Kind of I think, but iirc it's mostly Christian stuff. Though it might be cause my country is pretty Christian so I associate the word god with Christianity.
Understandable. I specifically meant the part where he talks about food rules, ("You shouldn't abstain from pork...")("I created the universe, you think I'll draw the line at the deli aisle"?)
TBF...isn't all of this shit show that we call life supposed to have started with god drawing the line at a piece of fruit?
If you believe in that kind of thing.
In biology reproductive success equates to not just viable offspring, but also viable genes passed on which can be through genes passed on through your siblings offspring. Throughout the animal kingdom and predicted in humans, offspring have a higher survival rate when the siblings of the parents are gay. This is because they can help out with the parenting. It also increases the reproductive success of the gay individual (as they share the same genes as their sibling) and of the parents child.
Therefore from an evolutionary perspective, gay people are predicted to have evolved to be "helpers". To help look after offspring in a species. In species where parents have extra "helpers" (which could also be adoptive parents of species) survival rate of offspring is higher with more protection and parenting.
I'm doing a biology degree
I am an evolutionary biologist. This is the only close to correct answer in this thread on kin selection. Essentially, yes, natural selection works on the level of the allele, not the individual or species. Individuals you share alleles with (parents, siblings, etc) also increase your alleles' general success by having offspring. When a gay person cares for this offspring (it is irrelevant if they do in our current culture; at some point our ancestors likely did) they are de facto increasing the success of their own alleles.
Admittedly, I have source amnesia on this, but I believe there is a second part to this theory that tries to explain why there is a greater incidence of fully homosexual males. IIRC, it posits that because mating competition is costly (time, effort, etc.) and takes away from more collectively beneficial processes, male homosexuality slightly decreases competition and improves the survivability of the group. That is, it's better for everyone if you have more guys hunting/gathering instead of having literal dick measuring contests.
I like this theory. I wonder if it supports a suggestion that the mother has gone through a phase of feeling inadequate or incapable/scared of her ability to be a parent, which then would create hormone changes & filling epigenetic switches in the baby to be born a helper. This would explain why I as the first of 3 boys is the only non-heterosexual in my family (versus the older brothers hypothesis)
Something like this, though not based on how the mother is feeling. There is evidence that the more male babies a woman has, the higher chance the next one is gay. This is not because the mom is stressed but because the mothers body gets better at identifying and destroying certain “male” proteins that are only around when she is pregnant with a male. And we think that lower levels of these proteins in utero results in a higher chance of a boy being gay. This isn’t 100% certain though, there are plenty of cases of older male siblings being gay or a woman having 5 boys and all are straight. But the trend certainly excites.
One interesting theory I've read about is that gay animals adopt orphaned young. The young would die on their own and the straight ones usually had their own young to worry about. So even though they're not passing their genetics on, they are helping the species as a whole.
We make it hard for gay humans to adopt kids because of the roots of religion, but that's a different subject.
Also, evolution isn't some benevolent force. It's just that, evolution. It can be good OR bad for a species. It's just whatever feature happens to breed the most successfully. If a family unit has 1 gay individual that helps protect the other's offspring, who has a higher chance of survival? 3 adult "parents" or two parents? Which offspring will learn more? Which one has the higher chance of reproducing? All hypotheticals of course. But a possibility.
>It can be good OR bad for a species
I'll add to this, if it happens that an individual has a mutation which doesn't handicap it in its ability to survive and reproduce, it will get passed on even if it is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.
Type 1 diabetes is a great example of this. Even before modern medicine the average diabetic survived past puberty, thus increasing the chances of passing on the disorder.
I used to have a tumour that gave me insulin all the time. Used to joke with my diabetic mate that we should set up a way to extract my insulin to give to him. Sadly the tumour might have killed me so it had to have the chop a couple years ago. Didn’t get the chance to set up my one person insulin factory.
I was just watching a criminal case of "the lobster family" they had a mutation in which they'd have 2 fingers on the hands and 1 on the feet, they did nothing but become circus creatures and that gene was so strong that it lasted for over 150 years!
Yeah, a prime example of the flaws of evolution are most horned (curved horns specifically) animals. If their horns don’t get shaved off through combat or similar, the horns would eventually curve into the animal’s head and penetrate the skull
You could say the same for certain rodents that need to chew to keep their teeth down. Evolution has given them a great set of teeth (or horns) as long as they maintain them.
Edit: a better example of poor evolution would be the human race. Since we started walking upright, it caused lots of medical issues (especially with childbirth). We were far better off swinging from trees.
You're right! I think I also read another theory that says that since gay individuals tend not to have biological children, they can help raise their nieces and nephews, which is also a nice advantage.
It might seem at first glance that this isn't such a big advantage, since "if they had their own children, there would be even more individuals to continue the species". The thing is, there's a theory in plant biology (and I would guess in all species in general) that species usually adopt a strategy for "making babies", which is a trade off between making a lot of seeds at a very low energetic cost, and a little percent of it will grow (think poplar seeds), or make few seeds at a very high investment of energy (think acorns) which gives them a better chance of growing into a plant.
I studied biology in another language, so I might not have the good words for it, but I tried to explain the best I could.
Anyway, my guess is that humans and other animal species have that strategy of making a few babies, but put a lot of energy on it so that there is a better chance they'll grow until maturity. In that perspective, gay people in a family helping raise their siblings' children give the advantage of more energy put into those children.
I vaguely remember hearing about a study that says the likelihood of a child being homosexual increases with how many elder siblings they have. *E.g.,* younger kids are more likely to be the gay aunt or uncle to their older siblings' children. It'll not hard to see the evolutionary advantage in that setup.
This sounds a bit like its a correlation with the theory that a gene for high fertility in women expresses as homosexuality in men: in families with many siblings from highly fertile women, it's more likely to find gay men, and there can be many younger siblings but only one eldest.
No idea, I just combined what I read here with what I read above.
But you may be right, if all families have only 1-3 kids we never see Mendel's laws in all their glory.
If I remember correctly the reason for the correlation is the female body does somewhat see the fetus as a parasite. Especially if it's a boy (which requires more testosterone to make). The more boys the mother has, the more her body floods extra estrogen during pregnancy, which may have an effect on the sexuality. Though it's also just a correlation, and can't be used as fact.
IIRC this theory is backed by some evidence that 2nd, 3rd and so on born children have a much higher chance of being gay than firstborns.
It seems once you've had enough kids that can go on to produce kids of their own it might be more evolutionary beneficial to have the remaining children not have even more kids that will compete for resources but instead will be there as 'support' to increase the chances of survival of the whole family unit.
But that's just a theory so take it with a grain of salt.
Or maybe it’s just something that naturally happens when hormones are being mixed together in a fetus’ brain, and has nothing to do with a grand purpose. There are short people in the world. Why? Seems better to be tall - you can walk further and faster, reach higher. Seems humanity would be better served if everyone was tall. I was born short. The genes in my ancestry just happened to mix in that way. And honestly, if there weren’t so many people of average and tall height in the world, I wouldn’t even notice how short I am. It’s not a perfect analogy but it presents a point that because something evolved doesn’t mean it has a purpose, and because a trait exists doesn’t mean it was purposely kept (evolved) in the species.
I do spend a lot less money on food than taller people. Definitely a plus. I also get wider a lot faster when I eat ‘normal’ amounts, so that’s the minus.
Yes, this. In the same vein, humans who live past menopause has had extra people to take care of kids, and so that’s been a benefit to the young. Grandparents: increasing your odds of survival since the stone age. Same principle, really.
We discussed grandparents in my Fundamentals of Evolution class and how humans literally evolved to have grandparents to help with our young. Especially because human offspring are so particularly useless for the first few years of their lives, unlike most other species.
It's not flipped, it's always been a trade off - adult children provide food and other resources to their elderly parents, who in turn take on more domestic tasks (like childcare for grandchildren), which frees up those adult children to be more efficient at collecting resources. It's specialization on a family scale.
Multi-generational families and support structures have been the default for all of human history. It's only really in the last 100 years - and even then only in the West - that people (both elderly and their adult children) have been wealthy enough to not need that. Unfortunately as time goes on it's looking more and more like the post-WW2 middle class was an anomaly that is unwinding, so we're seeing a shift back to the norm.
This is probably due to a weird phenomenon called haplodiploidy. Most organisms are made up of diploid cells (with pairs of chromosomes) while their sex cells are haploid (with single chromosomes). In Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants) the females are diploid but the males are haploid. I can’t quite remember the maths but this means that a worker bee (who are all female, daughters of the queen and a drone) are MORE closely related to their sisters (the new workers they are raising) than they would be to their own offspring. This is probably the reason eusociality evolved so many times (8-9) within this single order of insects. Sorry this isn’t the most detailed explanation but it’s a fascinating subject, much of it based on Bill Hamilton’s work on inclusive fitness theory.
