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How Many brothers do you have?

Koodauw

Koodauw

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 17, 2003
3,953
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Madison
Men with older brothers more likely to be gay

WASHINGTON - Having several older brothers increases the likelihood of a man being gay, a finding researchers say adds weight to the idea that there is a biological basis for sexual orientation.

"It's likely to be a prenatal effect," said Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada, "This and other studies suggest that there is probably a biological basis for" homosexuality.

S. Marc Breedlove of Michigan State University said the finding "absolutely" confirms a physical basis.

"Anybody's first guess would have been that the older brothers were having an effect socially, but this data doesn't support that," Breedlove said in a telephone interview.

The only link between the brothers is the mother and so the effect has to be through the mother, especially since stepbrothers didn't have the effect, said Breedlove, who was not part of the research.

Bogaert studied four groups of Canadian men, a total of 944 people, analyzing the number of brothers and sisters each had, whether or not they lived with those siblings and whether the siblings were related by blood or adopted.

He reports in a paper appearing in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that having several biological older brothers increased the chance of a man being gay.

It's an effect that can be detected with one older brother and becomes stronger with three or four or more, Bogaert said in a telephone interview.

But, he added, this needs to be looked at in context of the overall rate of homosexuality in men, which he suggested is about 3 percent. With several older brothers the rate may increase from 3 percent to 5 percent, he said, but that still means 95 percent of men with several older brothers are heterosexual.

The effect of birth order on male homosexuality has been reported previously but Bogaert's work is the first designed to rule out social or environmental effects.

Bogaert said he concluded the effect was biological by comparing men with biological brothers to those with brothers to whom they were not biologically related.

The increase in the likelihood of being gay was seen only in those whose brothers had the same mothers, whether they were raised together or not, he said.

Men raised with several older step- or adopted brothers do not have an increased chance of being gay.

"So what that means is that the environment a person is raised in really makes not much difference," he said.

What makes a difference, he said, is having older brothers who shared the same womb and gestational experience, suggesting the difference is because of "some sort of prenatal factor."

One possibility, he suggests, is a maternal immune response to succeeding male fetuses. The mother may react to a male fetus as foreign but not to a female fetus because the mother is also female.

It might be like the maternal immune response that can occur when a mother has Rh-negative blood but her fetus has Rh-positive blood. Without treatment, the mother can develop antibodies that may attack the fetus during future pregnancies.

Whether that's what is happening remains to be seen, but it is a provocative hypothesis, said a commentary by Breedlove, David A. Puts and Cynthia L. Jordan, all of Michigan State.

The research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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An interesting read. Seeing as how sexuality us discussed here a lot, I thought I would share.

Link
 
I have one younger brother, two sisters, one older, one younger.

This is an interesting article. I don't know though...it seeems a bit far-fetched to me even with evidence. Granted, I only know about 5 gay men, so what do I know?
 
I have an older brother, and a younger brother, and a much older half brother, and i'm as straight as straight can be...... It think this is bogus.
 
Hey! That's my alma mater! (mind you my stats classes never covered this stuff) :cool:

It's an interesting study, and I like how the conclusions have a 'grain-of-salt' approach... they clearly state that the results only refer to an increased possibility and not as an absolute reason... (unlike that Milk/Birthweight study a month or so ago).
 
So if my younger brother is actually gayer than me, shouldn't someone tell his wife? :D
 
I'm too lazy to read the whole article. I read the first sentence. I have two older brothers. I'm not gay, I love pooty too much. However, I am comfortable with my effeminate qualities. My oldest brother is a homophobe. The next oldest is as liberal (or moderate) as I am.
 
iSaint said:
I'm too lazy to read the whole article. I read the first sentence. I have two older brothers. I'm not gay, I love pooty too much. However, I am comfortable with my effeminate qualities. My oldest brother is a homophobe. The next oldest is as liberal (or moderate) as I am.
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So your oldest brother is in the closet? Interesting counter to the theory. :cool:
 
Yahoo has a long history of posting could've-been-just-a-coincidence type of pseudo-science articles :rolleyes: . Last time it was something like "Brownies cause baldness, experts say". Basically some "scientists" interview a couple of brownie eating people and it turns out a good number of them are bald. Yay! we got a "clear" connection now, brownies = baldness !:rolleyes:
 
dynamicv said:
So your oldest brother is in the closet? Interesting counter to the theory. :cool:
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No, being a homophobe means he's scared of gay people and feels threatened by them. Although recently he's been working with a known 'couple' in town who do wonderful work on a kids' with cancer camp. He seems to have become a little more compassionate about them...though that word is hardly in his vocabulary.
 
This is a discussion that ultimately will go nowhere and which can only end badly, methinks.

Let's posit for a moment that the researchers are correct, that a propensity toward being gay is a partially a result of changes in a mother's biochemistry following each gestational cycle she goes through. (Lotta big words there!) If this is true, it begs the question: So what? Even if said changes increase the likelihood of a male child being 'born gay' from 3% to 5%, that's still a tiny fraction (1-in-20) of all male children... and that's assuming that each mother has more than one male child.

Are they proposing to limit the number of male children that each woman can have, so as to limit the number of gay males? Or are they going to try to figure out exactly what combination of maternal biochemistry, genetics, and environment causes male children to become gay, so that they can either (1) learn to control womens' biochemistry and try to reduce the number of gay children or (2) try to INCREASE the number of gay children? Are we going to try to turn women into Tleilaxu-style birthing tanks, so that we can absolutely control how children turn out from a genetic and environmental standpoint?

I understand that scientists like to figure out how things work, but I gotta tell you that my gut reaction to this is that they've found a quirk of statistics (like how the "random" number 37 seems to come up a lot more frequently than it should) and they're trying to create a hypothesis that matches up to their data so that they can make it look like they've discovered some profound fact.

I'm not gay, myself, so I really can't speak to whether the "choice" to be gay is really a choice, or whether the biological/genetic component is merely a headstart in one direction or another which is then influenced by one's upbringing/environment. I will say that while genetics do play a profound role in establishing your starting point in this world, most of what follows is a result of environment and personal choices.

P.S.: If anything I've said offends you, please note that that was not my intention. I'm just trying to apply a bit of logic to the whole discussion, which, as I noted above, will likely end badly.
 
kiwi-in-uk said:
Eight. Seven older, one younger. And ... no ... (although one of my older brothers is). Four sisters.
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Are they all from the same parents?

I have one older brother, one younger one and a sister. I'm the gay one.
 
what a wierd article....

.......i have one older brother and im gay, but i dought that means anything i know tons of gay men who have no brothers or only older sisters or they are the oldest siblings so that just cant be. sexuality is born and not learned period.
 
Brothers

I have 5 older brothers... having a bunch of older brothers would put totally AGAINST homosexuality... us guys are gross... and i think this study is bunk... there is no scientific value in it... just like saying that women with younger sisters are more likely to get struck by lightening... HA
 
capone2 said:
Sexuality is born and not learned period.
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That is exactly what the research is saying. It's saying that there is biological bias based on how many males the mother has borne before the male in question. I say, it makes sense because it supports the whole homosexuality as a population limiter theory. The more males, the more likely that the next one will be a non-breeder so not to over populate.
Figuring out whatever things with science is good, but this is iffy, because what if parents will be able to control the likelihood of homosexuality in their child. That would be a bit wrong.
 
None of the posters can refute this study based on personal experience alone. We're talking about a few percentage points- that's much too little to notice by looking at your own family.

It's not a matter of whether you like or dislike the conclusions. You have to do a well controlled scientific study to find out the answer.
 
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