March 5, 2025 • 47 mins
Ever found yourself questioning the roots of your identity? In our latest episode, we dive deep into the thought-provoking intersection of genetics and sexual orientation with Tom, a molecular genetics expert. From childhood crushes to the science of ‘gay genes’, Tom shares his personal narrative, offering a unique lens through which to examine the nature vs. nurture debate. We unravel how individual experiences shape our identities against the backdrop of evolving scientific understanding. Throughout our conversation, we tackle profound questions about the genetics of queerness, touching on studies involving twins and the implications of designer babies. Tom provides critical insights into the ethics surrounding genetic modifications and what it means for future generations, especially within the LGBTQ+ community. We'll explore not just the science, but also the societal attitudes that have historically framed our understanding of queer identities. Our discussion aims to illuminate the complexities surrounding sexual orientation while fostering open dialogue about acceptance and diversity in today’s world. As we share personal stories along with scientific insights, we encourage you to reflect on your thoughts and engage with us in the conversation. Join us on this enlightening journey, and don’t forget to subscribe for more enriching discussions!
Follow the show on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/imnotgayyouarepodcast/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joey (00:14):
Welcome back to another episode of I'm Not Gay you Are.
Today we have Tom here to talkto us about genetics and listen
to his journey and his storyhello, hello.
Tom (00:25):
How's everybody doing?
Joey (00:26):
I'm really excited to share the wealth of knowledge
that you bring on like geneticsand talk to you about, like
nature versus nurture, likebeing gay your experience again
like tom is a good friend ofmine through the hospitality
industry and like we connect onlike a really great level, I
feel like we just get each other.
Oh, we absolutely do yeah, andlike I thought you were a fire
sign and, as you were gonna hear, he's not a fire sign but
(00:46):
you're gonna think he's a lot ofmystery a lot of mystery, yeah,
um, let's get into it yeah,sounds great.
I can't wait to get into it I'ma fan of nature versus nurture,
okay, and I want to talk to youabout your early years, like
when did you know you were gay?
Um, you know like, talk to meabout, like your you know
relationships when you wereyounger, schooling and and like
(01:09):
how being gay like affected yourchildhood.
Tom (01:15):
Yeah, I mean I was always like really flamboyant as a kid.
Like I think it was prettyobvious that I was gay.
Like I think that like I meaneveryone in like middle school
told me that I was gay before Ireally even connected those dots
.
I just thought I was reallyinto my best friend did anything
ever happen oh god, no, he wasstraight um like I remember,
like telling him that I had agiant crush on him, like on my
(01:35):
trampoline in like seventh gradein the summer, um, and he was
like I don't feel the same and Iwas like like it's crazy, are
you sure?
Joey (01:46):
You're like.
What do you mean?
You're using my trampoline.
We're so good together, likelook at the way we bounce
together.
Literally.
Tom (01:53):
And so like I think everyone kind of knew that I was
kind of gay and it was likebecause I like had like this
best friend that I was superinto, so yeah, so it wasn't
really like a surprise foranyone.
Like I didn't really have likea big coming out moment in high
school.
Um, I will say, in grade 10 Iwas, I had like this crush on
another one of my guy friends.
His name is michael and like hewas an art kid does he know?
Joey (02:14):
pardon, does he know or did he know?
Tom (02:17):
because what's if he listens to the pod?
We're still.
Oh sorry, does he know?
Does he know that he weretalking about this or?
Joey (02:22):
does he?
Did he know that you had acrush on him?
Tom (02:24):
Oh yeah, oh wait till you.
Oh, you're going to hear thestory.
Joey (02:26):
Okay okay.
Tom (02:27):
So I had like a little bit of a crush on him, but it wasn't
anything crazy.
But he was an arts kid so helike invited me to like one of
his like theater parties and weended up getting like really,
really, we were so cool at adrama party and our friend like
(02:47):
our mutual friend was like youguys should make out and I
instantly was like no, because Iknow what that means.
I was like uh michael grabbed meand made out with me okay,
which obviously I kissed himback, yeah, um, and then he kind
of like stopped kissing me andlike realizing like what he did
and like freaked out and had themost dramatic reaction and ran
into traffic, um was he notsober?