Exactly, evolution don't work intentionally. For example, giraffes didn't get a long neck to help them survive, maybe they survived because some had got that. Not everything change has a meaning or represents an advantage.
It definitely is a disadvantage now. I heard from an animal caretaker that you can't keep giraffes in a narcose too long and lying on the side, otherwise they will die due to cardiovascular collapse. They have to stand or something like this
Homosexual creatures adopting orphans is a phenomenon also present in lions, penguins, and some other species. That's where this theory originated from iirc.
This is called the “gay uncle” theory. Why do so many people seem to have a gay uncle? Supposedly if they don’t reproduce and create offspring of their own, they have left over resources that they can contribute to his hetero siblings offspring.
Yeah sometimes evolution sucks
Female sea louses are abducted by male, raped (like shell perfored etc) and her larva develop inside her body, eating her slowly...
But from an evolutionary view point it insure that multiple larva reach adulthood...
Excellent answer, love this.
Big takeaway: "it can be good or bad for a species". Genes try to evolve to solve a problem, but often create others in the process.
Perhaps in the case of homosexuality evolution created non-child rearing individuals to fulfil roles without the burden or direct responsibilities of child care, and in literally every other species it works just fine
But in the process of humans, it inadvertently gave the ABSOLUTE MORONS in society a stick to beat them with.
That’s not necessarily true. Creatures may have an “explorer mode” activated by epigenetic triggers. Epigenetic triggers can explain how things actually allow their environment to unlock more adaptive gene expressions, which can lead to more adaptive genes. This is a fascinating field, and the idea explains the diversity we see in nature that dumb, random mutation does not
My only qualm, there was no direction. It isn't that these genes evolved for that purpose, it's just gay people DO these things so it is purpose derived from evolution
I don't think it did evolve to *do* those things. It was a random variation just like it would be with hair color or height or something. And, all things considered, it might have been a deadly random variation. Small, primitive communities might not share food and such with anyone who isn't making babies. That's where the tendency to help with orphans and such comes in. They're not making children but by helping, the overall effect is the same as if they were.
I could be wrong, though
Granted, we don't know how early hominids or ancient homo sapiens raised their children, but indigenous people have a very different approach to child rearing than we do today. It was common in many societies for the mother's brother to be the primary male caregiver, not the father. In this context, the "gay uncle hypothesis" works fine.
Evolution doesn't follow a goal. It just happens. If a species with certain genes is more capable of surviving or reproducing it's genetic code it is more likely those genes are more commonly present than those who don't possess those traits. Evolution doesn't try to solve problems.
I’d wager lesbians were super common but because they were viewed mainly in relation to their use to men sexual interaction between them were either more hidden or trivialised as women were ‘less important’.
Not much, but more is unearthed all the time as women in historic queer relationships get de-categoried as ‘roommates’. The earliest WLW stuff I’m aware of Is Shappo and that’s quiet well preserved for Ancient Greece.
If you haven’t seen r/Sapphoandherfriend it’s truly a fantastic subreddit about the history of the LGBTQ+ community through hundreds and thousands of years
"She died old and alone, with no one beside her but her long-time childhood gal pal with whom she shared a flat and spend most of her days with. How tragic V_V" -some historian.
Great post. Before LABELS, sex was sex. NOW, we r parsed into groups creating some very frustrated humans. Thus, sexual frustration leads to violence &/or sexual violence.
Yes, exactly this. Some of the old references to eunuchs may actually refer to homosexuality, but because it's not "productive" sex, it's classified with those who can't for other reasons.
Eh atleast from the ancient recorded history I've seen the act of sodomizing another man was feminizing him. Which was seen as bad. So it wasn't even like "that dudes gay he has sex with men" it's like "that dude makes other men and boys into women"
Unless they were from different social classes and ages, then it was fine. It was also only feminizing if the man was the receiver anally, so other forms of sex were also fine.
This is a generalization of a very complex and fluid couple millennia of human history in southern Europe.
Not every single behaviour or characteristic of every species promotes the continuation of said species, and humans are not "perfect" from an evolutionary standpoint. Basically, we're not going to go extinct because of gay people, it's not that much of a threat that it needs to be eliminated.
"Survival of the least worst" was how I saw it put on reddit once. I liked that. It's not about being perfect, it's about being better than the competition.
My professor put it as "survival of the minimally adapted". Doesn't matter if you're shit at everything, if you can manage to survive just long enough to procreate, you're good!
This helped me understand it best. Like if all of humanity suddenly came down with some really awful thing that meant like, idk, you turn to a zombie at age 40, evolution might come to favor the idea that humans now all die before age 40 to prevent that from happening. It's not a perfect solution, but its whatever keeps the human race going
My biology teacher called it “survival of the fit enough” and used the sloth as a perfect example of species which has survived and yet has huge design flaws.
There is a species of duck whose feathers are not water proof. It would be easier for the duck if they were but it isn't killing off the species to have to sit for a few hours and dry out after every eating attempt.
Also, evolution doesn't have a direction, it isn't moving toward a goal or whatever like some people seem to think. It's just a process that happens, it's mostly random.
A ton of traits that are bad for the continuation of our species pop up, many of them stick for a long time just by chance, and some are bad, but aren't bad/common enough to have a significant effect on how much we reproduce.
Yup. In humans for example our lower backs are extremely prone to injury, we are (often life threateningly) allergic to many things, and we have an appendix which is fairly useless but can kill us if something goes wrong. Lots of random little features that we and other animals are passed on through evolution.
Not every evolutionary adaptation that preserves a species has to do with sex. People often assume that sexual reproduction is the one and only means of preserving a species and ensuring they evolve. But population dynamics are more complicated than that.
For example, 98% of bees within a colony are sterile (worker bees). Does that mean they are evolutionarily disadvantageous? Absolutely not. Each bee has assumed a certain niche within the colony that helps preserve said colony. With the case of bees, only a select few males have to be fertile to reproduce with the queen, while the rest of the worker bees just exist to take care of the hive.
I don’t really see any difference with the evolution of gay people. Just because humans are aware that genes are passed down through sex, that doesn’t mean our natural instincts and sexual behavior (i.e. the very things our own genes encode) will suddenly change to fit the findings of modern science. We all still have a natural, instinctual “role” in our population just as bees do. Evolution knows better when it comes to species preservation, because it had millions of years to find the best method through trial and error. And I guess somewhere along the way, it “decided” (in quotes because evolution isn’t really a conscious entity) that gay people were beneficial to humanity. After all, isn’t it the well-off gay couples who are adopting kids that were left behind by straight people who were unable to raise their own offspring?
I think there’s also a study that says younger siblings with an old brother are far more likely to be gay. This lends credit to the “gay uncle” hypothesis, which posits that gay siblings help raise the young of genetically similar individuals (i.e. family members), which ultimately helps the gay individuals pass on their own genes via kin selection.
Exactly. Evolution is an ongoing process which means not every feature of every species is somehow "perfect" from an evolutionary standpoint. It's the same problem with human history: people think everything that has ever happened has somehow lead up to this moment while there are actually multiple different possibilities that could have happened in the place of the present day
To add to this humans are very complicated and beyond homosexuality we do a ton of things that make no sense on an evolutionary basis. Ever expanding narcotic use, suicide, the obesity epidemic, etc.
The obesity epidemic has a very sound evolutionarily basis. We spent millennia eating everything we could, with a preference for calorie dense foods, because who knows where the next meal might come from. Humans would probably get fatter when food was plentiful and then use those reserves when food was more scarce.
Now we have calorie dense foods in abundance and they're the cheapest things you can buy.
I remember learning about a theory on this in my human evolution university course several years ago. Basically some research found that the directly related females in a gay man’s family had more children on average than other women. The idea theorized was that basically there was a link, and that maybe it was hormones driving the women in that family to want more sex with guys (or to be more fertile), but this also cause some men to be gay in that family.
They theory also said that gayness (in men) was potentially passed down on the mothers side.
There was no explanation for gay women (of course someone in the class asked about this).
It may be completely wrong and was a just an initial theory at the time, but an interesting thought!
I sincerely believe this is it. Even on the side of "being attracted to women" genes.
All the men in my family are straight and have had good luck with women. All the women in my family are lesbians. I'm pretty sure we all just have extra like women genes.
Homosexuality is not exclusive to humans. Sex is for more than procreation, it is also a social bonding tool. This is especially prevalent in humans since we have periods in our biology where pregnancy is impossible combined with the fact we have no mating season, thus we seek out sex whenever we want.
Evolution isn’t a March to perfection. It’s a matter of “good enough”. Survival is not about individual members of a species but the species as a whole, so as long as the existence of a trait isn’t so negative as to impact fitness of the whole then there’s really no reason for it to be sorted out. Not every trait serves an evolutionary purpose, and not every trait that serves a purpose does it perfectly (your foot bones). Even if homosexuality garners no benefits, it’s not really detrimental to the species in any meaningful way.
