Sexual orientation has genetic basis

Richard Pillard (pictured) - professor of psychology in the Boston University School of Medicine - has been doing research which suggests a strong biological basis for sexual orientation. Pilliard said through his research and personal experiences, he believes there may be a genetic basis for sexual orientation and the origin is "prenatal, partially genetic just like heterosexuality." Many of his own family members are gay, he said. In a study in which he was involved, Pilliard said many gay individuals interviewed did have a significant number of gay relatives in their family histories. Another study he worked on involving twins showed that identical twins were more often either both gay or both straight.

Only within the past several decades has it become acceptable in the United States to be gay, something that made it difficult for people like Richard Pillard, a professor of psychology in the Boston University School of Medicine, to come out until later in life.
About 100 students, faculty and members of the Boston community gathered at the Stone Science Library to hear Pillard speak about these challenges, as well as the research he and others have been doing which suggests a strong biological basis for sexual orientation.
"It was a huge difficulty," he said on being gay in the 1950s. "It was unthinkable."
His lecture, titled "Born This Way: The Biology and Psychology of Sexual Orientation," was organized by Marsh Chapel's LGBTQ group and was part of a series titled "OUTlook."
College of Arts and Sciences senior Arcangelo Cella, who helped plan the lecture, said the group tries to choose different, varied topics for each lecture in the series.
"We believe that gay people have made an imprint in every discipline," she said. "We believe that a lot of these issues are relevant to the gay community in a special way and deserved to be looked at in a special way."
During the discussion, Pillard explained in the 1960s, when he began working in Boston, everyone was programmed to be straight and if something was wrong with a person, it was because they were gay.
"If you were depressed, you were gay," he said as an example.
It was around this time, he said, that people in the gay and lesbian community realized things had to change.
The event that caused this realization was the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which were violent demonstrations against police raids that took place at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village.
People began questioning psychologists around this time asking why being gay had to correlate with negative problems.
"Why is it that the presumption as to be that being gay has to be connected to difficulties you may have?" Pilliard asked.
Pilliard said it was then that he and other psychiatrists decided they needed to start doing some serious research into what being gay meant from both a psychological and biological perspective.
Pilliard said through his research and personal experiences, he believes there may be a genetic basis for sexual orientation and the origin is "prenatal, partially genetic just like heterosexuality."
Many of his own family members are gay, he said.
In a study in which he was involved, Pilliard said many gay individuals interviewed did have a significant number of gay relatives in their family histories.
Another study he worked on involving twins showed that identical twins were more often either both gay or both straight.
"In general, women's sexual orientation is less concrete," Pilliard said, on figuring out a man or woman's sexual orientation. "Men check their cock, women check their brains."
This contributes, he said, to the higher number of women who are bisexual. Very few men, especially older than their 30s, are bisexual, Pilliard said.
"Women are less programmed genetically," he said.
In further talking about the difference between men and women, he said there are certain physical and personality traits that seem to characterize gay individuals.
Gay men seem to be "more in a feminine direction" while lesbians have dispositions that are "more like that of the men."
College of Fine Arts freshman Robert Lucchesi, a member of OUTlook, said he was happy he attended the lecture.
"It was definitely something that interested me as a topic," he said.
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore also expressed his enthusiasm for the lecture series.
"I've been involved with issues involving gay marriage in Massachusetts so I have an interest," Elmore said. "I like to get around to a variety of different programs that students do, as you can see. . .I think we need to have more conversations around here and certainly out in the world about how we treat each other. . .I'm just very intrigued by the subject matter."

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