Joey (03:07):
no, he wasn't.
He was like blackout wasted.
Tom (03:09):
He was like he was just started crying and it was the
most embarrassing thing, everyeah um, like I'm not
embarrassed about it now, butlike, obviously the time I was
like devastated, like oh, wasthat like your first, like
public gay kiss, yes, okay um,and having someone try and run
into traffic afterwards was like, hey, it wasn't that bad you're
like this is gonna cause traumafor me.
I'm gonna have to talk tosomeone about this um but it was
(03:33):
, yeah, it was just really funny.
So I remember like walking intoschool the next or like the
following monday and like notthinking anything about it
because this was like right atthe dawn of facebook and I just
remember like walking into likemy last class of the day and
this girl's standing on her deskand like, pointing and going,
you kissed a boy and I was likeyeah, what the fuck about it?
And so like when I had thatreaction, I don't think people
(03:53):
like we're kind of like, oh yeah, like he's clearly gay, like we
all clearly kind of knew aboutit, like it's not really
anything thing to make fun of atthis point, like right, he, he
doesn't give a shit, so why doesanybody else give a shit?
Yeah, see for me, like I wouldhave cried.
I wasn't that kid.
I had a lot of walls up when Iwas a little one.
(04:14):
I was very defensive.
I was that punk kid who didn'twant.
I was.
I thought I was too cool foreverybody.
I didn't let anyone tell mewhat to do.
Good for you I did not marchanyone else's beat to their own
drum.
I went by my own, nice yeah Iuh, I did not I to anyone else's
beat to their own drum.
Joey (04:26):
I went by my own.
Nice, yeah, I did not.
I was like where's the marchingband and how do I fit in?
Tom (04:32):
Oh my God, I was like the antithesis of that.
I think it's just because I'msuch a hater at heart, I'm not a
follower.
Joey (04:38):
I think it's safety response.
Tom (04:40):
Oh, of course, it's almost like a trauma response, you know
, yeah it's like these walls areup for a reason.
I'm protecting myself and Ilook like I'm on the like but
normally not hurting areactually the ones that care the
most.
Yeah, you know like.
Yeah, speaking from personalexperience, like put it, and
making, making making it seem asif you don't care about
anything means that you care toomuch about everything
(05:01):
everything speaking of what'swhat's your, what's your sign?
Joey (05:04):
I'm a libra.
Okay, it's not a water sign.
Tom (05:08):
No, it's not a water sign it's a I'm a libra sun, a libra
rising and a pisces moon sothere is some water in there
there is some water in therethat's up.
That's up, a little bit of firea lot of no fire, no, no fire,
no.
I actually have zero fire signsin my chart.
What's a Libra?
Joey (05:28):
Air.
Okay, this makes sense.
It's aligning.
Tom (05:30):
I actually have zero fire signs in my chart, though it's
kind of crazy.
Which is crazy?
I?
Joey (05:34):
know, I expected you to be like I'm an Aries, mm-hmm, a
little stubborn.
Well, sister signs.
Well, I'm an aries.
I know that's why I made thegesture.
Okay, I'm like yeah, confidentas a kid.
Tom (05:48):
Then, like me on the outside which is crazy because
like, where'd that come from?
Yeah, it wasn't.
It was confident.
Joey (05:52):
I was just like, very like comfortable, like you knew who
you were like you were like soyou're in high school at this
point, like when did you knowyou were gay?
I?
Tom (06:01):
mean making out with a boy at the party was and liking it
unfortunately solidified somethings confirmed it.
Joey (06:06):
Yeah, for sure.
How old were you at that point?
Tom (06:08):
I think I was 15 yeah, oh, sorry you mentioned that.
Yeah, yeah, I think I was.
Joey (06:11):
I was in grade 10, so and then what did it look like
moving forward for you, goingback to school, and, like you
know, obviously you said that.
Like that girl stood up andsaid that to you, so, like, did
you have any relationships inhigh school?
Tom (06:20):
no, there was like there was one gay kid in my high
school and like it was you.
