Sexual Orientation - Science topic

Yes, it is. So are hair color, body build, VO2max, lactose tolerance, degree of near- vs. far-sightedness, and any other 'variable' you care to name.

Thank you for your response Lukasz Dominik Kaczmarek . In this respect, I wonder whether the church does, in fact, distinguish between the voluntary and respected priests' devotion to celibacy and the enforced moral requirement of non-heterosexuals to suppress their sexuality which would otherwise be viewed as sinful? I see there is both normative/moral difference as well as distinction in motivation and role of individual's choice.

where morphological differences have been described?  Even if we could get enough tissue samples from homosexuals and heterosexuals, their epigenetic imprints may be very individualized, i.e. we have no normalized controls. 

I want to have a knowledge, of tecnic and scientific nature, non only a funny conversation of joke nature, on the "homosexuality" word.

Also if OMS does no more consider homosexuality an organic disease, from the 1973 year, and the OMS does no more consider the homosexuality a psychological disease from 1980, and the new books of medicine and phsicologydo not mention more this disease, i want to read or I want to listen a serious conference that treats the problem in a serious way, that can desribe the real scientific and tecnical nature, as well as the medical enciclopedy described the homosexuality before the 1973 year, with a scientific and tecnical description, that can be also very long, hundreds of pages, with diagnosis, symptomatology, etiology and, at last an adeguate therapy without sufferings and pains for the patients affected by this disease, in order to awake not an insult from homofobic people, but only, a real, scientific knowdlege of the problem, without jokes on the "homosezuality" word, and over all in order that anybody can know the difference among homosexuality occasional or temporal, and, instead the genuine or permanent kind of homosexuality, in order that nobody cannot more commit the bad mistake to push, a genuine or permanent homosexual, to contract heterosexual marriage. I think that i have been clear on this my answer.

Thank you both for your answer. Still there isn't a specialized suicide prevention program for LGBT persons as far as I know but there are some initiations. LGBT people are at least mentioned among the most vulnerable groups in these documents: https://www.mentalhealthandwellbeing.eu/publications/#reports

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/279765/9789241515016-eng.pdf?ua=1

If anyone could claim anything is discriminatory because they do not like their outcome of events, social and economic interaction would cease. It would be too dangerous to do business or even speak in the public domain for fear of being labeled something which may or may not be the case, with the resultant social stigma attached to them and possible legal consequences. Which is not to say discrimination does not exist or that nobody has been victimized, but if the alleged victim is allowed to self-designate a crime and then demand compensation with the full backing of the legal system without any due process what could possibly prevent abuse of that system? In the United States we have a right to a fair hearing and the right to present a defense in the legal system, but what is to prevent social stigma from making life unbearable for someone unjustly accused? Human nature will always find ways to abuse even programs designed to combat racism or sexism if they perceive a way to give themselves an advantage. There is no justifiable race or gender discrimination, but there are other reasons why people do not get jobs or do not make sports teams besides those two things. Merit seems to have been replaced by social engineering as a decisive factor in determining the best candidate for any kind of position, and as a result the positions suffer. Not because of the identity of the person but because of the ability. Which is not to conflate identity with ability, like the racist or sexist social engineers do by their belief that a person who is not like the majority in some way is incapable of achieving by their own effort without direct legislative action to make it impossible to fail. The removal of the possibility not to achieve is an insult to the abilities of the person or group they are allegedly trying to help. That is true racist or sexist discrimination.

As far as I know, Suja, parents and society have no real influence over a person's sexual orientation (that is, the physical/sexual attraction to other people, whether same-sex, opposite sex, or both). Perhaps what you are interested in, however, is the 'meaning' parents and society 'give' to the facts of attraction (i.e., 'what the attraction means': sinful? no problem? normal? not normal?). If society is homophobic, for example, that won't make the sexual desire/attraction 'go way' (though it may cause the stigmatized individual to hide that attraction, deny it, mask it, etc). Basically, you cannot make someone gay or straight in terms of sexual orientation. But you can accept or stigmatize that sexual orientation.

Hi! I think you can use standard measurements as for any other issue that can be investigate. For example, "Please select one number between 1 (not likely) to 5 (very likely) to disclose your sexual orientation at workplace", etc. The willingness about disclosure is something that you can more or less easily to get from subjects when you interview them; however, you want to explore the degree of sexual orientation for LGBT employee in the workplace which is slightly different and much more complicated. The reason is that perhaps you would find that LGBT people would wish to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression (be careful when using T, it does not refer to sexual orientation) at great scale, but the degree would depend on the situation at each workplace. You would then have to put a lot of attention how to develop unique methodology that would affect different workplace climates to see the actual degree of sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression disclosure at some workplace.  