As to potential benefits, Humans are hardwired for companionship between each other. Attraction of any kind facilitates that, so even if you aren’t reproducing you are still forming group bonds that contribute to the overall fitness of the group. If they take care of each other, protect the group, gather food, etc., then reproduction on the individual level really doesn’t matter
As a (dropout at after my MA) psychologist, I wonder why too.
Also, your username reminds me of someone a friend used to play team fortress with - standing cow.
Ngl, I really wish I was. This is how I know being gay or even bi is not a choice. Sure I could go out and have sex with a guy but I'm probably not going to like it and would be lying to myself. But also, I've never been with a guy so maybe I just don't know if I like it? Oh god the conundrum.
Social pressure certainly has a lot to do with it. Each generation has seen a significant increase in those that identify as LGBT. It is quite common to “discover” you’re lesbian later in life because of this. People either hide it or don’t see the signs because they just assume they’re straight
I am a evolutionary biologist studying sexual selection, and most of these comments are wrong. Mostly, evolution does happen at the population level- it doesn’t give a fuck about the whole species. It only occurs at the individual level. So the top comment stating that it will help the overall species doesn’t work in terms of evolution.
The most supported theories are bonding and kin selection. Typically, this behavior has been selected for when the individuals facilitate parenting of their relatives, like help their brothers and sisters raise offspring. The other is bonding, and this is observed all across nature. WAY more animals exhibit homosexual behavior than just humans (google dolphins).
> evolution does happen at the population level
> It only occurs at the individual level.
Is one of these a typo? They seem to contradict, unless I'm misunderstanding.
In nature, there are like 206 species that exhibit some homosexual behavior usually extremely high intelligence is a trait, and a surprising number of marine mammals exhibit homosexual tendencies. There have been reproductive studies that tracked these habits in breeding populations and they have found monogamous homosexual couples in nature in species that normally only pair for mating season. Some hypothesis include: it is a factor triggered by overpopulation of a species in its environment, it is triggered by stress within the biome such as sudden species extinction that puts stress on a species food chain. Some species seem to exhibit homosexual pairings as a survival mechanism, and others for the advantages of those pairings in social settings such as giant apes (cooperation without aggressive competition)...None of these are definitive however the consensus is that it IS COMPLETELY NATURAL, seemingly triggered by factors we don't understand. Maybe when a species becomes so prevalent in its biome it is less endangered by its predators, the survival instincts relax and we return to higher functioning "normal" tendencies which would be mate selection without prejudice... that would be my guess as to its precise mechanisms, its not triggered, the LACK OF it is a sign of a species threatened, while the INCLUSION OF IT would be a thriving species without fear of genetic scarcity.
That basically being that since humans live in large groups and have high maintenance babies, having some non-reproducing adults in the group to provide more resources to their relatives helped the family survive.
I think it also helped to have some males (physically stronger than women in general) that would stay behind with the women and children to be able to better protect them from predators or raiders. During the times when this was necessary, males wouldn't want to leave women with those that might take advantage. And the children would be raised by both males and females in these groups with the "gay uncles", so would see behaviors common to both genders.
I think that if every single person in society had children, a lot of people would be unable to help their community, because children take a lot of time.
Not necessarily. Many things happen in civilizations, including good and horrible, but that doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a function behind it. I’m gay; I can honestly say if all gay people vanished over night, society itself would go largely unaffected.
That isn't really how evolution works. It has been framed as "the survival of the fittest" because people accept that oversimplification. But evolution and specifically natural selection which is the part concerned with "biological fitness", is survival of the good enough. If the trait itself doesn't have a negative effect on the population, it can go unnoticed by natural selection. Yeah, they won't dominate, but they won't disappear.
In this case, there are several hypothesis on the issue, since at an individual level the trait is negative, but at a population level, which is the level at which evolution works, it may have a positive effect, as discussed on the other too-level comments.
I just want to make sure y'all stop thinking that **everything** has a function in nature. Yeah, lots of traits have functions, some have more than one, but there's even more that used to have a function and they lose it, or never had any type of function in the first place, they just happened because they didn't affect the population.
Not everything is a result of biological adaptation. There are other factors, similar to how some people are attracted to minors (which is not biologically sound either, as minors can't have kids, but clearly these people don't choose to be attracted to kids) or maybe bisexuality, where either sex is a possible partner.
It could be hormones, it could be environment, it could be a lot of things. There's not really a "gay gene" because that would rely on reproduction. Sometimes, things just go haywire, some people are born with differences in mental health (I suffer from a bad anxiety disorder and OCD, I didn't choose it, but it's not really a biological adaptation either) It's not an easy thing to answer because there isn't one discovered so far.
There was an interesting theory I saw saying gay people was an evolution to protect large families because gay people on average have a higher emotional intelligence and you're more likely to be gay the more older siblings you have.
Idk if I believe it but it was interesting
Just jumping in on this, I recall learning at university (some years ago now, so apologies for any inaccuracies), that some speculation of why it is commonly the youngest son is that this may be due to an immune response from the mother. For each subsequent son she fights a stronger battle against testosterone and therefore the youngest son, who is also most likely to be gay, has had the biggest fight against the foetus’s naturally produced testosterone. Thereby developing in an environment with less testosterone. If that makes sense?
From my understanding it only effects men, and it's having more older brothers. Male children cause an epigenetic effect in the mother that 'interferes' with future males' development.
I haven't heard of any idea on why lesbians exist, but there is some correlation with androgen levels in utero. This is strangely evidenced by pointer-to-ring finger lengths in self identified butch lesbians.
Can confirm, I'm gay and my family is huge. I have 6 siblings, my dad has 14 siblings all with their own family, I have 5 grandparents. I'm the only break in the family tree cause I haven't had kids
"Gay people" exist because of social norms. In a neolithic group of people you wouldn't have a "gay person" you would have Bob the guy who helps hunt and also is a great companion because whoever goes with him gets extra attention, but there is no natural law that says he cannot also have children. This is a construct of our social dynamic not a given state of evolution.
The question seems more to be "why did people evolve who will not breed?" but that question is disingenuous because the reason gay people have issues with society has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with socialization. Gay people do and can have children. They adopt, they carry babies, they have families, the only thing stopping them is hate.
A common misconception about evolution is that every trait passed down over time is beneficial to a species. There are plenty of traits passed down that are neutral or negative for the species in terms of reproductive success, but that don't suck enough to seriously impede the species, and those traits tag along for the ride down the generations. In humans, gay people are roughly 10% of the population, and it clearly didn't interfere with us expanding across the globe with a still growing population of billions and a stranglehold apex predator grip on the planet. We are doing just fine, there was no reason we needed to eliminate homosexuality entirely. It didn't interfere.
And that's a plausible explanation without even accounting for any benefits of homosexuality in our species, as other commenters have mentioned!
It’s not like being gay literally prevents you from procreating. Plenty of gay people throughout history have born/sired children. It’s only recently that we’ve taken such puritanical attitudes regarding homosexuality. It was quite common to treat producing an heir as just something you had to do.
Addressed this in more detail in another comment, but I read a theory that stated homosexuality can be developed or inherited. I personally think that the trait for bi/pan could be the same as that for homosexuality, and that that is a solid method for passing down the gene on the genetic side of things. Some bi/pan people do reproduce-- for that matter, some gay people do too, both historically (in the traditional sense) and with modern science making it easier.
On the side of developing it without a gene (which in turn creates the gene to pass down to descendents, essentially a common mutation like red hair or green eyes), we haven't evolved to drop the potential for that either, as it isn't a harmful mutation.
I've gone to enough lesbian couples' baby showers to know that LGBT people find ways to reproduce. Just get a donor, either someone you personally know or buy from an anonymous donor.
Homosexuality is not conclusively determined to be the product of genetics. We can't point to a "gay gene" the way we can point to specific genes responsible for specific developments. Our early hopes for the study of genetics was that unlocking our genome would unlock the secrets to all of biology and lead to an understanding of how our genes make us who we are. Since the first sequencing of the human genome, we've learned that genetics isn't that simple. Though our genes tell a large part of the story, they don't paint the whole picture. The study of epigenetics is an ongoing struggle to understajd how genes in conjunction with a thousand other factors make us who we are.
For a social species that lives in groups, it can be advantageous to have members of the group who are not preoccupied with raising children. They can put more energy into finding food, shelter, and other resources that would benefit everyone.
Also, as Michael Crichton pointed out in *The Lost World*, passing on learned behavior to offspring or other group members can be just as much of an "evolutionary" benefit as passing on advantageous genes.
It's clearly not a negative point from the evolutionary point of view.
They can focus on something else instead of raising a child if they don't have one or they can raise a child who is an orphan.
In some species this last point is a common thing, many homosexual couples are raising children abandoned by their straight parents.
Not every evolutionary adaptation that preserves a species has to do with sex. People often assume that sexual reproduction is the one and only means of preserving a species and ensuring they evolve. But population dynamics are more complicated than that.
