Psychology Facts

▼ Sexual Orientation ▼

Sorry this is a little short and repetitive, this is all I could find on the topic.

》Sexual orientation describes patterns of sexual, romantic, and emotional attraction—and one's sense of identity based on those attractions. Some scientists categorize sexual orientation as being attracted to men or masculinity (androphilic), women or feminity (gynephilic), bisexual, asexual, or something else.

》Heterosexual: attraction to persons of the opposite sex.

Homosexual or gay/lesbian (the preferred terms): attraction to persons of the same sex.

Bisexual: attraction to both men and women.

Asexual: not sexually attracted to either men or women.

Pansexual: attraction to people regardless of their gender

》Research indicates that men with older brothers are more likely to be gay. The so-called Fraternal Birth Order effect was identified in 1996 and has been replicated since.

》One hypothesis is that successive male pregnancies produce a maternal immune response that influences brain development. Another is that it could theoretically reduce sibling rivalry.

》Both transgenderism and homosexuality are facets of human biology, believed to derive from different sexual differentiation of the brain.

》Research shows that LGBTQ individuals suffer from anxiety, depression, substance use, and suicidality at typically higher rates than their heterosexual peers.

》Some scientists say the new findings are part of an increasingly convincing body of evidence that suggests sexual orientation results from fundamental developmental differences that are probably caused by hormonal exposures in the womb.

》While sexual orientation is about being emotionally or romantically attracted to other people, "gender identity" describes a person's own internal feelings of being male or female (masculine or feminine); or a blend of both or neither (genderqueer).

》Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.

》A person's sexual orientation usually emerges between ages 6 and 13

》The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.

》Previous studies have also shown differences in brain architecture and activity between gay and straight people, but most relied on people's responses to sexuality driven cues that could have been learned, such as rating the attractiveness of male or female faces.

》A recent study reveals that straight men had asymmetric brains, with the right hemisphere slightly larger – and the gay women also had this asymmetry.

》Gay men, meanwhile, had symmetrical brains like those of straight women.

》They found that the patterns of connectivity in gay men matched those of straight women, and vice versa (see image, above right). In straight women and gay men, the connections were mainly into regions of the brain that manifest fear as intense anxiety.

》Gay women's brains tended to be more like those of straight men than of straight women — the right side tended to be slightly larger than the left.

》gay men tended to be more like straight women, with a stronger link between the amygdala and regions involved in emotions.

》Gay women tended to be more like straight men, with stronger connections to motor functions.

》LeVay and other researchers said the findings fit with studies that found gay people tended to have different ratios in the lengths of their fingers and in the frequency of imperceptible clicking sounds in the ear.

》These findings also fit with studies showing gay men tend to choose professions that typically attract women, such as teaching and social work and have verbal and other cognitive skills that tend to be more like women's