She’s right in what she actually said but also she’s right in the far more basic question too. We would like a scientific answer to being gay, to the very existence of gayness. It’s one of those puzzles that it exists.
Nope, this is not to say that gay people shouldn’t exist, nor that their rights are any lesser – or greater – than those of any other of God’s Own Special Little Snowflakes, each and every other human being. It’s that it’s a definite puzzle that it exists given how we think we know humans exist, through evolution. Something that so obviously militates against having children is something that shouldn’t – not the moral shouldn’t, the scientific – survive down the generations, yet it does – why?
As to what Widdy actually said:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Newly elected Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe has been branded “sick” after she suggested science might one day provide an “answer” to people being gay. In an interview on Sky News’ Ridge on Sunday, Widdecombe was asked about her previous comments about gay conversion therapy. “The fact that we think it is now quite impossible for people to switch sexuality doesn’t mean that science might not be able to produce an answer at some stage,” she said today. “I don’t know, I don’t know any more other than people once knew that it was impossible for men to become women.” [/perfectpullquote]Well, actually, we know rather more about that than many would want to admit:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]But Ms Widdecombe today defended her comments and went further, telling Sky News science may yet “provide an answer” to the question of whether people can “switch sexuality”.[/perfectpullquote]We already know how to do that. In some cases at least. The incidence of same sex sexual activity has been known to decrease when people are taken out of single sex environments. Prisons and public schools have been proving that for centuries.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Now that’s all I’ve said. I do not imagine for one moment that the Brexit party will be putting forward a policy on gay sex changes in its manifesto.”[/perfectpullquote]Quite so – given the number of gay people involved in the party I think that most unlikely too.
However, it is true that we’ve a scientific puzzle about people being gay. Because things which militate against having children shouldn’t really exist. Not after however many generations of having children it took to get here.
Which gives us some number of different possible explanations for how it is here. The first is that it’s not genetic, therefore gays aren’t born they’re made. This is clearly against modern social thinking but it’s probably going to turn out to be the right answer. But with a wrinkle.
We might say that being gay is a genetic mutation arising again in each generation but no one has managed to find – not believably – anything like a gay gene. And if it’s not learnt behaviour and it’s not encoded into the genome then where is it coming from?
The answer, probably, is uterine, as with autism. As, in fact as with trans, female brains in male bodies and all that. Something requiring surgical intervention to correct. The foetus, and most especially the brain, is conditioned by vast waves of hormones that pump through it while in the womb, determining bits and pieces of development. These waves sometimes leading to development not the same as the majority. We’re really very certain this is true of autism, we know absolutely it’s the case for certain forms of intersex, it’s claimed to be true of much trans and, well, why not about same sex attraction?
That is, gay is made, but made in the womb. Maybe.
The point being that Widdi’s right in a certain manner. Quite why we’d need a “scientific cure” for gay I’m not sure but we really would like to get a scientific answer to “why gay?” And, of course, knowing the cause of something is 90% of the way to being able to change the outcome.
I thought the standard explanation for a gene that predisposes toward homosexuality in men (assuming there to be such a thing) is that the same gene might act in women to promote nurturing and result in more of their children surviving. So a bit like tits on a boar.
I recall the arguments to legalise homosexuality in the 60s pointing out that it was obviously a medical condition, and as such should not be made illegal…
We know what she said. But also what she meant, which was less explicit. Be naive if you like
One admires your clairvoyance.
Clairvoyance is a very common skill on the left. It enables them to see the thoughts of people voting in ways of which they don’t approve – e.g. Leave voters did so because of nostalgia for the British Empire.
Did you ever hear any brexiter say that empire thing? No, it’s all in the mind. Leftists have no idea how rightists think, so they have a clear field to make it up.
Don’t you find that the tendency to be gay is enhanced in those who have the showing-off gene? Actors, performers, people who talk too much. Or is it just my prejudice talking?
Correlation/causality. Plenty of exhibitionists are not gay, others who are not exhibitionists are not. The theory is falsified by observation.
As an exclusive link, certainly. But as a tendency? A lot of actors are gay. Is it more than the proportion in the overall population?
(Your argument condenses to ‘both types are often not gay. That isn’t much of an observation.)
‘ It’s that it’s a definite puzzle that it exists given how we think we know humans exist, through evolution…’ ‘Something that so obviously militates against having children is something that shouldn’t – not the moral shouldn’t, the scientific – survive down the generations, yet it does – why?’ It is not a puzzle at all. Haemophilia, prior to modern medicine killed its victims usually before they reached reproductive age, how has that survived? The sex linked genetic component for haemophilia (it is on the X chromosome) is recessive, so in the presence of a dominant X it does not… Read more »
That could be statistically tested, it would be more likely in in-bred populations than in out-bred populations, and with international travel and wider mate pools it should die out, as diseases such as cystic fibrosis appears to be disappearing.
No, because there is no familial pattern of homosexulaity. If it was a ex-linked gene, it would be regularly reoccurring in a predictable fashion, But it is not. It would also have obviously responsible for something useful in its non-mutated form, but that just raises a whole new question of what the non-mutated gene does.
Actually that makes no sense either as an explanation. What happens in the uterus is just as much determined by genes as anything else. If some women produce a balance of hormones that mean their male children do not reproduce, then we would expect those genes to become very rare and probably disappear. And there is almost no chance of a mutation that produce gay sons spreading i the first place.
Homosexuality is just one more kind of sexual deviation from the norm. Like fetishism. Like pedophilia. Like Bisexuality Like rape Like sado-masochism Like transvestism. and like a host of combinations or variations. Are we going to create a specific kind of gene / womb event to describe each of these variations on the human condition? We don’t have any such to explain murder, theft, cruelty, self-harm ….. It is just as likely (almost certainly) that these sexual conditions are a result of our biological sex drive combining with our individual experiences, some of which we may not be aware of… Read more »