No, no, sorry there was anothergay kid in my high school and I
just like we didn't.
Joey (06:31):
We just had nothing in common like it was, whereas the
whole school thought you two hadto be together because you're
the only, no, it was like oiland water, like we couldn't be
near each.
Tom (06:38):
It was just like he was very like preppy and into again.
He was just the antithesis ofme just not.
Yeah, not your type no, like, Igot my first tattoo when I was
like 14 in high school, so I waslike what was that kid, um, it
was a raven on my ribs.
Yeah, I'm, I am one.
My best friend, um, got atattoo from this guy in a
basement on her ribs and I waslike that's so cool, I want one.
(06:59):
So I got this giant raven on myribs and it's horrible and I've
had to blast it over like twiceto try and fix it.
Joey (07:05):
Oh, are you lasering?
Tom (07:07):
it.
No, I'm like going over it withlike darker ink to try and like
make it look nicer.
I gave up on it.
Now there's so many that I justwhatever they all kind of they
all blend together, I mean, theylook great, thank you thank you
.
I feel like I have a very uniquetattoo style, yeah, but I like
it works for you.
It looks good.
(07:27):
I just like it because I neversee anyone with tattoos similar
to mine.
Sometimes I see people take agray arm and I'm like, oh wow,
that must suck a gray arm youdon't even see someone with a
sleeve and it just all looksgray oh, yeah, because you can't
decipher any actual things onit.
Joey (07:38):
You're right, what it is right?
Yeah, I don't like that.
Tom (07:40):
It's uh, I think it's a sign of bad artwork.
Joey (07:42):
Personally yeah, well, it's, it's, it's kind of blended
right.
So there's no like you can'tdetermine what is actually on
and included in the sleeve,because it becomes one piece of
art to me, it just screams.
Tom (07:56):
I just went into a tattoo shop and said I wanted a sleeve
to look tough yeah, it's more ofan aesthetic than like an art.
Joey (08:03):
When was your first boyfriend my?
Tom (08:06):
first boyfriend was just out of high school.
Okay, I had an online boyfriend.
Joey (08:11):
Oh, you've told me about this.
Tom (08:12):
Yeah, he's, uh.
So I dated this loser who justhad too much money coming out of
high school and I moved to NewYork for a little bit.
I was like I took a year offschool to go to new york and it
was but he was your pen palfirst right oh yes, yeah, so
like literally I this is so 2013.
Joey (08:32):
I like fully had a tumblr boyfriend this is giving like
your punk emo phase, like likepeak of it, yeah also like, by
the way, tumblr.
Tom (08:40):
This time was like hot yeah , it was the place to be on the
internet you know, know, taylorSwift still uses Tumblr.
Oh, no little.
This is.
This is the time that she waslike having secret sessions with
people.
Joey (08:49):
This is when.
Tom (08:49):
Taylor was into Tumblr and I fully had a Tumblr boyfriend,
um, and that was my firstboyfriend and I met him and he
turned out to be a crazy person.
Joey (08:58):
Well, hey, well, hey, it happens you know, while you live
, you learn and then youdeactivate tumblr literally
blocked.
So then you, you were livingwhere?
Tom (09:11):
in edmonton I was in edmonton and I went back to the
university of alberta and Ifinished my degree there okay
and what was your degree?
Again, I took a bachelor's ofscience with a specialization in
molecular genetics so you'resmart, smart I mean, I don't
like to toot my own horn.
Joey (09:27):
I just I just really enjoyed what I got to do.
Tom (09:29):
Okay, I love that it was a very intense program and I I
really enjoyed all the thingsthat I got to do.
I got a lot of really coolopportunities a lot of really
cool learning experiences.
I got to do my own research, alot of things that I definitely
would not have been able to dojust with a regular bachelor's
degree yeah, yeah, and you'reinterested in it which is like
you know, helps obviously Likewhat you're learning is like
(09:49):
something you're interested in,passionate about.
Totally.
Joey (09:53):
Perfect.
Tom (09:53):
And I was very passionate about it, still am.
