It's Not Just a Phase

Double-edged sword time. Scientists have made a discovery that is both exciting and frightening for us queer lads and lasses. They have found a single gene in fruit flies that completely determines their sexual behavior, more specifically, their sexual orientation. By manipulating this gene, they can make fruit flies, well, more fruity, with the boys courting boys and the girls courting girls. They are quite excited about what it could mean in terms of all "hard-wired" behaviors in humans including instinctive reactions (fight or flight, laughing, crying, etc.). It is also another sign pointing the way to what anyone with an ounce of rationality and deductive reasoning could have told you: the Q factor is indeed genetic.

However, the dark side of this discovery is that what can be turned on can also, at least theoretically, be turned off. Which opens up a whole new can of worms and class of so-called "undesirable" babies to join the ranks of the aborted and murdered female babies in such patriarchally dominated societies like China and elsewhere, and those with other womb-detectable genetic defects such as downs-syndrome, et al. On the positive side, as one scientist said, "Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science." Science was the first to say we're normal, so I for one feel more comfortable in that respect--but that's not to say that some fundamentalist pigs can't be scientists and vice versa.

But don't fret too much, little virgins. All this proves is a link between genetics and behavior. Humans are much more complex than fruit flies (one would hope) and thus less likely to have a single gene that controls sexual orientation that can be manipulated at the whim of misguided parents and doctors. Discovery, while at times dreadfully frightening, is the way in which we progress both as a society and as humans.

Read more about it at the New York Times.