Word of the Gay: "Xq28"

"Xq28" is a genetic marker on the X chromosome thought to be partially responsible for male homosexuality, the studies results have since been disputed.

Rick Warren: "Gays Are Immature And Promiscuous"

News headlines broke earlier in the week with the announcement that President-elect Barack Obama had chosen anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to be part of the inauguration. This alone sparked a media frenzy and anger from liberal and LGBT organizations.

Now in an interview with NBC's Ann Curry, Pastor Warren responds to the question of how he would deal with homosexuality if it proves to be biologically based.


The insinuation that we are somehow underdeveloped and "immature" and that all LGBT people are "promiscuous" is a lie and downright offensive.

Take action by clicking here to send a form through Equality California, demanding Obama rescind the invitation.

Web Spotlight: Queer By Choice

Queer By Choice is a new and controversial concept of how sexuality comes to be. The website is for people who chose to start feeling same-sex attraction. The website also strays from the biological argumentation for equal rights, and contends that whether queerness is a matter of nature or nurture that rights should not be up for debate.

Open Forum: Are We a Biological Error?

Anti-gay former talkshow host and author Dr. Laura Schlessinger once said "gays are a biological error." It caused a storm of uproar among the LGBT community who urged a boycott against her and ultimately led the fight to the rescinding of her show.

Science is definitely on the side of homosexuality being biological, every few months new reports are released indicating that sexual orientation and gender identity have a biological component to them. Whether it be an overdose or underdose of hormones during pregnancy, some chemical composition, or a nerve related issue, it appears likely that being queer is strongly connected to our biological composition.

This eliminates the argument that being queer is a choice, puts a rest to nature versus nurture debate, and validates the notion that "we are born LGBTQIA". It also brings into the debate a whole new controversial arena. If something occurred during pregnancy or our DNA is different and influenced our sexuality or gender, are we a biological error? Might something have gone wrong during the process which rendered us defective?

I think as we advance in the realm of science we will find more and more evidence of the strong connection between sexuality and biology, but this will bring up the question of whether homosexuality/transsexuality are a genetic mutation that can be fixed.

All kinds of groups who are different be they gay, trans, intersex, asexual, might be considered an error that could be fixed by scientific altering?

Thoughts?

Gay Rights is Natural...

I saw this cute clip at NCGayActivist:


Send it to friends, post it around the net and let those who speak the untruth that homosexuality is unnatural take a second guess.

Open Forum: Sexual Re-Orientation?

The topic is critical and complex at the same time. All comments and thoughts are pure speculations, but nonetheless we must prepare for the future of our movement as genetic modifications and eugenics are becoming a reality.

Scientists are working tirelessly to find the root of sexual orientation and desire as well as gender identity and are looking into areas such as genes, hormones, and psychology and how they all intertwine in identity formation. We reported a while back about federally funded experiments to alter the sexual orientation of homosexual rams.

This research is in its early stages but there is much talk about the possibility of knowing the future with regards to a child's sexual orientation and gender identity. There are also indications that scientists will be capable of chemically altering a child to "straighten" them out.

This research proves to be a double edged sword for queers, as many of us find solace in the fact that our identities are biological, but at the same token the research also indicates the real threat that we can eventually somehow be "cured" and have non hetero-normative identities eliminated from the species.

Where do you stand on this issue? Would you go through sexual re-orientation? Would you alter your childs orientation/identity knowing the difficulties of growing up in a non-queer friendly world? Is sexual re-Orientation an ethical and valid field or is this junk science and dangerous?

Gay Sheep Experiments Aimed to "Fix" Homosexuality

I am bumping this thread back up since these cruel and homophobic experiments continue to occur in the name of science.

According to PETA:

"Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), a school that has received criticism in the past for torturing monkeys in its labs, has officially been outed. Information has been brought to light about ridiculous “gay sheep” experiments that are being conducted at the school. OHSU experimenter Charles Roselli is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to kill homosexual rams and cut open their brains in an attempt to find the hormone behind homosexual tendencies so that these tendencies can be changed. Roselli is also working with experimenter Frederick Stormshak of Oregon State University (OSU), who has surgically inserted an estrogen implant in the bodies of these rams in an effort “to restore tissue levels of estrogen comparable to those of heterosexual rams and affect sexual behavior accordingly.”

In addition to being cruel to animals, these experiments also carry the insidious implication that homosexuality in humans needs to be "cured." In his application for public funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the experimenter states that “this research also has broader implications for understanding the development and control of sexual motivation and mate selection across mammalian species, including humans.”

Please use the form below to write to OSU President Edward Ray and OHSU President-Elect Joseph Robertson Jr. asking that they immediately stop these needless “gay sheep” experiments and use taxpayers’ money for legitimate research instead."

http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/GaySheepExperiments

*Thanks to Rachel Young off of Creative Commons for the adorable graphic.