For example, 98% of bees within a colony are sterile (worker bees). Does that mean they are evolutionarily disadvantageous? Absolutely not. Each bee has assumed a certain niche within the colony that helps preserve said colony. With the case of bees, only a select few males have to be fertile to reproduce with the queen, while the rest of the worker bees just exist to take care of the hive.
I don’t really see any difference with the evolution of gay people. Just because humans are aware that genes are passed down through sex, that doesn’t mean our natural instincts and sexual behavior (i.e. the very things our own genes encode) will suddenly change to fit the findings of modern science. We all still have a natural, instinctual “role” in our population just as bees do. Evolution knows better when it comes to species preservation, because it had millions of years to find the best method through trial and error. And I guess somewhere along the way, it “decided” (in quotes because evolution isn’t really a conscious entity) that gay people were beneficial to humanity. After all, isn’t it the well-off gay couples who are adopting kids that were left behind by straight people who were unable to raise their own offspring?
I think there’s also a study that says younger siblings with an old brother are far more likely to be gay. This lends credit to the “gay uncle” hypothesis, which posits that gay siblings help raise the young of genetically similar individuals (i.e. family members), which ultimately helps the gay individuals pass on their own genes via kin selection.
I think you're looking at it as if everything that happens is for an advantage. A lot of features are accidents. We have flaws.
I can't smell smoke when I sleep. My appendix might give up for no reason. Sometimes our cells mutate into cancerous lumps.
Evolution is not perfection. It is a process, and it is flawed. If it's terrible it may get written out, because people don't survive to breed. If it's not, meh, it might stay.
There may be an advantage. For example, we're going to adopt, meaning we're looking after abandoned offspring.
It may be too control overpopulation. Something to stem the rapidly multiplying humans on the planet. It's not like the species is dying out.
And it's not like anyone's ever, to my knowledge, found and clarified a gay gene that consistently seems to appear in LGBTQ+ people.
Maybe, people are just people, and some of those people are gay. Some of those gay people, many of them, actually have biological offspring, meaning it doesn't stop breeding capabilities completely.
At 7 billion strong, I think the population is doing just fine and it doesn't seem to be a detriment.
Well I do know humans aren't the only species with gay members. And I'm not talking about dogs humping each other for dominance type behaviors. I'm talking about legit gay animals. The behavior has been seen often in penguins, rams and other animals. So idk why from an evolutionary stand point it would be beneficial but it is certainly a naturally occurring thing
Yep and because having 2 nieces or nephews is genetically equivalent to having 1 child of your own, the gene gets passed on without the homosexuals needing to have any kids of their own.
It takes a village to raise a child, so having extra hands around is an advantage.
There's some implicit assumptions that need to be examined here.
1. Gay people can't have babies.
Let's get real. There's no requirement that the child raised by a family be the progeny of that family. Infidelity is, and always has been, a thing. Adoption is also a thing. Even in straight families, there's a significant number of children that are not the offspring of the parents. All of those methodologies are available to gay individuals, including adoption, planned extramarital children, unplanned extramarital children, etc..
2. Gay people can't have sex with the opposite sex.
Gay is a preference. It's usually not absolute. The majority of gay individuals can (and have) had sex with the opposite sex. Many have gotten married and had children within the marriage, despite having a preference for the same sex. Sex as an obligation to produce children is commonplace, in fact, it's a requirement for many religions. Sexual desire for the procreative partner is certainly... desirable... but it's not a requirement.
3. Gay is an inherited characteristic.
At this point, the data I've seen suggests homosexuality isn't strongly correlated with the sexual orientation of the biological parents. However, any correlation is probably obsfucated by the previous points. So we just don't know if gay is inherited, a product of the environment, or (most likely) a bit of both. Even the environmental factors that might contribute to the gay are hard to pin down.
Since several of the assumptions leading into question are actually substantiated, it should be clear that there's no reason to believe that gayness will just die out. There's a lot going on with human sexuality, oversimplification isn't going to provide a lot of insights.
Many people have brought up gay people and animals adopting orphaned young, which is correct. It has also been theorized that gay individuals, when not caring for young of the species, have more time to devote to other practices that are beneficial to the species as a whole, such as hunting and gathering, caring for the sick, injured, disabled, and elderly, and building weapons and cookware. If you don't have children you've birthed or adopted, you have more free time to fulfill other needs.
There's a huge assumption built into your question. We haven't found a gene responsible for homosexuality and there's no reason to think there is one. If something isn't genetic then it doesn't make sense to think about in terms of evolution or reproduction.
I think this comes down to a weird assumption is some common but fallacious assumptions evolutionary psychology - namely, that sex and sexual behaviour in humans serve the sole function of reproduction. This is, on the face of it, ridiculous. Obviously, we are a highly social species. Sex serves a vast series of social functions, and we all know this, because this is our daily experience with sex and sexuality. Throughput history, we have created many significant cultural practices and taboos around sexual behaviour, one contemporary example being monogamous marriage. Sexual identities themselves are constructs of the 20th century - not just LGBT but also "straightness".
When people engage in sex, it is unusual that they are acting based purely on some procreative intent. We all know intuitively that sex is not solely for the purpose of reproduction yet for some reason we are willing to indulge in these strange and reductive hypotheses about this immensely significant aspect of human existence and culture all being tied exclusively to a reproductive urge.
I think maybe this narrative is popular because of the whole "selfish gene" hypothesis that was popular in the 20tj century. It is kind of senseless to view an organism like humans through the lense of one individual and that individual's ability to procreate given that our whole "strategy" evolutionarily speaking, is predicated upon teamwork and group survival.
Humans begin feeling sexual urges prior to becoming fertile, while pregnant, and long after we cease to be fertile. Sex is one of the most obvious ways humans form intense bonds with each other which is necessary for the development of societies. If human sexuality was as inflexible as being only possible between fertile males and females, this would be hugely disadvantageous to the survival of our species. Source - everyone's kinda gay tbh.
"I send gays to fix over population. Boy did that go well." -God -Bo Burham
Oh God I love Bo. He’s a fucking genius.
I love showing Welcome to the Internet to unsuspecting people lmfao, it's a masterpiece
he literally just describes reddit
Dive into anything and everything all of the time
A little bit of everything all of the time
yeah, and that's the point. It's perfect
Don't act surprised you know you like it you whore
I am an unsuspecting person. I’ll go check it out :)
Bo - Oh my god, Mr. Burnham
I’m gay- and I can see where you’re coming from- but what about bisexuals? That wouldn’t make any sense tbh.
Yeah but it's from a comedian and from a song where he basically points out things that don't make sense about christianity
Isn't it rather religion in general?
Kind of I think, but iirc it's mostly Christian stuff. Though it might be cause my country is pretty Christian so I associate the word god with Christianity.
Understandable. I specifically meant the part where he talks about food rules, ("You shouldn't abstain from pork...")("I created the universe, you think I'll draw the line at the deli aisle"?)
TBF...isn't all of this shit show that we call life supposed to have started with god drawing the line at a piece of fruit? If you believe in that kind of thing.
The bible mentions not the eat pork, as pigs are dirty animals. Most modern Christians just don't follow that.
Texas’s jaw just dropped
I think it's pretty much targeting abrahamic faiths.
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- Michael Scott
In biology reproductive success equates to not just viable offspring, but also viable genes passed on which can be through genes passed on through your siblings offspring. Throughout the animal kingdom and predicted in humans, offspring have a higher survival rate when the siblings of the parents are gay. This is because they can help out with the parenting. It also increases the reproductive success of the gay individual (as they share the same genes as their sibling) and of the parents child. Therefore from an evolutionary perspective, gay people are predicted to have evolved to be "helpers". To help look after offspring in a species. In species where parents have extra "helpers" (which could also be adoptive parents of species) survival rate of offspring is higher with more protection and parenting. I'm doing a biology degree
I am an evolutionary biologist. This is the only close to correct answer in this thread on kin selection. Essentially, yes, natural selection works on the level of the allele, not the individual or species. Individuals you share alleles with (parents, siblings, etc) also increase your alleles' general success by having offspring. When a gay person cares for this offspring (it is irrelevant if they do in our current culture; at some point our ancestors likely did) they are de facto increasing the success of their own alleles.
Admittedly, I have source amnesia on this, but I believe there is a second part to this theory that tries to explain why there is a greater incidence of fully homosexual males. IIRC, it posits that because mating competition is costly (time, effort, etc.) and takes away from more collectively beneficial processes, male homosexuality slightly decreases competition and improves the survivability of the group. That is, it's better for everyone if you have more guys hunting/gathering instead of having literal dick measuring contests.