Joey (09:56):
The biggest question, I guess, in like queer history
that I always get asked is likenature versus nurture and like
what are your thoughts aroundthat is like nature versus
nurture and and like what areyour thoughts around that?
And then, obviously you havinglike this educational background
in genetics, I'm curious toknow what your scientific brain
is telling us um, versus just myqueer brain.
Tom (10:17):
being like I like boys I have so many opinions about this
, truthfullyfully.
So, for example, the wholenature versus nature argument, I
think, is great becauseunfortunately both are true.
There's no such thing as natureor nurture in entirety, and I
think a really good example ofthis is twin studies.
They'll use twin studies todetermine a lot of behavioral
(10:42):
things, because they canactually take a look at the
genetics being similar oridentical.
And you know, with a scientificprocess you want to eliminate
all of the control variables aspossible.
So, specifically with twinstudies, what you can do is
there's one.
Nordic country that like haslike a really crazy record of
(11:03):
all of their twins that they putup for adoption and like where
they went and what they did isthey?
They tracked people like overhistory and they they determined
like behavioral traits betweenthem.
Okay, so for example,schizophrenia was a really good
example.
When they were looking at thegenetic components behind
schizophrenia, they used twinstudies and they determined like
(11:23):
like if.
For example, if one twin hadschizophrenia, they would use a
twin study to determine if theother twin also had
schizophrenia.
So they could determine somekind of correlation, not like
causation, but at leastcorrelation.
Like you know, if one twindevelops this disorder, will the
other, because their geneticsare the same, and if it is a
completely genetic component toschizophrenia, then the other
(11:45):
twin should also haveschizophrenia.
And what they ended up findingis sometimes it happens,
sometimes it doesn't.
And when they dug a littledeeper they found out that
people that developschizophrenia was a result of
what they called a psychoticbreak.
So they were geneticallypredispositioned to have
schizophrenia, but they waitedfor a really stressful moment in
their life for it to happen tothem right so let's say someone
(12:08):
is genetically they have likeall the genetic factors that
would.
That would give themschizophrenia.
Um, if they are a drug addictand their mom dies and they're
super stressed out, they couldhave the psychotic break which
causes them to have triggersthat yeah.
So if they, if they had a twinand they had a very, they had
the exact same genome and one ofthem went through a stressful
(12:29):
life event and one of themdidn't, that could heavily
influence something likeschizophrenia.
Um, same with being queer.
Um, because queerness itself is, is a behavioral trait that us,
as biologists, have tried tounderstand.
And it's very difficult becausethere's this topic in genetics
called fitness, which is theability for someone or anything
(12:50):
to pass off its genetic materialdown, essentially having
offspring, because if you have acertain trait that makes you
more successful to stay alive orto mate, that will increase
your fitness.
And queerness in itself is kindof counterintuitive to fitness
because you know, as queerpeople, we don't procreate the
(13:12):
way that we're supposed to rightand biology doesn't want us
well, we can't yeah yeah, well,I mean we could, but, like I
mean, depends how much dialysisyou got, you know, yeah, I mean,
which also might not work, wait.
Joey (13:23):
Yeah, true, no, but wait, we obviously can't procreate in
the same way like male andfemale can, right, obviously
like we're not designed to holda baby.
As much as I would love tocarry a child.
Tom (13:37):
I know you look so cute pregnant, but it raises a really
important question, which iswhy, if there is a genetic
component to queerness, if it isevolutionary disadvantage a
disadvantage, why is it stillaround?
Because something is preventingit from dying off, Something is
making it sustain inpopulations.
(13:59):
Because we're still around.
We see evidence of this.
So, something is making it thatthose genetic factors are not
being selected against entirely.
They can be selected against,for sure, but something is not
making sure that they're notbeing selected against entirely.
Joey (14:14):
Right.
Tom (14:15):
So it's raised.
Some questions with biologistshave led to like oh like, just
having queer people in yourimmediate family increase your
overall fitness, because we aresocial creatures, we're not
individuals.
So maybe having a gay siblingcould massively increase your
fitness because it would haveyou could have a male around to
(14:35):
support the child.
You know, queer men often takeon like more feminine roles.