Thanks so much for the link, Dr Mani.  Yes, you make two really important points here: promoting diversity and being up-to-date.  What I find when teaching genders and sexualities is that so many (but not all) people come to the classroom with typical socially constructed views of what it means to be male and female, straight and gay, and maybe a little in between.  But then when we start exploring the wonderful array of human diversity it can be totally liberating for some, as well as challenging the stereotypes of others.  I bet there is so much you could teach the west, from the perspectives of Indian culture, relating to genders and sexual orientations.  Thanks so much for your response and I wish you well.  David

Connect with Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc UBC on ResearchGate whose research work is w/ youth in a wide range of contexts (CYAC, street-involved, high school). Good luck!

MY, YES! 

Have a look on the Researchgate profile of Monnica Williams and colleagues. They published recently a few papers about this topic.

GLEN and TENI should have some resources on FE for LGBT people.

Samar, LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.  However, that is a very large umbrella term and by no means does it fully capture the experience of all people grouped in that category. Similarly, there are many people who may not be considered "LGBT" or would not themselves identify as "LGBT" but, for research or intervention purposes, might still be included.  This is also a very western view on sexuality and gender and, of course, culture plays a large role in people's perceptions of what this term means or whether this way of conceptualizing sexuality is even meaningful.  Hope that helps.

Hi Matt - in Australia there is a National Survey of Secondary Students and Sexual Health (http://www.latrobe.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/576661/ARCSHS-SSASH-2013.pdf) and older adults are included in the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (http://www.ashr.edu.au/) which also has a focus on sexual health. There is also a survey of GLBT people called Private Lives (http://www.latrobe.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/180425/PrivateLives2Report.pdf).

In humans and in animals, there is a drive homosexual patients of both sexes. Biological specificity is homosexual men, but also is present between the number of animals, in particular mammals. Thus, it is likely that homosexual activity a man can be considered as a biological variant of humans sexuality.

In 1990, the Krauts and Hoffman reported that the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in heterosexual men significantly higher than in women and that in gay significantly lower than in heterosexual men. In the same year, the Krauts and his colleagues investigated the correlation of brain development with his sexual orientation, treating the brain of male rats pre-and postnatally aromatase blocker ATD, and this presentation was produced enlarge SCN, which resulted in bisexual behavior in adult male rats.

Although the study of brain structures observed morphological - dimorphic difference in the persons of different sexual orientation ... maybe they are just a reflection of the observation but no real difference. That is why the researchers homosexuality posed an intriguing question whether perhaps certain sexually dimorphic features in the brain are different sample of individuals of the same sex but different sexual orientation? But whether the observed sex-atypical characteristics result of processes that occur during fetal (prenatal) or neonatal development, as is the case with gender identity and sexual orientation, it is still an open question.

Also, results Simon LeVay research and his discovery of the nucleus differ in size between heterosexual and homosexual men suggest that sexual orientation in humans requires further research on the biological level.

Identifying, on which essentially based the largest number of forwards studies it is not the same as finding the cause. Of course, anatomy is not the etiology, but may offer a starting point for further research in the quest for the ultimate origins of sexual orientation.

No but it depends on culture and religion they are living,some societies accepts the sexual orientation of guys and lesbian but in conservative societies they hide their orientation,i case of straight most of them hide themselves by cross dressing

Hi Byron,

Maybe you can find something here?

A systematic review of instruments that measure attitudes toward homosexual men.

cheers,

Karel

Generally sexuality is measured by self-identity (e.g., Do you consider yourself to be...), by practice (e.g., classify people according to the sex of their partners in the past year, past 5 years lifetime, etc.); or by attraction (Do whom are you attracted: same-sex only; both same-sex and other-sex, other sex only).

There are difficulties associated with each option. Brennan & Bauer (2013) note that behavioural definitions require people classed as bisexual to have at least one male and one female partner while those classed as heterosexual or homosexual need only one, so effects of partner sex get conflated with effects of partner number.

Keep in mind that health disparities have also been found for people who identify as "mostly straight," so having options that allow people to place their sexuality on a continuum such as the Kinsey scale may be useful.