is being attracted to the same sex innate?

[nicholascageconfusedface]

I don't think it is. I think we are all born and have both biological and environmental influences that make us who we are. I do not think that any baby is born gay (prisoners, gay for the stay) I don't think there is anything wrong with being attracted to people with the same sex as you, as long as it is consensual, and of a legal and mental age for capacity of understanding. Be happy. I'm just your average straight woman with children. I wonder how gay/lesbian people disagree with me, but claim that transgenderism is not innate. To clarify, are we born gay/lesbian? if not, why not? and if you believe that nonsense, why do you disbelieve transgenderism? (I'm very gender critical, non religious, and in full support of 'gay/lesbian' rights' I'm interested to know peoples thoughts

I’ve never even kissed a woman so have no idea how i would find it, definitely not disgusted by the idea

It's really, really great.

(Uh oh I'm "gaying" ppl now)

*sorry I'm not actually a L. just enjoyed the experience.

That suggests a certain flexibility of attraction (sexuality) though. There are many people who are so very firmly heterosexual or homosexual that they’d find a situational switch repellent.

That's because people are different.

I'm sure there are plenty of men who've had sex with someone they weren't actually attracted to.

Any hole's a goal and all that...

Society isn’t less prejudiced because somebody has proved that being gay is innate. Increased acceptance is the result of the realisation that it doesn’t matter and that somebody’s choice of a sexual or romantic partner is their own business.

On the other hand, while I don’t particularly care whether somebody’s gender identity is innate, I still need recognition that there are real and unavoidable consequences to being born with a male or female reproductive system.

I think the OP thinks they have found some kind of ‘loophole’, but the relative innateness of gender has nothing to do with the fact that human beings cannot change sex.

Indonesia is the most amazing place for their developed understanding of gender. They know there are two sexes but they have five genders that basically translate to cisgender non-binary and trans.

Sounds really awful.

There is masses of evidence that rates of same-sex shagging AND % of people identifying as LGB vary dramatically between cultures. I'll see if I can dig up the relevant research.

There's also a lot of evidence that there is a biological component to sexual preference. So it really is a big complex mix of nature and nurture.

Gender identity has to develop social, since, among other things, it relies heavily on language and the presence of others with whom to contrast and compare yourself. Sexuality is very different from that and does not require language or self understanding and interpretation. I have no doubt, however, that sexuality influences how we relate to each other. It is sexuality therefore that is primal whereas gender identity is social and secondary.

If being gay is a choice then I would have probably chosen not to be. Not that I think there is anything wrong with it now, but when I was a kid I was taught that it was bad, and I was scared shitless that I might, in fact, be. Even despite the fact that I was aware from a very young age that I was interested in girls and not even remotely interested in boys I gave the whole hetero thing a jolly good go anyway. Throughout my childhood and teenage years I was told by my mum that I would find a nice man and get married. I watched all my peers chasing boys and wondered what the fuck all the fuss was about. I even did get married to a man, because I thought you know, it’ll just work itself out, but my awkward, contrary brain, despite all that pressure to conform, still could not choose to be attracted to men. The thing is about the choice argument, I was never given a choice. At no point when I was a child was it ever conveyed to me that being homosexual was acceptable. My family were vocally homophobic, section 28 ensured that I never got the idea from school, and you know, all the homophobic bullying was kind of off putting. The logical line of the choice argument is that either being straight is a choice and most people choose that, or that being straight is somehow the one natural sexuality and by not choosing that I’m either being awkward, or just plain lying. The thing is is that I’m not lying, and being awkward and being different and bullied was never something that appealed to me when I was six, or 13, or even 21. Now I’m 36 the idea that I am statistically a bit less likely to get my head kicked in in the street for being a lesbian is still not particularly appealing, but it’s preferable to feeling pressured into having sex I don’t want with people I don’t want to have it with.

Newsflash, OP - people get to set their own rules about their own sex lives. No-one else gets a say. If a woman says "I'm only turned on by vulvas" that's her rule for her body and no-one else gets to challenge it. It doesn't matter whether it's nature, nurture or a mixture of the two - people are allowed to be same-sex (not same-gender) attracted.

You sound more than a little bit homophobic from my reading of your posts.

Hot - I have a very dear gay friend who says the same.

In fact, he was worried when he fell in love with a bloke who was bi, because he said "given the social pressures out there, if I had a choice I'd go for an opposite sex partner every time." Fortunately his boyfriend didn't think that way and they're now happily married.

I think a lot of people massively underestimate the amount of homophobia still out there, and the very real risk of physical violence (I've had both gay male and lesbian friends tell me they've been assaulted in the street for things like holding their partner's hand or even just "looking wrong".)

There is masses of evidence that rates of same-sex shagging AND % of people identifying as LGB vary dramatically between cultures.

Doesn't that relate to what is considered acceptable and what people are prepared to admit to?

Hence why in scientific research there's a group called "men who have sex with other men". With many men married but who do have sex with men at the same time, and don't consider themselves gay.

I also remember from some time ago, research that showed that the older women were, the more likely they'd identify as lesbians or were in lesbian relationships, or something like that.

But hotrocker, hopefully society is moving on from “you could change if you wanted to” to “Why the f* should I change if I don’t want to and why is it your business?”