When we look at how we areviewed by society, we do more
quote unquote feminine thingsand those actually might provide
a evolutionary fitness forspecies.
So, that kind of correlates intohow there definitely is a
nature side of genetics andbeing queer, because it
(14:58):
definitely implies that there isa biological component, that
something is being selected on.
Joey (15:04):
That makes sense.
So what I'm hearing is thatpotentially somewhere in my life
before now I've been like notgot through a stressful event or
something, but like somethinghas happened to trigger me to
feel like I want to be queermaybe you know.
Tom (15:29):
I mean, I don't think that was the best example because the
psychotic break is veryspecific to schizophrenia and I
don't think that I want to call.
Joey (15:36):
I want, I want to have a gay psychotic break.
Tom (15:38):
I mean, isn't that just like when we're 14 in the target
underwear aisle?
Yeah I think that's actuallylike the psychotic break, the
gay version of a psychotic break, literally like watching, like
looking at the underwear package, like why did I look?
Also, they had no reason togive them that abs like that
intense I know.
Joey (15:55):
And also, why were they all in black and white?
I know, why did they always putthe hottest straight men on the
underwear too?
It's like.
Do straight men feeluncomfortable wearing it?
Like Like?
I gotta know?
And?
Tom (16:03):
also, why is it so universal that every queer
person knows what we're talkingabout right now?
Yeah, literally.
Joey (16:10):
Anyways, yeah, I'm just thinking about the Target
underwear.
Tom (16:13):
I know I'm lost, I'm distracted.
Joey (16:16):
I'm seeing a lot of TikToks recently and like
Instagram videos of like peoplelike working out without
underwear on and like that's thething, what yeah?
Tom (16:26):
Outing my for you page.
Joey (16:28):
Yeah, like I feel like everything I watch on like
TikTok and Instagram right nowis like just men working out and
like usually they put likesomething like some form of
enhancement in their underwearor like their, their shorts or
something, and they do like aworkout and everyone's like
obviously the comment section ispopping off, being like damn
like I have seen a bunch ofworkout videos where it's just
like a close-up of someone's assdoing like leg curls for no
(16:50):
reason yeah, I mean I guess Inever really noticed if they
were wearing underwear or notanyways, um yeah, meanwhile,
like yeah, my for you page isbooked.
Tom (17:01):
Mine is unfortunately too political.
At the moment, I feel likemine's just like gay baiting.
Joey (17:06):
It's like a bunch of like straight people.
Tom (17:07):
I hate that.
Joey (17:08):
Yeah, I cannot get into it , it's straight people that are
like just using their body andlike the queer community is kind
of like jumping in and I'd belike wow, look how sexy and wow
hot, and like you know what Imean like it's very gay baiting.
Of course the average straightwoman isn't being like wow, look
, how big your ding dong is inthose shorts like no, absolutely
not.
Tom (17:26):
Yeah, I would say the queer baiting really pisses me off
like I cannot.
I don't find the whole straightguy attractive, nonsense yeah I
can't get behind that.
Straight people that lean intoit, I think, are also equally
weird well, they're just usingthe situation to their advantage
.
You know like yeah, but I thinklike it crosses a line when it
gets financial.
You know, it's one thing ifyou're just trying to get
(17:46):
yourself out there, but like alot of these people are doing it
for financial reasons and Ithink you're just taking
advantage of queer people yeah,rainbow washing yeah, especially
like in the adult industry well, that's the thing is.
If you want to actually supporta queer creator, they're out
there you know, if you werelooking for someone to just look
at their ass.
Only.
Fans is a great platform forthat.
You know like it's not hard tofind.
(18:08):
Yeah, you don't have to go forthe straight one, pretending to
be gay that's so true.
Joey (18:12):
I want to give the advantage to some people that
they don't know whether they'requeer or not, and that's why we
call it gay baiting is because,like you know, they're
purposefully taking on thisidentity that they're not to
make money and profit from um,which is which is sad it is sad.
Tom (18:26):
Well, it's mean.