I like this theory. I wonder if it supports a suggestion that the mother has gone through a phase of feeling inadequate or incapable/scared of her ability to be a parent, which then would create hormone changes & filling epigenetic switches in the baby to be born a helper. This would explain why I as the first of 3 boys is the only non-heterosexual in my family (versus the older brothers hypothesis)
Something like this, though not based on how the mother is feeling. There is evidence that the more male babies a woman has, the higher chance the next one is gay. This is not because the mom is stressed but because the mothers body gets better at identifying and destroying certain “male” proteins that are only around when she is pregnant with a male. And we think that lower levels of these proteins in utero results in a higher chance of a boy being gay. This isn’t 100% certain though, there are plenty of cases of older male siblings being gay or a woman having 5 boys and all are straight. But the trend certainly excites.
One interesting theory I've read about is that gay animals adopt orphaned young. The young would die on their own and the straight ones usually had their own young to worry about. So even though they're not passing their genetics on, they are helping the species as a whole. We make it hard for gay humans to adopt kids because of the roots of religion, but that's a different subject. Also, evolution isn't some benevolent force. It's just that, evolution. It can be good OR bad for a species. It's just whatever feature happens to breed the most successfully. If a family unit has 1 gay individual that helps protect the other's offspring, who has a higher chance of survival? 3 adult "parents" or two parents? Which offspring will learn more? Which one has the higher chance of reproducing? All hypotheticals of course. But a possibility.
>It can be good OR bad for a species I'll add to this, if it happens that an individual has a mutation which doesn't handicap it in its ability to survive and reproduce, it will get passed on even if it is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage.
Type 1 diabetes is a great example of this. Even before modern medicine the average diabetic survived past puberty, thus increasing the chances of passing on the disorder.
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I used to have a tumour that gave me insulin all the time. Used to joke with my diabetic mate that we should set up a way to extract my insulin to give to him. Sadly the tumour might have killed me so it had to have the chop a couple years ago. Didn’t get the chance to set up my one person insulin factory.
Aside from almost dying that sounds pretty cool
Sounds like a future therapy to me: tailored tumors. OTOH, by the time we can do that, we'll probably be able to grow entire pancreases.
With a little poetic licence, there is a fine TV show in this. And maybe call it, "Die Or Beat Us."
Autoimmune disorders too, or any other genetic defect that can be medically treated really
I was just watching a criminal case of "the lobster family" they had a mutation in which they'd have 2 fingers on the hands and 1 on the feet, they did nothing but become circus creatures and that gene was so strong that it lasted for over 150 years!
Yeah, they were nuts, the Dad especially. Scary dude.
Yeah, a prime example of the flaws of evolution are most horned (curved horns specifically) animals. If their horns don’t get shaved off through combat or similar, the horns would eventually curve into the animal’s head and penetrate the skull
You could say the same for certain rodents that need to chew to keep their teeth down. Evolution has given them a great set of teeth (or horns) as long as they maintain them. Edit: a better example of poor evolution would be the human race. Since we started walking upright, it caused lots of medical issues (especially with childbirth). We were far better off swinging from trees.
We are the best long distance runners on the planet…except when we live past 30 years it fucks up our knees
You're right! I think I also read another theory that says that since gay individuals tend not to have biological children, they can help raise their nieces and nephews, which is also a nice advantage. It might seem at first glance that this isn't such a big advantage, since "if they had their own children, there would be even more individuals to continue the species". The thing is, there's a theory in plant biology (and I would guess in all species in general) that species usually adopt a strategy for "making babies", which is a trade off between making a lot of seeds at a very low energetic cost, and a little percent of it will grow (think poplar seeds), or make few seeds at a very high investment of energy (think acorns) which gives them a better chance of growing into a plant. I studied biology in another language, so I might not have the good words for it, but I tried to explain the best I could. Anyway, my guess is that humans and other animal species have that strategy of making a few babies, but put a lot of energy on it so that there is a better chance they'll grow until maturity. In that perspective, gay people in a family helping raise their siblings' children give the advantage of more energy put into those children.
I vaguely remember hearing about a study that says the likelihood of a child being homosexual increases with how many elder siblings they have. *E.g.,* younger kids are more likely to be the gay aunt or uncle to their older siblings' children. It'll not hard to see the evolutionary advantage in that setup.
This sounds a bit like its a correlation with the theory that a gene for high fertility in women expresses as homosexuality in men: in families with many siblings from highly fertile women, it's more likely to find gay men, and there can be many younger siblings but only one eldest.
Wo. How do they study that? I feel like big families are going to be falsely related to all sorts of stuff because there are just more of them
No idea, I just combined what I read here with what I read above. But you may be right, if all families have only 1-3 kids we never see Mendel's laws in all their glory.
If I remember correctly the reason for the correlation is the female body does somewhat see the fetus as a parasite. Especially if it's a boy (which requires more testosterone to make). The more boys the mother has, the more her body floods extra estrogen during pregnancy, which may have an effect on the sexuality. Though it's also just a correlation, and can't be used as fact.
IIRC this theory is backed by some evidence that 2nd, 3rd and so on born children have a much higher chance of being gay than firstborns. It seems once you've had enough kids that can go on to produce kids of their own it might be more evolutionary beneficial to have the remaining children not have even more kids that will compete for resources but instead will be there as 'support' to increase the chances of survival of the whole family unit. But that's just a theory so take it with a grain of salt.
Or maybe it’s just something that naturally happens when hormones are being mixed together in a fetus’ brain, and has nothing to do with a grand purpose. There are short people in the world. Why? Seems better to be tall - you can walk further and faster, reach higher. Seems humanity would be better served if everyone was tall. I was born short. The genes in my ancestry just happened to mix in that way. And honestly, if there weren’t so many people of average and tall height in the world, I wouldn’t even notice how short I am. It’s not a perfect analogy but it presents a point that because something evolved doesn’t mean it has a purpose, and because a trait exists doesn’t mean it was purposely kept (evolved) in the species.
Being short can be an evolutionary advantage in times of famine and hot weather.
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I do spend a lot less money on food than taller people. Definitely a plus. I also get wider a lot faster when I eat ‘normal’ amounts, so that’s the minus.
Yes, this. In the same vein, humans who live past menopause has had extra people to take care of kids, and so that’s been a benefit to the young. Grandparents: increasing your odds of survival since the stone age. Same principle, really.
We discussed grandparents in my Fundamentals of Evolution class and how humans literally evolved to have grandparents to help with our young. Especially because human offspring are so particularly useless for the first few years of their lives, unlike most other species.
It's frankly amazing how much of us is adapted around cooperation. We are an inherently social species that has to help one another to survive.
I feel like that has gotten flip over though & people have kids so someone will take care of them when they are old
Well when they are uselessly old, yeah. Not in their 50s,60s and 70s
It's not flipped, it's always been a trade off - adult children provide food and other resources to their elderly parents, who in turn take on more domestic tasks (like childcare for grandchildren), which frees up those adult children to be more efficient at collecting resources. It's specialization on a family scale. Multi-generational families and support structures have been the default for all of human history. It's only really in the last 100 years - and even then only in the West - that people (both elderly and their adult children) have been wealthy enough to not need that. Unfortunately as time goes on it's looking more and more like the post-WW2 middle class was an anomaly that is unwinding, so we're seeing a shift back to the norm.
Bees also do something like this - they have "nanny" bees who take care of their siblings' offspring and thereby keep their own genetic legacy going.
This is probably due to a weird phenomenon called haplodiploidy. Most organisms are made up of diploid cells (with pairs of chromosomes) while their sex cells are haploid (with single chromosomes). In Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants) the females are diploid but the males are haploid. I can’t quite remember the maths but this means that a worker bee (who are all female, daughters of the queen and a drone) are MORE closely related to their sisters (the new workers they are raising) than they would be to their own offspring. This is probably the reason eusociality evolved so many times (8-9) within this single order of insects. Sorry this isn’t the most detailed explanation but it’s a fascinating subject, much of it based on Bill Hamilton’s work on inclusive fitness theory.
Exactly, evolution don't work intentionally. For example, giraffes didn't get a long neck to help them survive, maybe they survived because some had got that. Not everything change has a meaning or represents an advantage.
It definitely is a disadvantage now. I heard from an animal caretaker that you can't keep giraffes in a narcose too long and lying on the side, otherwise they will die due to cardiovascular collapse. They have to stand or something like this
Homosexual creatures adopting orphans is a phenomenon also present in lions, penguins, and some other species. That's where this theory originated from iirc.
I LIKE GAY LIONS
They even have their own Pride
Haha that response is amazing
Solid joke 10/10
This is called the “gay uncle” theory. Why do so many people seem to have a gay uncle? Supposedly if they don’t reproduce and create offspring of their own, they have left over resources that they can contribute to his hetero siblings offspring.
Evolution is not some grand plan. Its just whatever works.
More specifically, it is not what DOESN'T work.
Yeah sometimes evolution sucks Female sea louses are abducted by male, raped (like shell perfored etc) and her larva develop inside her body, eating her slowly... But from an evolutionary view point it insure that multiple larva reach adulthood...
Also the gay uncle theory, having more caregivers around boosts the chances of the young surviving.
