Xref: utzoo sci.bio:3359 sci.med:18892 sci.psychology:3084
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!rochester!cornell!oravax!daryl
From: daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: The persistance of homosexuality in a gene pool
Summary: Is sexual preference understood well enough to conclude anything
	 from genetic studies?
Message-ID: <1619@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jul 90 13:48:35 GMT
References: <1990Jul23.022511.28161@mtcchi.uucp> <11095@netcom.UUCP> <32214@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca NY
Lines: 23

In article <32214@cup.portal.com>, geoffp@cup.portal.com (Geoffrey Scott Puterbaugh) writes:
> 
>      In response to Daniel Levy's request for reputable
> research into a possible link between heredity and sexual
> desires for members of the same sex...
> [...interesting summaries of study results deleted...]

The studies you cite are very interesting, and convincingly argue
against the notion that sexual preference is determined by a child's
environment in the first few years of life. However, I don't think
that sexual preference is understood well enough for anyone to say
that we *know* that it has a genetic cause. Until a mechanism is
identified, the studies such as the ones you can only be taken as
only data, not as any kind of proof.

Do we even know what sexual preference is? Is it preference for
partners with particular body types? Or personality types? Or sex
organs? Or chromosomes? Is it heterosexual or homosexual for a man to
be attracted to a newly-female transsexual? What about the small
percentage of people who say that they don't enjoy any kind of
sex---are they heterosexual or homosexual or asexual?

Daryl McCullough