Genetics, Sex, and Gender

For those of us who think that sexual behavior and experience must be more complicated than which public bathroom you use, or what alleles you have in which order, the push by geneticists, socio-biologists and evolutionary psychologists to find specific genetic markers for all our sexual desires and orientations is a little harrowing.

Just recently researchers proposed they had found the first evidence of a genetic marker for sexual desire and arousal. Genetic research just sounds so conclusive, what with those long words, and the “proof” of a physical marker, that the people who argue against it, with their it’s-a-little-more-complicated-than-that debates can seem a bit soft.

So Friday was a confusing day for the vast majority of us who can’t really understand genetic research lingo, and would like to belief that we are at least partly individuals who developed in a social context. First there was a surprising profile in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), which exposes some of the flaws in genetic research:

"Geneticists on the trail of genes for human behavior have a 15-year record of finding DNA that increases the likelihood that a person will be neurotic, depressed, schizophrenic, a thrill seeker ... only to see other scientists claim their research shows that the gene is no more common in people with that trait than in anyone else.

Now there is a glimmer of an explanation for why such "failures to replicate" are common in behavioral genetics: The same gene produces different traits in different people."

The article describes research into what was coined “the violence gene” and how the initial research, which claimed to have discovered a genetic marker for violence was later found to be less than a perfect fit. It cites other researchers who argue that life regularly intervenes in genetics to determine what our actual behaviors will be.

Before I had time to recover from the shock of reading such a balanced piece in the WSJ, this Reuters item popped up on my computer “Gene study shows sex differences go deep.” According to the article researchers examining genetic expression in mice have discovered that sex plays a major role in the way that genes express themselves. The article quotes a statement by participating researcher Xia Yang,

"Males and females share the same genetic code, but our findings imply that gender regulates how quickly the body can convert DNA to proteins. This suggests that gender influences how disease develops."

Notice the fact that the researcher blurs the definitions of sex and gender, and the implication is that both are genetically determined. If you’re XX you’re a girl, if you’re XY you’re a boy, and let’s pretend those are the only options. While this research is more about the progression of disease, the reporting on it, which was brief and a bit clumsy, takes us back to square one where what’s really important is what’s in our genes.

There’s no catchy end to this discussion. Clearly it’s one that will continue forever. I just wish that journalists could help us out by covering this research with slightly more nuanced or at least more critical thinking.

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