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Comment by missosoup | Hacker News Reader

I was very much 'born this way'. If I could somehow change it or be 'fluid' towards something else, I sure would. Anecdotal yes, but in these cases anecdotal is important because we're talking about personal experiences of individuals.

It might not be a single genetic element, it might be a combination. It might be epigenetic. It might be something during early development. But don't dismiss people who say they're born a certain way just because some other people supposedly said otherwise.

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I completely believe you when you say you are “born this way.” I know many people in that boat. However, it still makes sense to me that only 8% of the variance in sexual orientation is determined by genetic factors. Some are “straighter” than others, some “gayer” than others, and some are more (or less) “born this way” than others.

We are only scratching the surface of genetics and epigenetics and no one in the industry pretends to have the tools to make statements like '8% of the variance in sexual orientation is determined by genetic factor'.

We know that e.g. dementia has a strong genetic component and have still failed to identify it despite knowing with certainty that component is there. We know faces are almost entirely determined by genetics but are still far off from being able to accurately predict a face from dna. We have a long way to go.

You're misappropriating studies that you don't understand to support a personal viewpoint that has no basis in the facts.

“8% of the variance in sexual orientation is determined by genetics” is literally a quote from the study. I don’t have a personal viewpoint one way or another. I’m literally just reading the facts as they’re presented and saying “many types of variance exist.”

Obviously some people choose to be gay, Cynthia Nixon for example, who got in huge hot water for saying that for her, being gay IS a choice. She was specifically not “born that way.” Others clearly are. It’s a spectrum. :)

Totally unrelated to this topic but what an interesting username choice.

Thank you. Praise Yeezus. :)

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