On Oct. 21, research was published that could possibly have several effects on our society and medical practices. A method was established to accurately determine a baby’s gender as well as prove that homosexuals and transgendered persons do not choose to be non-heterosexual, as some people tend to believe. This research has the gay public, as well as others, wondering what this information will mean to the non-heterosexual world.

Scientists at the University of California—Los Angeles were performing research on brain sexual differentiation. Their experiments were designed to determine whether sexual identity was developed by hormones alone, or if there were differences in the genes between male and female brains.

Previously, scientists thought sexual identity was determined only by hormones, mainly testosterone. It is known that hormones do in fact play a large role. However, they had reason to believe the brain develops independently of hormones as well.

Their experiment was done by cutting out embryos of mice and then dissecting their brains, extracting DNA. Their analysis of this data proved there were distinct differences between the male and female brain.

According to the researchers, this information is money! One newspaper cited a statistic that malformed genitalia occur in 1 percent of all births, which equals approximately 3 million cases. This means that doctors cannot always accurately determine the sex of the baby. In these cases, a baby is usually assigned a gender — most often the gender is chosen by the features which most closely resemble male or female features.

Most often in this situation, body parts are altered or surgically removed to create the appearance that the child is in fact whatever gender was chosen for them. This could have harsh emotional consequences as the child ages and begins to question his or her sexuality. According to Eric Vilain, one of the scientists on this project, this research could help provide physicians with a device which will precisely determine the gender of a newborn.

With technology growing as rapidly as it is, our old-fashioned methods of determining sexuality are no longer useful in some circumstances. It’s a wonder no one has come up with a more scientific method to determine sexuality upon birth before now. The ability to rely more on facts than appearances may change the whole course of a person’s life.

Another major factor this data brings forth is that it has the potential to change society’s perception of gays and transgendered persons. It seems some people do not accept homosexuality because they do not understand the person has not made a choice to become gay.

We know dealing with being homosexual in our society is difficult because of the intense scrutiny these people face. Therefore, it should seem apparent no one would “choose” to live this way.

Vilain said, “If you can’t do anything about it, you should have all the rights to be integrated into society and have the same rights as heterosexuals in terms of marriage and the rights to inheritance.” Obviously, no one would knowingly choose to make their lives more complicated. There is a definite narrow-minded thought pattern toward the gay community because this issue is not clear to many people.

On the other side, some groups don’t seem to think this data should determine how our society views the gay community. They believe laws should protect everyone in America equally, no matter what sexual identity they are.

Although many people would hope this view would be the mindset for everyone in society, it is definitely not the case.

As more data comes in to state that no one can jump between being gay and straight and vice versa, more people may see this as fact. Any amount of data may be helpful in persuasion.

This research information is past due in our society. We have been facing issues dealing with ambiguous sexual identity and discrimination against gays for a long enough time period that it is necessary for the scientific world to step in at some point.

Luckily we may finally be on the right track.

The information provided by the scientists at UCLA is a basis for more research to follow — the knowledge we gain can only bring more open-mindedness to these issues.