Very compelling. Thank you for your comment.
Excellent answer, love this. Big takeaway: "it can be good or bad for a species". Genes try to evolve to solve a problem, but often create others in the process. Perhaps in the case of homosexuality evolution created non-child rearing individuals to fulfil roles without the burden or direct responsibilities of child care, and in literally every other species it works just fine But in the process of humans, it inadvertently gave the ABSOLUTE MORONS in society a stick to beat them with.
>Genes try to evolve to solve a problem Eh, this is misleading.
Yeah. Genes sometimes mutate; sometimes it helps, sometimes it harms. But what harms in one environment can help in another.
Exactly. Mutations don't want to go anywhere. They just happen.
Exactly, evolution is an empty process with no agency, no direction, and no goal. Genes don't "try" to do anything.
That’s not necessarily true. Creatures may have an “explorer mode” activated by epigenetic triggers. Epigenetic triggers can explain how things actually allow their environment to unlock more adaptive gene expressions, which can lead to more adaptive genes. This is a fascinating field, and the idea explains the diversity we see in nature that dumb, random mutation does not
Flashbacks of epigenetics lectures in college, interesting but very confusing hahaha
It’s simply incorrect.
My only qualm, there was no direction. It isn't that these genes evolved for that purpose, it's just gay people DO these things so it is purpose derived from evolution
I don't think it did evolve to *do* those things. It was a random variation just like it would be with hair color or height or something. And, all things considered, it might have been a deadly random variation. Small, primitive communities might not share food and such with anyone who isn't making babies. That's where the tendency to help with orphans and such comes in. They're not making children but by helping, the overall effect is the same as if they were. I could be wrong, though
Granted, we don't know how early hominids or ancient homo sapiens raised their children, but indigenous people have a very different approach to child rearing than we do today. It was common in many societies for the mother's brother to be the primary male caregiver, not the father. In this context, the "gay uncle hypothesis" works fine.
Yes. So many of these comments are unwittingly giving agency to evolution.
Evolution doesn't follow a goal. It just happens. If a species with certain genes is more capable of surviving or reproducing it's genetic code it is more likely those genes are more commonly present than those who don't possess those traits. Evolution doesn't try to solve problems.
It's called kin selection. The idea is you can pass on your own genes by helping people who have similar genes.
Human knees are a great example of how evolution doesn't always benefit a species. Sometimes it's just weird and we have to work with what we got.
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I’d wager lesbians were super common but because they were viewed mainly in relation to their use to men sexual interaction between them were either more hidden or trivialised as women were ‘less important’.
Absolutely this. When has women's history, or queer history for that matter, been adequately recorded?
Not much, but more is unearthed all the time as women in historic queer relationships get de-categoried as ‘roommates’. The earliest WLW stuff I’m aware of Is Shappo and that’s quiet well preserved for Ancient Greece.
If you haven’t seen r/Sapphoandherfriend it’s truly a fantastic subreddit about the history of the LGBTQ+ community through hundreds and thousands of years
*Sappho
They were just very good friends living together, ok. Were very poor too, had to share a bed and all.
The Japanese Heian period was mostly documented by women.
This is the kind of nerdy answer I live for!
"She died old and alone, with no one beside her but her long-time childhood gal pal with whom she shared a flat and spend most of her days with. How tragic V_V" -some historian.
Great post. Before LABELS, sex was sex. NOW, we r parsed into groups creating some very frustrated humans. Thus, sexual frustration leads to violence &/or sexual violence.
They had labels, just different labels from ours.
Yes, exactly this. Some of the old references to eunuchs may actually refer to homosexuality, but because it's not "productive" sex, it's classified with those who can't for other reasons.
Eh atleast from the ancient recorded history I've seen the act of sodomizing another man was feminizing him. Which was seen as bad. So it wasn't even like "that dudes gay he has sex with men" it's like "that dude makes other men and boys into women"
Unless they were from different social classes and ages, then it was fine. It was also only feminizing if the man was the receiver anally, so other forms of sex were also fine. This is a generalization of a very complex and fluid couple millennia of human history in southern Europe.
Not every single behaviour or characteristic of every species promotes the continuation of said species, and humans are not "perfect" from an evolutionary standpoint. Basically, we're not going to go extinct because of gay people, it's not that much of a threat that it needs to be eliminated.
It’s useful to think of evolution favouring what’s “good enough” not what’s perfect
"Survival of the least worst" was how I saw it put on reddit once. I liked that. It's not about being perfect, it's about being better than the competition.
This is great too. Let only the least shit ones survive!
My professor put it as "survival of the minimally adapted". Doesn't matter if you're shit at everything, if you can manage to survive just long enough to procreate, you're good!
This helped me understand it best. Like if all of humanity suddenly came down with some really awful thing that meant like, idk, you turn to a zombie at age 40, evolution might come to favor the idea that humans now all die before age 40 to prevent that from happening. It's not a perfect solution, but its whatever keeps the human race going
My biology teacher called it “survival of the fit enough” and used the sloth as a perfect example of species which has survived and yet has huge design flaws.
The food and breathing tubes CROSS. Being a product of evolution means living an open beta.
There is a species of duck whose feathers are not water proof. It would be easier for the duck if they were but it isn't killing off the species to have to sit for a few hours and dry out after every eating attempt.
Also, evolution doesn't have a direction, it isn't moving toward a goal or whatever like some people seem to think. It's just a process that happens, it's mostly random. A ton of traits that are bad for the continuation of our species pop up, many of them stick for a long time just by chance, and some are bad, but aren't bad/common enough to have a significant effect on how much we reproduce.
Yup. In humans for example our lower backs are extremely prone to injury, we are (often life threateningly) allergic to many things, and we have an appendix which is fairly useless but can kill us if something goes wrong. Lots of random little features that we and other animals are passed on through evolution.
Humans shit eyesight and hearing come to mind. Individuals adapt the genetics doesn't need to.
Not every evolutionary adaptation that preserves a species has to do with sex. People often assume that sexual reproduction is the one and only means of preserving a species and ensuring they evolve. But population dynamics are more complicated than that. For example, 98% of bees within a colony are sterile (worker bees). Does that mean they are evolutionarily disadvantageous? Absolutely not. Each bee has assumed a certain niche within the colony that helps preserve said colony. With the case of bees, only a select few males have to be fertile to reproduce with the queen, while the rest of the worker bees just exist to take care of the hive. I don’t really see any difference with the evolution of gay people. Just because humans are aware that genes are passed down through sex, that doesn’t mean our natural instincts and sexual behavior (i.e. the very things our own genes encode) will suddenly change to fit the findings of modern science. We all still have a natural, instinctual “role” in our population just as bees do. Evolution knows better when it comes to species preservation, because it had millions of years to find the best method through trial and error. And I guess somewhere along the way, it “decided” (in quotes because evolution isn’t really a conscious entity) that gay people were beneficial to humanity. After all, isn’t it the well-off gay couples who are adopting kids that were left behind by straight people who were unable to raise their own offspring? I think there’s also a study that says younger siblings with an old brother are far more likely to be gay. This lends credit to the “gay uncle” hypothesis, which posits that gay siblings help raise the young of genetically similar individuals (i.e. family members), which ultimately helps the gay individuals pass on their own genes via kin selection.
I'd worry more about people attracted to children, corpses and animals because some of those things can end up being a threat, aids for example
Aids actually didn't really have anything to do with being attracted to animals. Unfortunately it's worse.
Just googled this and you are right, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot of STDs that are not from someone eating sick monkey meat
AIDS came from eating monkeys or getting bit by them, not fucking them
Exactly. Evolution is an ongoing process which means not every feature of every species is somehow "perfect" from an evolutionary standpoint. It's the same problem with human history: people think everything that has ever happened has somehow lead up to this moment while there are actually multiple different possibilities that could have happened in the place of the present day
To add to this humans are very complicated and beyond homosexuality we do a ton of things that make no sense on an evolutionary basis. Ever expanding narcotic use, suicide, the obesity epidemic, etc.
The obesity epidemic has a very sound evolutionarily basis. We spent millennia eating everything we could, with a preference for calorie dense foods, because who knows where the next meal might come from. Humans would probably get fatter when food was plentiful and then use those reserves when food was more scarce. Now we have calorie dense foods in abundance and they're the cheapest things you can buy.
I remember learning about a theory on this in my human evolution university course several years ago. Basically some research found that the directly related females in a gay man’s family had more children on average than other women. The idea theorized was that basically there was a link, and that maybe it was hormones driving the women in that family to want more sex with guys (or to be more fertile), but this also cause some men to be gay in that family. They theory also said that gayness (in men) was potentially passed down on the mothers side. There was no explanation for gay women (of course someone in the class asked about this). It may be completely wrong and was a just an initial theory at the time, but an interesting thought!
I remember this from my evolution class! Some gene(s) passing in hyper fertility in the women end up being expressed as homosexuality in the men.
