By Jenny Graves, La Trobe University

New research supports this claim that particular genes influence sexuality.

The claim that homosexual men share a gay gene created a furore in the 1990s. But new research two decades on supports this claim and adds another candidate gene.

To an evolutionary geneticist, the idea that a persons genetic makeup affects their mating preference is unsurprising. We see it in the animal world all the time. There are probably many genes that affect human sexual orientation.

But rather than thinking of them as gay genes, perhaps we should consider them male-loving genes. They may be common because these variant genes, in a female, predispose her to mate earlier and more often, and to have more children.

Likewise, it would be surprising if there were not female-loving genes in lesbian women that, in a male, predispose him to mate earlier and have more children.

masterdesigner/Flickr, CC BY-SA

We can detect genetic variants that produce differences between people by tracking traits in families that display differences.

Patterns of inheritance reveal variants of genes (called alleles) that affect normal differences such as hair colour, or disease states such as sickle cell anaemia.

Quantitative traits, such as height, are affected by many different genes, as well as environmental factors.

Link:
Born this way? An evolutionary view of 'gay genes'

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