THE GAY MOSAIC: EVIDENCE OF A BIOLOGICALLY DETERMINED GAY GENDER

The media has been spinning a new study out of  the University of London as entertaining misogynistic and homophobic news about the bad driving habits of women and gay men. The London Telegraph warns:  Be afraid:  Women or gay men could be behind the wheel of any car.

In fact, the study was done by biologists, not sociologists, and has nothing at all to do with value judgments or good and bad driving, rather it has to do with some very interesting gender-based differences in spatial navigation.  And what is even more interesting is that the study demonstrated a clear and objective difference between three "genders": heterosexual men, heterosexual women and homosexual men.  No differences were observed between heterosexual and homosexual women.

The study is certainly much more worthy of attention than a few jokes about bad driving.

According to the scientists: Gay men navigate in a similar way to women, according to the new study just published in the journal Hippocampus.

According to a summary of the research, penned by the scientists and not some moronic journalist or simple-minded blogger:

"Spatial memory in mammals, including humans, appears highly sexually dimorphic. The present investigation sought to examine if spatial learning and spatial memory in humans is also linked to sexual orientation. This was achieved by using virtual reality versions of two classic paradigms developed in animal models of hippocampal functioning, the Morris Water Maze (MWM) and Radial Arm Maze (RAM). Here, we show that in contrast to heterosexual men, and in congruence with heterosexual women, homosexual men displayed significantly greater search latencies (spatial learning) during a virtual Morris Water Maze. During a virtual 8-arm Radial Arm Maze, heterosexual males had significantly shorter search latency than heterosexual females, and did not differ from homosexual males. Statistical modeling revealed that variations in neurodevelopmental markers previously associated with human sexual orientation (2nd to 4th finger length ratios and older fraternal siblings) differentially predicted MWM probe trial performance and RAM search latencies only. These data may limit the number of possible neurodevelopmental pathways responsible for sexual variation in components of spatial learning and memory."

So what the hell does any of that mean?  Well, for starters is does not mean that straight men are studs behind the wheel and women and queers are a mess.

What is does mean is that the researcher used virtual reality scenarios to investigate if spatial learning and memory in humans can be linked to sexual orientation.

Differences in spatial learning and memory (our ability to record and recall information about our environment) are common between men and women. It has been shown that men consistently outperform women on tasks requiring navigation and discovering hidden objects; whereas women are more successful at tests which require them to remember where those objects lie in a particular space.  One could easily draw evolutionary conclusions about hunting and organizing.

This is the first study to investigate if those differences are also true for gay, lesbian and straight individuals.

The researcher used virtual reality stimulations of two common tests of spatial learning and memory, designed by researchers at Yale University. In the Morris Water Maze test (MWM), participants found themselves in a virtual pool and had to escape as quickly as possible using spatial clues in the virtual room to find a hidden platform. In the Radial Arm Maze test (RAM), participants had to traverse eight ‘arms’ from a circular junction to find hidden rewards. Four of the arms contained a reward, four did not.

The researchers found that during the MWM test gay men and straight women took longer to find the hidden platform than did straight men.  However, both gay and straight men spent more of their “dwelling time” in the area where the hidden platform actually was, compared to straight and lesbian women.

The researcher explains:  “Not only did straight men get started on the MWM test more quickly than gay men and the two female groups, they also maintained that advantage throughout the test. This might mean that sexual orientation affects the speed at which you acquire spatial information, but not necessarily your eventual memory for that spatial information."

“In previous studies we have also found that gay men tend to use similar navigation strategies to women, like using landmarks, and we now want to explore whether navigation strategies on these virtual navigation tasks are also the same for gay men and women. In particular, we are interested in whether heterosexual men are using a unique strategy from their first attempt at traversing a new environment, which accounts for why they are so quick off the mark.”

The researchers also found that gay and straight men were similar in their performance on the Radial Arm Maze. “This suggests that sexual variation in spatial cognition is not straightforward – gay people appear to show a ‘mosaic’ of performance, parts of which are male-like and other parts of which are female-like.”

Among other things, this rather basic biological examination clearly points to the diversity of gender-associated behavior in gay men.

Yesterday, I examined stereotypes having to do with gay men and the creative arts.  This new research points to the objective existence of a truly queer perspective that benefits from both male and female functioning.

It's serious food for thought and understanding; and it is tragic to see the media pervert and distort science in order to entertain and propagandize.

Comments

[Andrew]

so they didn't actually test drive anything? They just used pseudo-science to... do what exactly? Back up their claim? Gotta love science.

Seems like they are missing something? Maybe 'location' and 'geography' that might be crucial to their "evidence"

[grepthis2000]

Andrew

Please reread the post, this time slowly and make an effort at comprehension.

The science was OK and the conclusions drawn were interesting.

The study made no claim about driving skills and there was no need to test drive anything.