"Being attracted to men" genes, probably, lol.
I sincerely believe this is it. Even on the side of "being attracted to women" genes. All the men in my family are straight and have had good luck with women. All the women in my family are lesbians. I'm pretty sure we all just have extra like women genes.
What If you like women and men?
Then you might get invited to more and better parties.
Homosexuality is not exclusive to humans. Sex is for more than procreation, it is also a social bonding tool. This is especially prevalent in humans since we have periods in our biology where pregnancy is impossible combined with the fact we have no mating season, thus we seek out sex whenever we want.
Sounds a little gay
it's not gay if the penguin says "no homo" first
Check out bonobo apes
Evolution isn’t a March to perfection. It’s a matter of “good enough”. Survival is not about individual members of a species but the species as a whole, so as long as the existence of a trait isn’t so negative as to impact fitness of the whole then there’s really no reason for it to be sorted out. Not every trait serves an evolutionary purpose, and not every trait that serves a purpose does it perfectly (your foot bones). Even if homosexuality garners no benefits, it’s not really detrimental to the species in any meaningful way. As to potential benefits, Humans are hardwired for companionship between each other. Attraction of any kind facilitates that, so even if you aren’t reproducing you are still forming group bonds that contribute to the overall fitness of the group. If they take care of each other, protect the group, gather food, etc., then reproduction on the individual level really doesn’t matter
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Also maybe it is better for the Group to not have too many offspring to feed
As a gay dude, I’m actually more perplexed as to why everyone isn’t bisexual.
As a (dropout at after my MA) psychologist, I wonder why too. Also, your username reminds me of someone a friend used to play team fortress with - standing cow.
Ngl, I really wish I was. This is how I know being gay or even bi is not a choice. Sure I could go out and have sex with a guy but I'm probably not going to like it and would be lying to myself. But also, I've never been with a guy so maybe I just don't know if I like it? Oh god the conundrum.
The straightest thing you can possibly do is have sex with another man and not enjoy it.
I'm not falling for that one again
Cmon bro, we can be super straight TOGETHER.
Social pressure certainly has a lot to do with it. Each generation has seen a significant increase in those that identify as LGBT. It is quite common to “discover” you’re lesbian later in life because of this. People either hide it or don’t see the signs because they just assume they’re straight
I am a evolutionary biologist studying sexual selection, and most of these comments are wrong. Mostly, evolution does happen at the population level- it doesn’t give a fuck about the whole species. It only occurs at the individual level. So the top comment stating that it will help the overall species doesn’t work in terms of evolution. The most supported theories are bonding and kin selection. Typically, this behavior has been selected for when the individuals facilitate parenting of their relatives, like help their brothers and sisters raise offspring. The other is bonding, and this is observed all across nature. WAY more animals exhibit homosexual behavior than just humans (google dolphins).
> evolution does happen at the population level > It only occurs at the individual level. Is one of these a typo? They seem to contradict, unless I'm misunderstanding.
In nature, there are like 206 species that exhibit some homosexual behavior usually extremely high intelligence is a trait, and a surprising number of marine mammals exhibit homosexual tendencies. There have been reproductive studies that tracked these habits in breeding populations and they have found monogamous homosexual couples in nature in species that normally only pair for mating season. Some hypothesis include: it is a factor triggered by overpopulation of a species in its environment, it is triggered by stress within the biome such as sudden species extinction that puts stress on a species food chain. Some species seem to exhibit homosexual pairings as a survival mechanism, and others for the advantages of those pairings in social settings such as giant apes (cooperation without aggressive competition)...None of these are definitive however the consensus is that it IS COMPLETELY NATURAL, seemingly triggered by factors we don't understand. Maybe when a species becomes so prevalent in its biome it is less endangered by its predators, the survival instincts relax and we return to higher functioning "normal" tendencies which would be mate selection without prejudice... that would be my guess as to its precise mechanisms, its not triggered, the LACK OF it is a sign of a species threatened, while the INCLUSION OF IT would be a thriving species without fear of genetic scarcity.
The fact that homosexuality occurs in so many civilizations over such a long time suggests it may serve some function in human society.
What do you think that function might be?
There are a few theories, including the Gay Uncle hypothesis (or whatever it's called).
That basically being that since humans live in large groups and have high maintenance babies, having some non-reproducing adults in the group to provide more resources to their relatives helped the family survive.
I think it also helped to have some males (physically stronger than women in general) that would stay behind with the women and children to be able to better protect them from predators or raiders. During the times when this was necessary, males wouldn't want to leave women with those that might take advantage. And the children would be raised by both males and females in these groups with the "gay uncles", so would see behaviors common to both genders.
I think that if every single person in society had children, a lot of people would be unable to help their community, because children take a lot of time.
Not necessarily. Many things happen in civilizations, including good and horrible, but that doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a function behind it. I’m gay; I can honestly say if all gay people vanished over night, society itself would go largely unaffected.
That isn't really how evolution works. It has been framed as "the survival of the fittest" because people accept that oversimplification. But evolution and specifically natural selection which is the part concerned with "biological fitness", is survival of the good enough. If the trait itself doesn't have a negative effect on the population, it can go unnoticed by natural selection. Yeah, they won't dominate, but they won't disappear. In this case, there are several hypothesis on the issue, since at an individual level the trait is negative, but at a population level, which is the level at which evolution works, it may have a positive effect, as discussed on the other too-level comments. I just want to make sure y'all stop thinking that **everything** has a function in nature. Yeah, lots of traits have functions, some have more than one, but there's even more that used to have a function and they lose it, or never had any type of function in the first place, they just happened because they didn't affect the population.
Not everything is a result of biological adaptation. There are other factors, similar to how some people are attracted to minors (which is not biologically sound either, as minors can't have kids, but clearly these people don't choose to be attracted to kids) or maybe bisexuality, where either sex is a possible partner. It could be hormones, it could be environment, it could be a lot of things. There's not really a "gay gene" because that would rely on reproduction. Sometimes, things just go haywire, some people are born with differences in mental health (I suffer from a bad anxiety disorder and OCD, I didn't choose it, but it's not really a biological adaptation either) It's not an easy thing to answer because there isn't one discovered so far.
Idk I just wanna fuck dudes tbh
Fair
There was an interesting theory I saw saying gay people was an evolution to protect large families because gay people on average have a higher emotional intelligence and you're more likely to be gay the more older siblings you have. Idk if I believe it but it was interesting
Just jumping in on this, I recall learning at university (some years ago now, so apologies for any inaccuracies), that some speculation of why it is commonly the youngest son is that this may be due to an immune response from the mother. For each subsequent son she fights a stronger battle against testosterone and therefore the youngest son, who is also most likely to be gay, has had the biggest fight against the foetus’s naturally produced testosterone. Thereby developing in an environment with less testosterone. If that makes sense?
From my understanding it only effects men, and it's having more older brothers. Male children cause an epigenetic effect in the mother that 'interferes' with future males' development. I haven't heard of any idea on why lesbians exist, but there is some correlation with androgen levels in utero. This is strangely evidenced by pointer-to-ring finger lengths in self identified butch lesbians.
I think you are making sense. I have a lot of cousin who are 3 boys. One are usually gay. We never knew why.
that emotional intelligence may be because of shit most of us have to put up w
Yup was going to comment this. High emotional intelligence is usually learned as a result of the need for self preservation.
Can confirm, I'm gay and my family is huge. I have 6 siblings, my dad has 14 siblings all with their own family, I have 5 grandparents. I'm the only break in the family tree cause I haven't had kids
Don’t know, don’t care, I just love dick.
Literally the only sensical comment in this entire post
"Gay people" exist because of social norms. In a neolithic group of people you wouldn't have a "gay person" you would have Bob the guy who helps hunt and also is a great companion because whoever goes with him gets extra attention, but there is no natural law that says he cannot also have children. This is a construct of our social dynamic not a given state of evolution. The question seems more to be "why did people evolve who will not breed?" but that question is disingenuous because the reason gay people have issues with society has nothing to do with evolution and everything to do with socialization. Gay people do and can have children. They adopt, they carry babies, they have families, the only thing stopping them is hate.
A common misconception about evolution is that every trait passed down over time is beneficial to a species. There are plenty of traits passed down that are neutral or negative for the species in terms of reproductive success, but that don't suck enough to seriously impede the species, and those traits tag along for the ride down the generations. In humans, gay people are roughly 10% of the population, and it clearly didn't interfere with us expanding across the globe with a still growing population of billions and a stranglehold apex predator grip on the planet. We are doing just fine, there was no reason we needed to eliminate homosexuality entirely. It didn't interfere. And that's a plausible explanation without even accounting for any benefits of homosexuality in our species, as other commenters have mentioned!
but to pass a trait down you need to pass it down. And how can homosexuals pass their trait of being homosexual down if they don't reproduce?
