“Born this way” is a double-edged blade in the era of personal genomics

Why did LGBT biologists react with skepticism last year when Science published the first modern genomic study of same-sex sexuality?

The following is a transcription of my contribution to the 2020 Decolonize DNA Day Twitter conference, with some editing for readability in blog-post format. You can read the original thread starting here, and find audience questions with my responses on the conference Twitter account, @DecolonizeDNA.

Hi, everyone! I’m Jeremy Yoder, and I’m going to be tweeting about the surprisingly complicated relationship LGBTQ folks have had with genetic research. Many thanks to Krystal Tsosie and Latrice Landry for inviting me to contribute to Decolonize DNA Day, and for letting me tweet from the event account while I’m having technical difficulties with my personal account.

A bit about me, to start: I’m a gay man (pronouns he/him) and an evolutionary biologist. I study the evolution of species interactions, particularly helpful ones like pollination or beneficial symbiosis, and I’ve used genomic data in a lot of my work.

You might think I’d be a big booster of research into the genetic basis of sexuality and gender identity, and I have been…