I hate that we live in asociety where people are that
desperate to like fake asexuality for financial gain
yeah, the exploitation or evenyeah, like media attention, you
know it's I hate that we live inthat world because also like
yeah, I'm super happy that likebeing queer is like great in the
public eye and that people likealmost aspire to be so because
it's.
I think it's something we shouldbe proud of right, but like
(18:49):
people have to fake being queerfor attention, I think that
we've really lost the plot sowhat are your thoughts on the
quick segue?
Joey (18:55):
while we're talking about this, then, what are your
thoughts on um, like a straightperson playing a queer person on
tv, or like a movie set, orlike is that okay?
Tom (19:03):
like I mean, yeah, I think that everybody can play any role
.
You know, um, I think with allof these situations, context is
everything you know is this isthis like a super pivotal queer
role going over like the aidscrisis?
Maybe that could actually go toa queer person.
Joey (19:21):
Yeah.
Tom (19:21):
You know.
But if it's just a sitcom wherethere's a side character and
that their biggest qualm isn'tbeing gay, they're just, they're
just part of who they are, thenI think that like, sure, I
think.
But when, especially when beingqueer is integral to that
person or that character'sstoryline, I think that it is
(19:41):
important that a queer personrepresents that, for two reasons
one, I think they can do abetter job because it's real,
and two, I think it meanssomething to people.
Joey (19:48):
And I think when straight people are like meaning
something to queer people, weagain we lose the plot right a
little bit and I also find that,like, like you said, context,
everything like when you know anactor is playing a certain
character, like it's publicizedthat that actor is straight or
you know, gay or whatever theiridentity might be, versus gay
baiting online that's trying tomake a profit a pretty penny.
(20:10):
They take on this persona, thisidentity, so far that it's
almost like you genuinely thinkthat they are queer and that's
how they're making their moneyuntil they're, until they come
out when they're like ohactually no girlfriend the whole
time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah,yeah, thank you for your money,
because my girlfriend's got anew car.
Tom (20:27):
That was a whole thing that like I don't know if you know
who like timothy champagne isyeah, that's kind of where this
is stemming from.
Okay, great he made this videothat I saw about how he was like
complaining that him and hisgirlfriend are having problems
right, which went, which wentviral probably.
I almost say I don't believe it.
It sounds like you're justtrying to like make up shit,
just to like skirt the issue.
Joey (20:48):
He just released a video recently telling his platform
that he's not doing any morelike adult films anymore, like
in the mail-on-mail.
Tom (20:57):
I mean that's good, I think .
Joey (21:01):
I mean mean like I don't think he, I think it was weird
that he was in it for the firsttime, I don't know why.
Tom (21:03):
Here's the thing gay for pay has always been a thing.
We we been new, um, but likebroke straight boys, I just I
think that in our current like,social and political climate,
there's no reason for us to begoing for that type of content.
Like, with the access that wehave to actual queer content, I
(21:24):
think it's weird to know thatthis person's straight know that
they're like participating inqueer activities and profiting
off of it.
Those three things together,when you group them together,
I'm like I'm no longerinterested, especially because
there's other options, and Ithink that, like, if you have
the option of, like if you wantto support a content creator
(21:46):
doing gay porn, I think it'sweird to to specifically opt in
for the straight person and notthe queer person right you know,
like I, when I'm watchingsomething, I want to make it
seem like everyone's actuallyenjoying it.
If someone looks uncomfortable,I'm not interested in that scene
.
Personally, I mean, hey, maybeit works with other people.
No king shame in here.
Joey (22:07):
But like I don't get it right.
Yeah, it's not for you, yeah,but I think like the most
important thing here is the factthat he's portrayed kind of
like online as I want to trythis and this is, whereas we
don't necessarily think that'strue anymore and now it's more
so like I think that that's veryobviously a lie and in his new
video.
What he did say was he's talkingabout, um, how his he's managed
(22:32):
to save over like a milliondollars or whatever from it.
And then now he's like onlygoing back to like straight
roles and he's gonna lose 65percent of his income or
something.
Don't quote me on like theanalytics and he's gonna lose 65
of his income or something.
Don't quote me on like theanalytics.
