If you are gay, what family position were you born in?

[evertheblue]

Not a very scientific poll! But just a rough idea. If you are gay, what family position were you born in? If you have a gay sibling or child, what family position were they born in? If you have many gay relatives, please answer for the one you are closest to.

Thank you

My gay son was born head-first, just like many heterosexual people.

What an odd question. How on earth would birth order affect sexuality?

Are you trying to do some sort of research?

Apparently my gay brother came out head first screaming his head off .. a bit like heterosexual me ?

Boys with older brothers are more likely than those without to be gay. Most still aren't, of course!

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2156010-we-may-know-why-younger-brothers-are-more-likely-to-be-gay/

I had a gay male friend with 4 older brothers and he always said this . Said he was destined to be gay because of his brothers

Whether it's true or fiction I have no idea .

This sounds like Pam's theory on Gavin & Stacey : 'Doesn't get on with the mum, lesbian-gay, doesn't get on with the Dad, gay-gay!' 😂

All the gay men I know are actually younger brothers, actually, now I come to think of it! Not only of older brothers though, some older sisters.

Lesbians a mix of older, younger and only children.

I had an acquaintance years ago who was a gay man with a lesbian sister. No other siblings.

It was early 90s and he said his parents were upset that they wouldn't be grandparents (but of course being gay or lesbian wouldn't preclude either of them being a parent it was just the initial response at that point in time).

“The team collected blood from 142 women”

142 women. You can’t prove something with a sample of 142!

Have reported this thread as you’re blatantly fishing for an article.

🤔

I'm pretty certain I remember reading that in a big family later children are more likely to be gay than the first born.

Eldest

It’s a fairly well researched correlation. Even got its own Wikipedia page. Only relevant to gay men though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_male_sexual_orientation

I know of 3 gay people in the wider family and all 3 are the eldest. I’m not sure it means anything though?!

My gay son is an only child but that isn't on your poll

There was a really interesting documentary about this by John Barrowman a few years ago. It was called ‘the making of me”.

No context to the question??????

My gay colleague mentioned yesterday, he was the last of three, sister born first then brother. His two siblings were 10/11 years older than him and said they realised at a young age he was far more interested in boys than girls.

It is not an odd question at all, it is an old theory about how being born gay benefits your prehistoric tribe, basically by having non-parent adults who are available to protect and provide for their siblings children, and to take on nurturing roles as required. In evolutionary terms, that makes a lot of sense, particularly as it is only species with extremely labour intensive child rearing that have individuals born gay. Particularly as gay people take on far more nurturing roles in our current society than non gay people. There is very little surveying done, but it seems like about 10% are carers, far beyond the percentage in the heterosexual community.

My thinking is that if it is the case that homosexuality is an evolutionary adaptation to promote the survival of the tribe through children having non child baring uncles and aunts, then it makes sense that less than half of gay people will be first borns.

Which is what we are seeing - however, I have not distinguished between male and female, and it is likely that gay females may have still been parents, more likely than gay males, in prehistoric times.

I am in the LGB community myself, and this is something quite often pondered, the evolutionary advantages of having gay people in your family.

Thank you yes, I do think this is more related to male birth order than general birth order. Interesting link, thank you

Likely to be true, I think

I find it particularly interesting that the link talks about the mother influencing whether her later sons are gay.

That makes a lot of sense.

more grandchildren will survive in a prehistoric situation if the first sons reproduce, and later sons are available to help nurture and protect the offspring of the first sons.

If this all stems from the grandmother, this makes sense. And we know of course that women assimilate a bit more Y chromosome ever time they gestate a son. That could be part of the mechanism

Then he counts as eldest - every eldest child is an only child when born