This is something GLBT and Deaf people have in common with one major difference that should be noted. There is such a thing as the Deaf gene. Deafness (defined as the state of being Deaf) is hereditary in some families that can span several generations. Right now, the conventional wisdom is that homosexuality is not hereditary. Third or fourth generation Gay families are unheard of, to date. In fact, there is a debate raging on whether the gay gene actually exists.
As discussed in Part I, most of the people in the LGBT and Deaf communities are born to heterosexual and hearing parents. There is one difference between the two groups though. There are well documented cases of the hereditary Deaf gene spanning several generations in families, which consist of Deaf parents, Deaf grandparents, Deaf aunts, uncles and cousins, with a few hearing relatives thrown in. In these families, deafness often is not viewed as an aberration.
As for the gay gene, there is much debate on whether it even exists. There is no official documentation on whether there are third or fourth generations of homosexuals, to my knowledge. (Unofficially speaking, I know a Deaf man who comes from a large Deaf family of six children. Three of these children are gay, including this Deaf man. His father’s uncle had 12 children, three of them gay.) At present, we have gay parents either adopting children or conceiving children through artificial insemination.
This leads one to wonder about whether eugenics would go into play for the gay community as it has for the Deaf community. We have all watched the debate raging in the United Kingdom over the proposed bill regulating embryonic selection…in short, the mandatory selection of hearing embryos over embryos found to have the Deaf gene…at the cost of the latter embryo’s life. Different views have been written on the subject in blogs like Mishka Zena, Digital Toast, and The Ouch!
Supposing that the gay gene has indeed been proven to exist beyond a doubt, and a gay couple may wish to select an embryo that possesses that particular gene. Would there be such a hue and cry about this as there was in the controversy surrounding the Lichys?
Remember, audism is at play in the UK situation. What makes one think that homophobia and heterosexism would not be a factor in this potentially controversial scenario?