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GENETICS

Ethics of genetic research on same-sex sexual behaviour

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5, pages 1123–1124 (2021)Cite this article

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The ethics of research into the genetics of sexuality is not straightforward. A new study by Zietsch et al. investigates a hypothesis for the evolutionary basis of same-sex sexual behaviour. This increases our understanding of the genetics of complex behaviour, raising questions about whether and how such knowledge should be used.

Studying the genetic basis of human sexual orientation has been fraught—socially, politically, and ethically. In the late 1800s, pioneering psychiatrists, bent on establishing their medical specialty, adopted the term ‘homosexual’ to describe a group of people seen as deviant: needing explanation, diagnosis, and cure. Heterosexuals seemed to need no explanation, their patterns of sexual attraction and behaviour taken to be natural and inevitable1. As the gay rights movement gained steam last century, search for a ‘gay gene’ became entwined with well-intentioned but ultimately fallacious moral arguments: if same-sex attraction was a matter of genetics, then gay people were ‘born that way’ and so should no more be discriminated against on that basis than on the basis of sex or race2.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Julian Savulescu & Brian D. Earp

  2. Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics & Health Policy, Yale University and The Hastings Center, New Haven, CT, USA

    Brian D. Earp

  3. Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Udo Schuklenk

Authors
  1. Julian Savulescu
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  2. Brian D. Earp
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  3. Udo Schuklenk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julian Savulescu.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests. J.S. is a Partner Investigator on Australian Research Council grant LP190100841, which involves industry partnership from Illumina. He does not personally receive any funds from Illumina.

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Savulescu, J., Earp, B.D. & Schuklenk, U. Ethics of genetic research on same-sex sexual behaviour. Nat Hum Behav 5, 1123–1124 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01164-y

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