Science of Sex, Gender and Attraction

Science tells us that no matter how hard others try, there is no gay gene to fix, no vaccine or treatment for a gay disease. Gay people are a simple fact of life, and we now have the answer as to why. Science has provided us with the evidence and proof of all people’s right to exist. Science is the language that we use to understand the beauty and diversity of our world. It is science that explains how we have always been here, right beside our cis gender and heterosexual friends, families, neighbours, allies and those who would try to devalue our existence.

We can now explain why so many of our transgender and queer family ‘feel and just ‘know’ they are not the gender that their bodies look like, and why they feel they were “born this way”. That is because science can now tell us that biological sex, gender identity, and sexual attraction are not connected to each other and develop at different times during fetal development. Every person only discovers who they are as they grow older, and often by age 6 or so, they begin to understand who they are and who they are not. This is an intrinsic knowing.

Everyone’s biological sex is decided by the sperm and that begins between week 6-7 of fetal development. Before that, the fetus, which is a group of cells from both the egg and the sperm, has no sex identity. Scientist and geneticists have determined there are many more sex types than just XX female and XY male, there are also XXY, XXX and XXYY expression to name just a few. We know that gonadal differentiation is separate from sexual differentiation in the brain. These two can match and be the same, and they can also be different and not match.

We also know that the fetal brain begins in a female state. The center area of right side of the hypothalamus regulates gender identity and front left side of the hypothalamus guides the gender preference. At the 12-week mark of fetal development, the differentiation begins and is connected to the level of testosterone and sensitivity on the tips of chromosomes (DNA stands), call epi-genetics, to hormones.

Biological sex has always been more complex than male or female and it is not determined by any single trait and it’s not turned off or on by any single gene. It is an assortment of overlapping interactions between chromosomes, hormones and genes that determines sex, and gender and sexuality or sexual orientation. It’s is part of normal fetal development and that is how we are all born. Science confirms many possible groupings and characteristics which are created after conception and before birth and are all just as valid to exist.