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Biological Explanations of Homosexuality

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Biological Explanations for Homosexuality

Katherine Callan

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This paper is aimed to address the question of whether homosexuality is biologically based. This topic is quite relevant today because homosexuality is a huge civil rights issue which is also conflicting with the church 's moral standards. While many religious bodies claim that homosexuality is a choice and a "sin", many in the homosexual community have strongly refuted that claim, instead saying they were born this way and their sexual identity is not a choice for them. Currently one of the biggest debates regarding the rights of homosexuals is same sex marriage . If scientist are indeed able to show evidence that homosexuality is result of biologic or genetic …show more content…

Researches conducted a longitudinal study in which behavioral development was being studied in these infants through birth through the age of six (Maccoby, Doering, Jacklin & Kraemer 1979). Their main objective was to asses whether and or how a newborn 's sex and birth order were related to hormones in the umbilical chord blood. Five sex hormones were measured: progesterone, two estrogens (estrone and estradiol) and two androgens (testosterone and androstendione). The fist sample of infants consisted of 40 males and 35 females, the second consisted of 32 males and 42 females and the third consisted of 53 males and 54 females totaling to 256 newborns born between 1973 and 1974. Only infants with no complications during delivery (including caesarean births) and had an Apgar score of at least 7 were included in the samples. Right after delivery, and severance of the umbilical chord a sample of 12ml of blood was extracted and frozen for hormonal analysis. After the mother agreed to enter her child in the six year longitudinal study the frozen samples of blood were then later tested for for the five sex hormones of interest, Andrrostenedione ( 4-androstene, 17-dione), testosterone (17β-hydroxy-4-androsten-3-one), estrone (3-hydroxy-1, 5 (10) -estratiene-3), 17 β-diol), and estradiol (1, 3,5 (10)-estratiene-3), 17β-diol) were estimated in a laboratory by radioimmunoassay methods. Progesterone

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