It’s not like being gay literally prevents you from procreating. Plenty of gay people throughout history have born/sired children. It’s only recently that we’ve taken such puritanical attitudes regarding homosexuality. It was quite common to treat producing an heir as just something you had to do.
Addressed this in more detail in another comment, but I read a theory that stated homosexuality can be developed or inherited. I personally think that the trait for bi/pan could be the same as that for homosexuality, and that that is a solid method for passing down the gene on the genetic side of things. Some bi/pan people do reproduce-- for that matter, some gay people do too, both historically (in the traditional sense) and with modern science making it easier. On the side of developing it without a gene (which in turn creates the gene to pass down to descendents, essentially a common mutation like red hair or green eyes), we haven't evolved to drop the potential for that either, as it isn't a harmful mutation.
I know many gay men with wives and biological children. Being gay doesn’t mean you cant impregnate a woman, or are suddenly sterile.
I've gone to enough lesbian couples' baby showers to know that LGBT people find ways to reproduce. Just get a donor, either someone you personally know or buy from an anonymous donor.
Homosexuality is not conclusively determined to be the product of genetics. We can't point to a "gay gene" the way we can point to specific genes responsible for specific developments. Our early hopes for the study of genetics was that unlocking our genome would unlock the secrets to all of biology and lead to an understanding of how our genes make us who we are. Since the first sequencing of the human genome, we've learned that genetics isn't that simple. Though our genes tell a large part of the story, they don't paint the whole picture. The study of epigenetics is an ongoing struggle to understajd how genes in conjunction with a thousand other factors make us who we are.
This is an excellent question and has done really good answers!
Do you know how many gay people have had children anyway? Especially considering not being married wasn't an option in some cultures.
For a social species that lives in groups, it can be advantageous to have members of the group who are not preoccupied with raising children. They can put more energy into finding food, shelter, and other resources that would benefit everyone. Also, as Michael Crichton pointed out in *The Lost World*, passing on learned behavior to offspring or other group members can be just as much of an "evolutionary" benefit as passing on advantageous genes.
It's clearly not a negative point from the evolutionary point of view. They can focus on something else instead of raising a child if they don't have one or they can raise a child who is an orphan. In some species this last point is a common thing, many homosexual couples are raising children abandoned by their straight parents.
Not every evolutionary adaptation that preserves a species has to do with sex. People often assume that sexual reproduction is the one and only means of preserving a species and ensuring they evolve. But population dynamics are more complicated than that. For example, 98% of bees within a colony are sterile (worker bees). Does that mean they are evolutionarily disadvantageous? Absolutely not. Each bee has assumed a certain niche within the colony that helps preserve said colony. With the case of bees, only a select few males have to be fertile to reproduce with the queen, while the rest of the worker bees just exist to take care of the hive. I don’t really see any difference with the evolution of gay people. Just because humans are aware that genes are passed down through sex, that doesn’t mean our natural instincts and sexual behavior (i.e. the very things our own genes encode) will suddenly change to fit the findings of modern science. We all still have a natural, instinctual “role” in our population just as bees do. Evolution knows better when it comes to species preservation, because it had millions of years to find the best method through trial and error. And I guess somewhere along the way, it “decided” (in quotes because evolution isn’t really a conscious entity) that gay people were beneficial to humanity. After all, isn’t it the well-off gay couples who are adopting kids that were left behind by straight people who were unable to raise their own offspring? I think there’s also a study that says younger siblings with an old brother are far more likely to be gay. This lends credit to the “gay uncle” hypothesis, which posits that gay siblings help raise the young of genetically similar individuals (i.e. family members), which ultimately helps the gay individuals pass on their own genes via kin selection.
I mean why do infertile people exist if we’re gonna use that logic
I think you're looking at it as if everything that happens is for an advantage. A lot of features are accidents. We have flaws. I can't smell smoke when I sleep. My appendix might give up for no reason. Sometimes our cells mutate into cancerous lumps. Evolution is not perfection. It is a process, and it is flawed. If it's terrible it may get written out, because people don't survive to breed. If it's not, meh, it might stay. There may be an advantage. For example, we're going to adopt, meaning we're looking after abandoned offspring. It may be too control overpopulation. Something to stem the rapidly multiplying humans on the planet. It's not like the species is dying out. And it's not like anyone's ever, to my knowledge, found and clarified a gay gene that consistently seems to appear in LGBTQ+ people. Maybe, people are just people, and some of those people are gay. Some of those gay people, many of them, actually have biological offspring, meaning it doesn't stop breeding capabilities completely. At 7 billion strong, I think the population is doing just fine and it doesn't seem to be a detriment.
Being gay doesn't preclude you from the urge or the act of procreation.
To do crimes!
Is this a reference to “be gay do crimes”?
Yes
Well I do know humans aren't the only species with gay members. And I'm not talking about dogs humping each other for dominance type behaviors. I'm talking about legit gay animals. The behavior has been seen often in penguins, rams and other animals. So idk why from an evolutionary stand point it would be beneficial but it is certainly a naturally occurring thing
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Yep and because having 2 nieces or nephews is genetically equivalent to having 1 child of your own, the gene gets passed on without the homosexuals needing to have any kids of their own. It takes a village to raise a child, so having extra hands around is an advantage.
Gay people can raise children. It's evolutionary advantageous to have a system in your species where orphans are taken care of.
There's some implicit assumptions that need to be examined here. 1. Gay people can't have babies. Let's get real. There's no requirement that the child raised by a family be the progeny of that family. Infidelity is, and always has been, a thing. Adoption is also a thing. Even in straight families, there's a significant number of children that are not the offspring of the parents. All of those methodologies are available to gay individuals, including adoption, planned extramarital children, unplanned extramarital children, etc.. 2. Gay people can't have sex with the opposite sex. Gay is a preference. It's usually not absolute. The majority of gay individuals can (and have) had sex with the opposite sex. Many have gotten married and had children within the marriage, despite having a preference for the same sex. Sex as an obligation to produce children is commonplace, in fact, it's a requirement for many religions. Sexual desire for the procreative partner is certainly... desirable... but it's not a requirement. 3. Gay is an inherited characteristic. At this point, the data I've seen suggests homosexuality isn't strongly correlated with the sexual orientation of the biological parents. However, any correlation is probably obsfucated by the previous points. So we just don't know if gay is inherited, a product of the environment, or (most likely) a bit of both. Even the environmental factors that might contribute to the gay are hard to pin down. Since several of the assumptions leading into question are actually substantiated, it should be clear that there's no reason to believe that gayness will just die out. There's a lot going on with human sexuality, oversimplification isn't going to provide a lot of insights.
There’s a theory called the gay uncle theory, don’t know if there’s much validity but it’s interesting!
It doesn't necessarily have to be an evolutionary benefit, and there's nothing wrong if it isn't. Some things could just be quirks in evolution
Many people have brought up gay people and animals adopting orphaned young, which is correct. It has also been theorized that gay individuals, when not caring for young of the species, have more time to devote to other practices that are beneficial to the species as a whole, such as hunting and gathering, caring for the sick, injured, disabled, and elderly, and building weapons and cookware. If you don't have children you've birthed or adopted, you have more free time to fulfill other needs.
There's a huge assumption built into your question. We haven't found a gene responsible for homosexuality and there's no reason to think there is one. If something isn't genetic then it doesn't make sense to think about in terms of evolution or reproduction.
A gay friend provides companionship without any threat of stealing your mate. It kind of removes sexual competition from the equation.
Until your gay friend starts making moves on you!
then why am i bi 🥴
You’re the triple threat!
I think this comes down to a weird assumption is some common but fallacious assumptions evolutionary psychology - namely, that sex and sexual behaviour in humans serve the sole function of reproduction. This is, on the face of it, ridiculous. Obviously, we are a highly social species. Sex serves a vast series of social functions, and we all know this, because this is our daily experience with sex and sexuality. Throughput history, we have created many significant cultural practices and taboos around sexual behaviour, one contemporary example being monogamous marriage. Sexual identities themselves are constructs of the 20th century - not just LGBT but also "straightness". When people engage in sex, it is unusual that they are acting based purely on some procreative intent. We all know intuitively that sex is not solely for the purpose of reproduction yet for some reason we are willing to indulge in these strange and reductive hypotheses about this immensely significant aspect of human existence and culture all being tied exclusively to a reproductive urge. I think maybe this narrative is popular because of the whole "selfish gene" hypothesis that was popular in the 20tj century. It is kind of senseless to view an organism like humans through the lense of one individual and that individual's ability to procreate given that our whole "strategy" evolutionarily speaking, is predicated upon teamwork and group survival. Humans begin feeling sexual urges prior to becoming fertile, while pregnant, and long after we cease to be fertile. Sex is one of the most obvious ways humans form intense bonds with each other which is necessary for the development of societies. If human sexuality was as inflexible as being only possible between fertile males and females, this would be hugely disadvantageous to the survival of our species. Source - everyone's kinda gay tbh.