Talk:Homosexuality

Genes linked to homosexuality discovered by scientists

Genes linked to homosexuality discovered by scientists - [1]. Its a good article and source. 217.76.1.22 (talk) 07:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

This is behind a paywall. If we could link to the actual published study, it might merit a brief mention, but I wouldn't get too excited at this stage. One study is but one study. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 17:28, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

So try to find that study. I dont think it is hard. 46.70.113.190 (talk) 22:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, IP, genes fall under the WP:MEDRS guideline. Read that guideline's WP:MEDPRI and WP:MEDASSESS sections. Per those sections, we should not be adding the material you are citing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned, not only is this behind a paywall but it is a single source. I would not suggest weighing in on a controversial topic based on a single news article, whose conclusions are potentially subjective. Citing the study itself is insufficient since we always favour reliable secondary sources (see WP:PRIMARY). PhysicsSean (talk) 09:17, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

The paper being discussed in scientific american is PMID 29217827; it is a primary source and we will not be generating content based on it. Jytdog (talk) 02:26, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

The quality of such studies can vary.[2] 92.40.156.85 (talk) 11:32, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Hard to comprehend grammar

The following sentence uses so many negatives that it becomes hard to understand: "On October 29, 2014 Singapore High Court dismissed a constitutional challenge against a statute against sodomy. The statute provides a sentence of up to 2 years in jail.[62]" Could it simply be changed to something along the lines of "In 2014 the Singapore High Court upheld a law that criminalises sodomy with a sentence of up to two years' imprisonment." I realise there is a subtle difference between dismissing a constitutional challenge and upholding a law, but for all intents and purposes, the effect is the same. Happy for it to be replaced by a better example if someone can think of one— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbe46 (talk • contribs) 03:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

primary use of the term "gay"

the article currently states that the primary use of "gay" is to refer solely to homosexual males. this feels outdated at best and simply wrong at worst.

"gay" has long referred to homosexuality as a whole. lesbians have been calling themselves "gay" for decades. when someone says "gay people", it's very rare that they're only referring to men.

whilst the use of "gay" solely for men has a place in the article, since that was its original definition (as a sexuality descriptor, anyway—I know it meant "happy" at first), I find the sentence "the most common terms for homosexual people are lesbian for women and gay for men" to be misleading. —mountainhead / ? 12:05, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

also, I believe lesbian is mostly used as a noun and rarely as an adjective; compare "she's gay" and "she's a lesbian". these terms have different uses. when using an adjective for a homosexual woman, people will almost always use "gay". this in my opinion makes both words equally important. —mountainhead / ? 12:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I didn't see your posts here on the talk page until hours ago. The lead doesn't state that "the primary use of 'gay' is to refer solely to homosexual males." It states, "The most common terms for homosexual people are lesbian for females and gay for males, but gay also commonly refers to both homosexual females and males." And that statement in the lead is true. We all know that gay commonly refers to women as well; I and two others recently had a discussion about that. The fact that gay commonly refers to women is why the lead notes it. The lead is not stating that if someone is talking about a gay woman, then gay is unlikely to be used for that woman. It's noting what the most common terms for homosexual people are. Gay men these days are most commonly called "gay," rather than "homosexual" (unless it's a matter concerning scientific research, which still often states "homosexual"). Gay women, at least in the literature, are most commonly called lesbians or lesbian women. It's why our Wikipedia article is titled "Lesbian" rather than "Gay woman." For LGBT organizations, the G is more commonly seen as representing men. The L is for women. Regardless of what we think about application of the term gay, there are sources like this Oxforddictionaries.com source used in the lead of the Gay article; it states, "Gay meaning 'homosexual' became established in the 1960s as the term preferred by homosexual men to describe themselves. [...] Gay in its modern sense typically refers to men (lesbian being the standard term for homosexual women) but in some contexts it can be used of both men and women."

Since gay and lesbian may refer to boys and girls in addition to adults, I understand why you were reverted on "males and females." I also understand that some people have an issue with "females." At the Lesbian article, we used to state "female" and "females" in the lead paragraph; this was to cover girls as well. But an editor took issue with the word, calling it "inappropriate/dehumanizing." And so now, except for "female homosexuality," the first paragraph of that article uses "woman." I stated there on the talk page: "I'm sure that people know that it can refer to girls as well. At least the vast majority of people know that. And for the few who will think that we only mean that the term applies to adult women, the lead does state the following as well: 'The term lesbian is also used to express sexual identity or sexual behavior regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexuality or same-sex attraction.' So, yeah, people should know that 'girls' is included somewhere in that. There's enough in the media these days about teenage lesbians for them to have a clue." Further, when sources are speaking of gay boys and girls, they are more commonly referring to teenagers than to young children. The terms man and woman don't have to be interpreted strictly (as also currently noted in the leads of their Wikipedia articles). Teenage boys and teenage girls may also be considered men and women, especially if age 18 or 19. This is the case in some sources on teenage pregnancy, for example, where girls 15 and up may be referred to as teenage women. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:10, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

that first bit is definitely not how I read the sentence. whilst I agree that what it states is correct having read your clarification, I still think the wording is pretty unclear, making it a bad line. I'd rewrite it e.g. like this:

A common term for homosexual people is gay, though homosexual women are more commonly referred to as lesbians.

as for the second point, whilst you understand why I was reverted, do you actually agree? I'm not sure I can infer what your opinion is from that comment. I definitely take issue with "males" and "females" being there, because:

• trans women aren't technically female. they can still be lesbians
• intersex people who identify as women also aren't technically female, but can also still be lesbians
• trans men are technically female. they can't

