An evolutionary perspective on homosexuality: Testing the sexually antagonistic genes hypothesis through familial fertility analysis
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F25%3A10499187" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/25:10499187 - isvavai.cz</a>
Alternative codes found
RIV/00216208:11310/25:10499187
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=jKu8k8pGzb" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=jKu8k8pGzb</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.106649" target="_blank" >10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.106649</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
An evolutionary perspective on homosexuality: Testing the sexually antagonistic genes hypothesis through familial fertility analysis
Original language description
There is robust evidence to the effect that homosexual individuals have systematically less offspring. The sexually antagonistic genes hypothesis claims that this fitness-related disadvantage of homosexual individuals is compensated by their other-sex relatives exhibiting greater fertility than the relatives of straight individuals. It would allow explain how genetic variants associated with homosexuality persist in the human population. Nevertheless, previous studies yielded conflicting results and, moreover, they focused almost solely on the fertility of gay men's relatives. We present the results of a large preregistered study based on data on fertility of both gay men's and lesbian women's relatives. We have analyzed the fertility and biological kin fertility of 693 gay men, 843 straight men, 265 lesbian women, and 331 straight women from Czechia and Slovakia. As expected, gay men and lesbian women sired significantly less offspring than straight individuals. However, we also found no evidence supporting the sexually antagonistic genes hypothesis, i.e., no difference between the fertility of other-sex relatives of homosexual and heterosexual individuals. Interestingly, though, paternal grandparents of gay men had more offspring than the paternal grandparents of straight men did. The mothers of lesbian women had a higher fertility than the mothers of straight women, but that could be attributed to intervening effects, such as the excess of older brothers in homosexual individuals. Our results suggest that mechanisms other than those predicted by the sexually antagonistic genes hypothesis are involved in the evolution of human homosexual orientation.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50101 - Psychology (including human - machine relations)
Result continuities
Project
—
Continuities
S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Evolution and Human Behavior
ISSN
1090-5138
e-ISSN
1879-0607
Volume of the periodical
46
Issue of the periodical within the volume
1
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
9
Pages from-to
106649
UT code for WoS article
001400300600001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85213266283