The BBC has a report on a recent study showing that the more older brothers you have, the more likely you’re gay, and that this is due to biological factors, not social ones.
…the effect is probably the result of a “maternal memory” in the womb for male births. A woman’s body may see a male foetus as “foreign” … prompting an immune reaction which may grow progressively stronger with each male child. The antibodies created may affect the developing male brain.
I have two problems with the interpretations of this study. First of all, it treats homosexuality like it’s a developmental disorder caused by brain damage. Are we really going to put homosexuality in the same box as Rh disease? Besides, you don’t develop antibodies over time. You either have them or you don’t. When you come into contact with a foreign body for the first time, you build up antibodies and make memory B cells. When the foreign body is gone, the antibodies start to die off and the B cells remain; the B cells will freak out any time it encounters the same antigen from then on.
I also disagree with this concept of maternal memory from an evolutionary perspective. To ensure your genes are passed on, you want to have lots and lots of kids, both male and female. If I’m going to build up a bunch of anti-boy antibodies every time my mate puts a Y chromosome in me, it sure won’t help me none. The purpose of reproduction, if I’m not mistaken, is to make lots of little babies of both genders so those babies can do the same. (When they’re grown up.) After thousands and thousands of years of evolution, I don’t think women would have that kind of design flaw still programmed into them, if it ever was in the first place.
I really don’t understand how a single chromosome could change cell proteins enough to identify a boy as a “foreign” body inside his mother. Gender may be this huge thing that we think is so important, but there’s really no difference between a male and a female fetus except that after about a month and a half you either get testicles or ovaries, and the former makes testosterone. What’s there to fight?