There's always a gap between what people actually do and what they're willing to admit to in terms of research into sexuality. That being said, I think that for some people who're bisexual it's easy to project "flexibility" onto other people that may not in fact exist, and we (and I'm bi myself) shouldn't do that.

(I also don't really think that "flexible" is the right word. I'll happily shag either men or women but am super picky about which men or women, particularly the men, so in reality probably less flexible in terms of preferences than most.)

The age thing interests me. Pre menopause I was probably 95% straight (I occasionally formed a little bit of a crush on a slightly androgynous looking woman, but it never went further than a vague feeling of admiration). Now I'm post menopause I find my sexual fantasies are still about men, but all the "crushes" I've had on RL people in the last 10 years or so have been on women, which I find really interesting (not that I have any urge to follow through on these crushes, and they seem to be largely lacking a sexual component, but it's interesting to me that my psyche seems to have headed in this direction).

The OP is apples and oranges, comparing lesbian/gay with trans. The first is a sexual attraction/orientation, the second is a so-called 'gender identity'.

Flora said "Born this way" seems to me to be a way to explain to conservatives why they should accept gay people. and to that I agree. What the TRAs did, was hijack that popular 'sound bite' to gain acceptance on the same terms (ie, can't help it, gotta accept them).

As far as sexual attraction goes, there is enormous societal pressure (from patriarchy) for females particularly, to 'be heterosexual'. That brainwashing for girls starts early. This is what sets off my 'spidey senses', as to why patriarchy would put so much damned effort into convincing girls that their Life Mission is to find a man and have babies. It tells me that, most likely, if women were left to their own devices, they probably would not engage in heterosexual relationships (but would perhaps briefly, for the purposes of reproduction).

There are some lesbian/gays that just know, right from puberty, that they are ONLY attracted to same sex. But a heck of a lot of lesbians find lesbian relationships after the earlier het one has broken down. In the latter case, I do not find that these women are bisexual, but 'hijacked lesbians' from earlier brainwashing. And this is why I reject a hierarchy within lesbianism, or rather the purity contest ('gold star').

TL;DR Most people are probably 'more or less' bisexual, but compulsory heterosexuality forces many into heterosexual relationships, particularly early on. And some lesbian/gays have a much stronger attraction from the beginning.

I read the other day that some authorities consider sexual orientation to have the capacity to be fluid through a person's lifetime, and that that phenomenon is more prevalent in women apparently.

This thread reminded me of that so I just Googled it, and found the following article; www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/standard-deviations/201605/sexuality-is-much-more-fluid-you-think

The author is at pains to say that it does not appears sexuality can be changed from the outside (thankfully, and OF COURSE), but that it has the capacity to be fluid within the individual. And he does say much of fluidity could be merely "uncovering", but I suppose the isn't much between the two in the context.

I don't know what I think about that, but I suppose I'm open to the idea.

I have just seen the title and it makes me so angry that transgendereri has led

To these questions being asked again. Trans ideolog

..turns everything to dust. After exploiting the LGB fight for rights, it's started a debate about the legitimacy of homosexuality. It's disgustingly bigoted and homophobic.

Imvfho, its one step further to erasing The Equality Act with the enthusiastic consent of a lot of ill informed people.

Fermats, it’s not that I’m particularly worried or scared, but I am aware that it’s a risk. I just find the idea that anybody would actively make the choice to put themselves in that situation to be absurd.

Merrymouse, we certainly hope so, although I don’t think you need to scratch far below the surface to find a rich seam of good old-fashioned homophobia.

Please forgive me for not quoting properly. I’m using a screen reader and half the links aren’t labelled so I’m frightened to click on anything in case it does something weird.

My exH told me he felt same sex attraction from when he was at junior school. In the 1950s there would have been no outside influences then so I;m guessing he was born that way.

Surprising to see the discussion of how someone identifies as gay and trans being divided over whether it is innate or not.
Did I really just see someone post an endocrinology study supporting homosexuality being innate?

There are also studies that show being trans is innate www.endocrine.org/advocacy/priorities-and-positions/transgender-health

crisp, unless you are going to test people to find out whether they are really gay or really trans, ‘innateness’ is completely irrelevant.

It is obvious that some people are sexually attracted to people of the same sex and some people feel they have a gender identity.

You still can’t change sex and there are still clear, unavoidable consequences to having a male or female reproductive system.

I honestly think the innate/nurture issue is irrelevant. (And as someone said upthread, the "born that way" line was largely pushed to make gay rights more acceptable to social conservatives.)

Where trans rights and gay rights differ, IMO, is that the former do impinge on women's rights, whereas the latter do not impinge on anyone else's rights.

Woman wants to set up all-woman (biological women only) support group for rape victims. She has good reasons for doing so (perhaps she wants to work with victims who find all reminders of male biology induces PTSD flashbacks). Transwoman wants to join the group (again, let us assume the transwoman has a genuine reason for wanting to do so, namely that they too have been the victim of a sexual assault and are having trouble accessing support services.) These rights clash in a very direct way. And in this case, a very painful way - there's no way of squaring the circle and giving everyone what they want.

Rights around wanting to be left alone to form consensual sexual relationships with a partner does not clash with anyone else's rights in this way.