Men with older brothers are more likely to be gay, study suggests

[left-of-center2012]

Men with older brothers are more likely to be gay, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

This new report builds upon previous research regarding male birth order and homosexuality, though there is still no decisive conclusion as to why there’s a link between the two.

In cross-analyzing data from 10 scientific studies with more than 5,000 subjects, researchers found that men with older brothers were 38 percent more likely to identify as gay.

(But ... doesn’t that mean, 62% were not likely to identify as gay?)

full article :
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/men-older-brothers-are-more-likely-be-gay-study-suggests-n1165201

“A method yielding comparable estimates of the fraternal birth order and female fecundity effects in male homosexuality”

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.2907

[applegrove]

1. There is a documentary that goes into this called "Survival of the Fabulous".

Women who have lits and lits of children would have daughters who were also fertile. And if they had a brother or two who made an income like a man (hunting, farming, a trade) but did not have a family of their own, they could help their sisters and their aister's kuds. Sure enough they went to Samoa to test it out on Samoan culture and sure enough a gay man who had a small business was paying for the school fees of his nieces and nephews from his sister.

Same thing with grandmothers in a quebec study. Records of families go back 400 years and families that had grandmothers who lived long had more surviving descendants.

We used to be communities before Ayn Rand destroyed it all.

[raging moderate]

2. I heard that some research suggested some unusual hormone during gestation.

Several years ago, I knew a couple whose daughter had just come out as a lesbian. They were very responsible parents and wanted to know all about it, in order to support her as much as possible. They had gone online and found research that suggested some kind of unusual maternal hormone fluctuation during a child's gestation might be the source of homosexuality. The researchers had not yet figured out exactly what the fluctuation might be or what caused it. It seemed to be random. I never heard any more about it. It would certainly explain a lot.

[left-of-center2012]

3. What about twins?

I know a set of twins where one is gay and one is not.

[Skittles]

4. or maybe they are more likely to be OPENLY gay

[Laffy Kat]

5. I've always heard that.

In our family, it is the oldest son, however.

[murielm99]

6. Surely this is not a new study.

I took child development classes in grad school twenty years ago. Some of the studies were old enough to be written about in my textbook.

[Odoreida]

7. Interesting, but the opposite of true in my particular case. n/t