We can't choose our sexual orientation because it's genetically inherent

Question: Are people born gay?
Position1 of 4›: Yes, people are born gay
Argument‹2 of 6›: We can't choose our sexual orientation because it's genetically inherent

We have a stake in our own development through free will and existential choice. If we can't choose our sexuality, it must be innate rather than developed. Genetics and physical development can't be changed.

The argument

Everyone has characteristics they are born with, and their genetics contribute to both their physical and their mental state. The argument's first move is simply to deny that sexual preference is an exception to this. If inherited biology shapes temperament, disposition and much else about a person's inner life, there is no obvious reason to treat attraction as the one feature that arrives from outside it. Sexual orientation, on this view, is innate. The genetic claim is offered as direct support. There is a gene called Xq28 that has been said to influence sexual orientation, passed from mother to son, and held to increase feelings of same sex attraction. The inference drawn from this is short: if there is a gene, then people must be born with an initial sexual orientation, since whatever a gene contributes is present from the beginning rather than adopted later. That is what rules out choice — not that choosing would be wrong, but that the thing in question was already settled before any choice could have been made. Lived accounts are offered as the second line of evidence, and they are meant to corroborate the first from the inside. People report having known they were gay since they were little, remembering feelings for people of the same gender, and carrying that feeling throughout their lives until they finally acknowledge their orientation. The sequence described is one of recognition rather than decision. And most of the time it is not only the person themselves who notices: often their family knows there is something different about them as well, which suggests the orientation was apparent as a fact about the person before they had named it, let alone selected it.

Context

Existentialists believe people are free and responsible agents. They have a stake in their own development through their choices and acts of free will. Things which we cannot choose are not developed but assigned before birth.

Premises

[P1]People are born with genetic characteristics shaping their physical and mental state, and sexual orientation is similarly innate—the Xq28 gene, passed from mother to son, is said to increase same-sex attraction. [P2] Many gay people report having known their orientation since childhood, often noticed by their families too, indicating an initial orientation present from birth. [C] Therefore, because we cannot choose our genetically inherent orientation, people are born gay.

Counter-arguments

The average age that children start to remember things in their life is after 3 and 4 years old. Between the time they’re born and to that age, they are very impressionable. Anything you do could influence how a child could live. That could mean a certain thing could influence the child to have feelings for the same gender. This includes their family. The gene Xq28 is not guaranteed to make men gay. The gene only increases the chances of same sex attraction, but it also influences sexual attraction in general. That means the gene does not force anyone to be gay. Those who have the gene could stay straight for the rest of their lives even if they have the gene. Sexual orientation is ultimately a choice. There are many things that could cause someone to be gay. Genetics can play a part or environment can. But no one is born that way.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Home environment could influence children to be gay. [Rejecting P2] The Xq28 gene is not guaranteed to make men gay because it influences sexual attraction, not determining it.