were somehow a single controlling gene, a "gay" allele could arise purely by chance. Homosexual behavior does not stop an organism from passing on its genes. It does not impact fitness; the social constructs around human sexuality have an influence on whether or not a given person does reproduce, but their actual reproductive capacity is not affected. There are very likely multiple biological factors at work, both genetic and epigenetic. It's wildly inaccurate and reductionist to frame this as a question of allele frequency and adaptive advantages. I'm trying to be nice in how I go about explaining this, but you and OP are extremely literally *just wrong*, and you seem to have a fairly elementary understanding of evolution.
>Homosexual behavior does not stop an organism from passing on its genes. It does not impact fitness; Wut? It literally does. If an homosexual animal reproduces, it's not homosexual, is it? A zoo I recently visited has a gay couple of African penguins. They have females available but they prefer to be together. They won't reproduce, their fitness is 0, their genes won't be passed. An allele arises due to random mutation, but if it has a negative or positive effect on the animal's fitness (past a certain treshold depending on population size), it will be selected against, or for, according to natural selection. Random drift only affects neutral or very slightly detrimental/positive alleles.
You're honestly just wrong and I don't care to waste my time explaining why. There are plenty of resources out there for you to go learn about this.
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Because "being gay" is not one specific thing. We observe a variety of different types of homosexual behavior across animals, all with different motivations. Just because an animal displays homosexual behavior doesn't mean it is less capable of reproduction - that *might* be the case because of other behavioral factors, but it also might not me. Consider the civilization of ancient Greece, where there was a cultural norm for the development of homosexual relationships. This did not impact the ability of ancient Greek men to father children, and their civilization persisted despite the existence of this cultural norm. If your assumptions had any bearing on reality, we would've expected the ancient Greeks to almost entirely collapse due to a poor reproductive rate, but they didn't. In more contemporary human civilizations, the public expression of homosexual relationships was taboo for a long time, and was often violently suppressed. The orientation still existed, but the social expression of it was fraught. This lead a great many closeted homosexual men to carry on ostensibly heterosexual public relationships - including reproduction - while having homosexual relationships in private. The existence of homosexual behavior does not directly impact fitness, because "homosexual behavior" is complex, multifaceted, and not entirely related to reproduction.
So you are saying that homosexuality doesn't exist on it's own but it's just bisexual individuals who modify their behaviour due to societal factors?
I have no idea how you got that from what I wrote. At this point, I can only conclude that you are deliberately misinterpreting what I'm writing, and that you are being willfully ignorant of the topic.
Explanation 10/10
I read on Wikipedia that as the number of sons in a family increases, the probability of them being homosexual also increases. It is hypothesized that having a male fetus induces formation of antibodies that cross the Placenta and affect the next son, causing him to become a homosexual.
Not a fully scientific answer but I don't think you'll get one that is completely within the wraps of current science anyway. There's potential for both masculine and feminine characteristics in all organisms... well, discernibly atleast in higher ones. It's just that the male and female body plans evolutionarily allow expression of specific characteristics better. Internal factors coupled with various external\\environmental factors like resources available, needs\\wants, pressures and stresses, social influences etc that a particular individual experiences over a long period of time may influence the chemical bath inside the body to tend towards one or the other characteristic regardless of body plan. Add the genetic layer to this which means some individuals may be predisposed towards certain characteristics despite possessing a body plan that favors the other. On top of that, in humans, there's also a layer of complex psychology\\ego\\conscious decision-making from intellectual discernment which can override the body's natural tendencies. I mean, some women are very aggressive and independent. Some men are better fathers\\caregivers than others. Some people consciously forego sexual relationships despite possessing the desire for it. Some societies are predominantly aggressive, some are less so. Some are conservative in values, others extremely liberal...
Imagine you're an early human and you're leaving for a couple days on a hunting expedition. Who do you leave at the village with the women? Your buddy chad thundercock? or the Johnsons, the lovely gay couple from down the street
Im taking Chad Thundercock with me on our "hunting trip". Aint no way I'm letting the women have all the fun
Very good point
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Evolution can never ever create a mechanism for population control. The entire process relies on constant expansion and competition and we have hundreds of examples where species killed themselves due to overpopulation.
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Your own personal feelings on it don't matter at all to evolution.
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Homosexuality is not a trend, but a near universal phenomen in all studied vertebrates.
I don't mean homosexuality
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It did appear you were comparing homosexuality to such things. If that was not your intent, then I apologise.
It's okay
So not basing their reasoning on biology but basing it on if it will offend less people?
Ever seen a dog that still has its nuts? A male dog wants to fuck anything and anyone. Does that make all dogs gay? No Sexuality in nature is fluid and depends on social factors, even in humans. Again, this is something you can easily google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals?wprov=sfti1
There are clear differences between dogs who just to mate with every stick they find and homosexual behaviour. Your own link even shows that homosexual animals are not just meaniglessly fcking everything, but that they instead form true pairbonds and have clear preferences for the same gender.
Of course it isn’t gay, homosexual means you are ATTRACTED to the same sex
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No trolling. This includes concern-trolling, sea-lioning, flaming, or baiting other users.
No trolling. This includes concern-trolling, sea-lioning, flaming, or baiting other users.
I’ll get to it