But he's like I'm willing tolike take a pay cut because I
want to go back to like what Iactually enjoy versus, and I was
like you've already tookeveryone's money, honey, like
yeah, like the damage has beendone, and also it's like, yeah,
(22:54):
like I good for you, you madeyour bag.
Tom (22:56):
But like at that point, why not just quit?
Why not like thanks, boys.
Joey (23:02):
I feel like at that point, just carry on.
Like you know what I mean.
Like give the people thecontent.
Like like at this point, likeyou know, just don't don't be so
shameful about it.
Like that's the problem is that, like we're like in our power,
you know, and then you've gotlike people that are like
shaming the queer community,being like you know, I don't
want to be this person, I wasjust doing it for money.
Like okay, well then youshouldn't have done it like
morally like that's probablylike wrong.
(23:25):
Like you made this bed, yeah, nowell I mean, I, I get it too.
Tom (23:30):
It's like he's probably upset about the money that he's
gonna be losing.
It's like, but okay, well, ifyou were accepting that you were
gonna be like almost like anobody in the straight porn
world.
Okay, well then don't yeah andthat's my thing is that I think
that everyone should be allowedto like make that kind of
content if you want to totally Ithink that you shouldn't be
upset when people decide to notsubscribe to it.
Joey (23:51):
For those reasons, you know yeah or give you bad
comment sections you know what Imean, like you should kind of
like expect you know people tocome for you a little bit,
because at this point it's clearyou're gaybaiting.
Tom (24:03):
Because, especially with OnlyFans, the money doesn't come
from those videos.
The money comes from one-on-oneconversations with people.
So, he's not.
He is messaging peoplepretending that he's interested
in them.
Joey (24:16):
Or he's OnlyFans' manager.
That's the thing.
He definitely has an agencythat has his account that is
answering those messages forthem interested in them, or like
his only fans manager, orthat's the thing is someone's
running his account.
Tom (24:21):
yeah, that has his account that is answering those messages
for them yeah and and.
In those messages he is notpretending to be straight he is
selling an idea to people whichget your bag.
I don't care, but you have tobe aware of what you're doing.
You are lying to people inorder to take their money right,
yeah weird, yeah A queer person.
The lie is not there they arefeigning interest, which I don't
(24:42):
think is the same.
Joey (24:43):
I agree, to be fair, like I'm like you know, I fully, I
fully.
Yeah, I don't necessarilysupport like the the gay baiting
and I get like I do understand,like the whole, like you know,
like I understand what's goingon there, but I think like maybe
the step too far was just likehow real it felt and like maybe
like his Instagram and like youknow, like he kind of sold a lie
(25:06):
a little bit, like in like hiseveryday reality versus, like
you know, like on Instagram,like that's your reality.
Tom (25:13):
Just say that you're bi.
Yeah, who cares my guy?
Joey (25:17):
Oh.
Tom (25:18):
I have a girlfriend, but I sleep with guys.
Joey (25:22):
It's not an issue.
Yeah, I like cocking my ass.
Yeah, you know great likeproblem solved, like I I don't
know.
Tom (25:28):
The whole thing was like you have to like separate
yourself from the queercommunity, almost.
Oh, no, I'm not one of those.
Yeah, what do you mean?
And I'm dropping out about 20minutes ago?
Yeah, you had a mouthful yeah,literally.
Joey (25:41):
Oh, that is funny.
But what I do want to like snagback to was the nature versus
nurture.
Tom (25:48):
You gave your like example and psychotic break kind of how
people can be geneticallypredisposed to things.
Joey (25:54):
Right.
So knowing this and having thislike mindset, maybe like an
advantage, I want to call itlike this educational piece that
you have.
What is your genuine thoughtsLike?
What are your personal thoughtson nature versus nurture?
Like do you think you were bornthis way, gaga, or do you think
you were you?
Tom (26:14):
know it's so funny.
So my actual like final, likepresentation in university was
about it was an ethical geneticscourse okay it was just a
discussion-based course and wegot.
We just talked about likeethics problems and genetics,
because it's a very hot topic inthat field.
Um and like, for our final likepresentation, we had to like
pick a topic that we all got todo.
