This should not be a surprise, but I was surprised to see it in PJMedia. Although it is a couple years old.

Scholars at Johns Hopkins University released a new report on Monday which argues that there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that lesbian, gay, or transgender people are born with this sexual orientation or gender identity.

The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared in the Fall 2016 edition of The New Atlantis, also investigated other commonly accepted ideas about homosexuality and transgenderism. Mayer and his co-author Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, challenged the claim that discrimination and social stigma are the only reasons why homosexual and transgender people suffer higher rates of mental health problems and are more likely to commit suicide.

I think the weird part is they try to claim both sides:

  • People are born homosexual or transgender. We shouldn’t criticize them.
  • But if you come to identify as something else, you can claim whatever you want to be and people should accept that.

You can’t have it both ways.

The study breaks down in three parts: First, Mayer and McHugh examined whether homosexuality is an inherited trait, and concluded that people are not simply “born that way.” Second, they looked at the causes of the poor mental health associated with gay and transgender people, concluding that social stress does not explain all of it. Finally, they studied transgenderism, concluding that it is not innate and that transgender “treatments” are associated with negative outcomes.

The report found insufficient evidence to back up the idea that people are born with innate sexual attractions. Mayer and McHugh examined past studies which show a modest association between genetic factors and sexual orientation, but these studies have not been able to pinpoint particular genes responsible. Other hypothesized biological causes, such as prenatal development and hormones, have also been linked to sexual orientation, but that evidence is also limited.

“Studies of the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals have found some differences, but have not demonstrated that these differences are inborn rather than the result of environmental factors that influenced both psychological and neurobiological traits,” the report explained. “One environmental factor that appears to be correlated with non-heterosexuality is child sexual abuse victimization, which may also contribute to the higher rates.”

That last paragraph doesn’t sit well with most of the liberal crowd.

The report cited the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, which tracked the sexual orientation of children aged 7 to 12 in 1994-1995 and again in 2007-2008. Eighty percent of male respondents who had reported same-sex attraction and both-sex attraction in childhood later identified as exclusively heterosexual, while more than half of the females who reported both-sex attraction as children reported exclusive attraction to men as adults.

Mayer and McHugh also analyzed twins. They pointed to a 2010 study by psychiatric epidemiologist Niklas Långström which analyzed 3,826 identical and fraternal same-sex twin pairs. Both twins had at least one same-sex partner in only 18 percent of male identical twins, and 11 percent of male fraternal twins. For women, both twins had at least one homosexual partner in 22 percent of identical twins and 17 percent of fraternal twins.

“Summarizing the studies of twins, we can say that there is no reliable scientific evidence that sexual orientation is determined by a person’s genes,” the researchers wrote. “But there is evidence that genes play a role in influencing sexual orientation.”

The genetics part is the one that interests me the most. If homosexuality was “all” genetic, then you would expect that identical twins would have 100% rate of homosexuality if it was genetic. This is similar to inheritance of some diseases like Huntington’s where if you have the gene then you have it.

So homosexuality has some small to maybe moderate genetic influence at most based on the twin studies. Sometimes this occurs early on or sometimes later from the pushing of LGBT. This is a far cry from being born that way.

From a Christian perspective this is fairly consistent with how we interpret the fallen world. Since the fall, all humans have some predisposition (some genetic or otherwise) to certain sins. Since we are new creations in Christ, we don’t go along with what our flesh desires but the Spirit and conform it to Christ.

Of course, this is becoming “outdated” and “hate speech” even though the scientific consensus says otherwise.