3 ms·

As far as I understand it, "born this way" may as well be true. Environmental factors have never been identified, and there is no clue as to when the determina

As far as I understand it, "born this way" may as well be true. Environmental factors have never been identified, and there is no clue as to when the determination is made. The sexual orientation can only really be observed/felt around puberty, but it seems to be determined long before.

chmod775 7y ago
> Environmental factors have never been identified, and there is no clue as to when the determination is made. > but it seems to be determined long before [puberty]. If your first statement is true, your second statement has no basis. If your second statement is based on anything, your first statement is false. Just pointing this out because I'm curious what the actual findings in this area are.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  You don't need to know any deciding factors to observe the decision. Sexual orientation, at least if we are talking about mostly-heterosexual vs mostly-homosexual as a trait is first observable around puberty, and doesn't seem to change, ever. So puberty is an upper bound for the determination having been made. And I really can't imagine that it would be this hard to figure out what factors "turn someone gay" if the decision is made closer to puberty. If it were already determined at birth, much like gender, it would fit with what we observe about homosexuality not being a choice, not being "curable" or "preventable". I'm not a scientist with deep knowledge in this topic, but from what I understand, there is no evidence pointing to the determination happening after birth.
  - chmod775 7y ago
    > So puberty is an upper bound for the determination having been made. So there are in fact some "clues as to when the determination is made". Clues such as this one and others you pointed out. This was really all I was confused about.

3 ms·

As far as I understand it, "born this way" may as well be true. Environmental factors have never been identified, and there is no clue as to when the determina

by bayesian_horse 7y ago

chmod775 7y ago
> Environmental factors have never been identified, and there is no clue as to when the determination is made. > but it seems to be determined long before [puberty]. If your first statement is true, your second statement has no basis. If your second statement is based on anything, your first statement is false. Just pointing this out because I'm curious what the actual findings in this area are.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  You don't need to know any deciding factors to observe the decision. Sexual orientation, at least if we are talking about mostly-heterosexual vs mostly-homosexual as a trait is first observable around puberty, and doesn't seem to change, ever. So puberty is an upper bound for the determination having been made. And I really can't imagine that it would be this hard to figure out what factors "turn someone gay" if the decision is made closer to puberty. If it were already determined at birth, much like gender, it would fit with what we observe about homosexuality not being a choice, not being "curable" or "preventable". I'm not a scientist with deep knowledge in this topic, but from what I understand, there is no evidence pointing to the determination happening after birth.
  - chmod775 7y ago
    > So puberty is an upper bound for the determination having been made. So there are in fact some "clues as to when the determination is made". Clues such as this one and others you pointed out. This was really all I was confused about.