I don't think anyone would actually take "women" in this context as only adults. —mountainhead / ? 18:50, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I think that the current wording is fine. I'm not someone who objects to use of "females" (such as in the aforementioned case at the Lesbian article) on the grounds that it's dehumanizing or sexist. And I state that as a woman. As for "trans women aren't technically female," as seen during the recent big debate that took place at Talk:Trans woman, some people would disagree with you on that. Similarly, some would disagree with you on trans men not technically being male. You'd also find disagreements about intersex people, but, like the Intersex article makes clear, most intersex people identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. I do think that people would take "women" to mean adults; I don't think they will be thinking of children (or teenagers). And, really, definitions of "gay" and "lesbian," and background information on the terms, focus on men and women rather than children and teenagers anyway, as seen with the Oxforddictionaries.com source. I doubt that the Oxforddictionaries.com source is using "men" and "women" to include children and teenagers. But, regardless, common sense tells people that children and teenagers can be gay as well. After all, neither this Wikipedia article nor the literature on sexual orientation (or even the media) states that people are not gay until they become adults. As for considering trans issues when wording our Wikipedia articles, like I recently stated, WP:Advocacy has "taken place at our anatomy/biology articles, where some editors have insisted on using the word 'people' (or similar) when a topic is overwhelmingly about males/men or females/women. We can see that here, here, and here (for just a few examples)." I noted that we do consider trans people in some cases, but we are often going to mention sex/gender without broadening language to encompass transgender people and non-binary people. To bring up pregnancy again, pregnancy is something that the vast majority of reliable sources attribute to females/women. So we use gendered language in the Pregnancy article. Similar goes for the Teenage pregnancy article. We do have a Male pregnancy article and a Transgender pregnancy article, though. In this aforementioned discussion, I noted that "we should be following what the literature states with WP:Due weight. No editor should be letting advocacy get in the way of their editing here."

All that stated, I'm not strongly opposed to your suggested wording (and would change "though" to "although"). But I think that if we add "A common term for homosexual people" wording, editors will be tempted to add other terms like queer. And as made clear in the Queer article (and in previous discussions on its talk page), queer is still contentious. This is why I think it's best to note what the most common terms are instead. Not just "a common term."

Since FreeKnowledgeCreator also reverted you, maybe FreeKnowledgeCreator is willing to weigh in on this as well. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:02, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Just wanted to weigh in regarding the supposition about lesbian being used exclusively or primarily as a noun, rather than as an adjective. Actually, it appears to be the reverse: it is six times more frequent as an adjective. The top ten book results are all adjectives: ~ Studies, ~ Histories, ~ Gender, ~ Studies, ~ Theories, ~ Movement, ~ Couples, ~ Psychology, ~ Health, and ~ Partners; it isn't until result #12 that it appears as a noun. Mathglot (talk) 04:13, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Studies of abuse

On the matter of scientific studies of causal factors such as sexual abuse in youth?

"Adolescent boys, particularly those victimized by males, were up to 7 times more likely to identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual than peers who had not been abused." -William C. Holmes, M.D. and Gail B. Slap, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association 1998.ref

Also should be noted are non-sexual forms of abuse such as violence in the home as contributing to homosexuality, not just sexual abuse.-Inowen (nlfte) 23:21, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@Inowen: Conservapedia is not a reliable source. Moreover, there is a causal order issue; do queer children get abuse more because of their queerness, or does the abuse contribute to their queerness? EvergreenFir (talk) 00:44, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Conservapedia has a page to document the simple idea of sex abuse as related to homosexuality, something that should have also been explored here (there is some treatment on a subpage which is sort of buried); the argument that the typical Conservapedian would say is that gay activists are in force on Wikipedia, and act as a lobby, and for political reasons brush away theories connecting homosexuality to sexual abuse, physical violence, and other environmental factors. To Conservapedia's credit, they've published a little page and it cites JAMA; to Conservapedia's discredit they have not yet developed a document, even as an outline, on the connection between physical violence and homosexuality; certainly there must be some anecdotal corroboration. Inowen (nlfte) 04:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Inowen: The idea that sexual abuse causes homosexuality is not widely held and WP:FRINGE from what I can tell. As such, it does not get included as doing so would be WP:UNDUE.

As for the cabal of queer activists, I can neither confirm not deny our existence. But suggesting that other editors are against you for political purposes is not looked kindly upon here. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: The idea that abuse is a factor is not fringe; the few studies show a deep correlation. The other side proposes the idea that God made gays gay in the genetic code which is actual fringe. If the idea is that there is no God anyway, then that's injecting atheism into the argument and connecting homosexual politics with atheism. -Inowen (nlfte) 21:07, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Inowen: I don't follow. The mainstream view of homosexuality is that it is not a lifestyle choice, but rather a more fundamental way of being and that it is unclear why some people are gay. One hypothesis is the "gay gene(s)" hypothesis. There's the birth order hypothesis and hormone hypothesis. No mention of any gods as scientific hypothesis cannot address non-empirical claims. But, as far as I understand it, the idea that sexual abuse is a primary (or even significant) causal factor in homosexuality is not a widely held view (i.e., fringe). The WP:BURDEN is on you to show otherwise. EvergreenFir (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

But these are all fringe theories cloaked in science-like theorizing and jargon. Abuse is a more likely "mainstream" "empirical" "widely-held" cause.-Inowen (nlfte) 21:44, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

No, they are not all fringe theories. These are the theories reliable sources talk about and that we talk about per WP:WEIGHT. EvergreenFir (talk) 22:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

You say they are not fringe theories. You say these theories have reliable sources. Has there been some check on whether these theories are not fringe, and are from reliable sources? There are credentialled researchers who propose outlandish ideas as theoretical fact all the time, ideas like gay genes are real and there is no God are two of them.-Inowen (nlfte) 01:01, 7 February 2019 (UTC)