This Hormone Your Mom Took While Pregnant May Have Affected Your Sexual Orientation

It's a known and accepted fact within the science community that being gay isn't a choice. Instead, it's ingrained in people's genetic makeups.

Some babies are born female, while some are born male. Some come out straight, and others come out gay.

That being said, there hasn't been a whole lot of research on exactly what it is in our biological makeup that makes one person gay and another one straight.

But now, scientists are saying your mom's hormones may actually be to blame.

A new study, conducted by researchers from Emerita of The Kinsey Institute in the US, aimed to explore how hormones some moms took during pregnancy affected their children's sexual orientations.

Basically, they found that children whose mothers took progesterone while pregnant were more likely to identify as bisexual or gay when they became adults.

The study, published online in Archives of Sexual Behavior, looked at 34 people (17 males and 17 females) whose moms took progesterone while pregnant.

The participants, who were all born in Denmark and in their mid-20s, were asked to fill out a survey and participate in a formal interview with a psychologist, who asked them questions relating to their sexual orientations and histories.

Children whose mothers took progesterone while pregnant were more likely to identify as bisexual or gay when they became adults.

The results were pretty staggering. Across the board, the children of mothers who took progesterone were significantly more likely than their other peers to engage in non-heterosexual behavior and were way less likely than other groups to describe themselves as straight.

In fact, 20 percent of them identified as something other than straight. And what's even more interesting was that they found that both sexes were more attracted to men.

If you're more of a numbers person, let's put it this way: These kids were 24 percent more likely to have ever had any sort of same-sex sexual behavior, 29 percent more likely to be attracted to the same sex and 17.6 percent more likely to be attracted to both sexes.

These kids were 24 percent more likely to have ever had any sort of same-sex sexual behavior, 29 percent more likely to be attracted to the same sex and 17.6 percent more likely to be attracted to both sexes.

By now, you're probably wondering what progesterone is exactly, and why it's so important for pregnant women to take. Well, it's a naturally produced hormone that's especially important for women's menstrual cycles and also helps them maintain their pregnancies.

In fact, doctors frequently prescribe moms-to-be progesterone to take as a means of supporting the fertilization process and preventing miscarriages.

This study is honestly a big freaking deal. We all knew our sexual orientations are something we're naturally born with, but we never really understood what could possibly contribute to making us the way we are. So this is a start.

All right, now call your mom, and ask her what hormones she took when she was preggers with you.

Citations: Bisexuality May Start During Pregnancy: Children With Mothers Given Hormone More Likely To Identify As 'Bi' (Medical Daily), Progesterone and bisexuality: Is there a link? (EurekAlert!)