We wanted to do so and mine wasactually on the hunt for the
(26:35):
gay gene okay, ethics behindthat?
um, because I genuinely think itis extremely unethical for us
as scientists to try and isolatethe gay gene.
Um, if they're so, it's a notsorry.
Joey (26:46):
What do you mean by isolate it like?
Do you think it's not down toone?
Tom (26:49):
find like a, a gene that would like make someone gay okay
I would like to preface thisthat there's no such thing as a
gay gene.
Um, they have found like agenetic component to it, but
it's based on like multi-factorsright no one gene that makes
people gay, at least that weknow of um, but we what we?
The general consensus, to myknowledge, is that it's a.
It's a over a cross of multiplegenes that have influences on
(27:13):
your behavior, which wouldcreate being gay.
The hunt for the gay gene andthe ethics behind that?
I think that, based on ourcurrent climate, providing a
mechanism for changing people,um, is a very dangerous and
slippery slope.
Um, if you look at eugenics, doyou know what eugenics is?
Joey (27:35):
No idea.
Tom (27:36):
Eugenics is the idea that you can improve a race by not
allowing certain people to breed.
It was very heavily used by theNazis, umies um, as well as the
alberta government really um,oh yeah, they got a not good
history of that.
(27:56):
Um, the eugenics in alberta wasreal bad.
So, specifically, eugenics isthe the belief that if you take
people in this society that youhave deemed as undesirables, and
if you sterilize them orprevent them from from passing
on their genetics, that overtime society will improve, and
(28:17):
you can probably see how, um theGerman party, uh, in the 1930s,
um took this idea and ran withit.
Right Um, because there was acertain group of people that
they wanted to exterminate.
Um but and ran with it, right,um, because there was a certain
group of people that they wantedto exterminate.
Um, but so eugenics also fellunder the stair.
Uh, the um category of peoplewho were like were, uh, had
mental disorders, um, criminals,um, and a bunch of people were
(28:39):
forcibly sterilized, andspecifically in alberta, there
was a lot of people who, um,just from birth, just found out
that they were sterilized by theAlberta government because they
were deemed undesirables.
Joey (28:51):
What years are we talking here?
I think the.
Tom (28:52):
Alberta government ended this in 1980, in the 1980s.
Joey (28:56):
Ended yeah.
Tom (28:57):
It's most places across the world.
Once World War II ended, theyhad like a general consensus of
ooh, maybe we shouldn't do this,because the people who are
doing those really bad thingsreally liked this idea and they
used it to.
They use it to grow the idea ofwhat the germans wanted to do
right because obviously they hadto plant some ideas in people's
(29:20):
head and they used the theguise of improving germany
financially and socially to doso.
So they use that scapegoat andthe kind of the world realized
like, oh, that maybe thisscience doesn't have as much.
It's a pseudoscience, itdoesn't much much and much
weight to it or merit to it I'veI read a book actually
regarding like.
Joey (29:38):
Something like this is called um oh my god, it begins
with a d.
Is it called dystopia orsomething I can't remember, but
it's about, basically they thinkthe love gene is like um toxic.
Tom (29:50):
Okay, so on your 18th birthday.
Joey (29:51):
They remove the the ability to be able to like love.
Tom (29:54):
Okay.
Joey (29:55):
And then they like match you up with a suitor and like
your genes are like, basicallylike supposed to be like the
best of the best Cause, likeyou're going to procreate with
this person, like and stuff, butlike not in a way for love,
because they believe love istoxic and like love, so only
passing on the best geneticmaterial right, so like this is
kind of like for you talkingabout this, like that's what.
It's kind of ringing bell forme.
There's three books.
(30:15):
I can't remember what it'scalled.
Tom (30:16):
I think it's called I would love to read oh, it's called
delirium, delirium, okay, yes,yeah um, yeah, give it a read.
Joey (30:22):
It's actually a great book , but have you ever watched
gattaca?
Tom (30:26):
have you ever watched gattaca?
No, you have to watch this whatis that so?
It's?
It's a genetic movie, um, Ithink it came out like maybe the
early 90s, okay, um, and it'sall about in a world that has,
like, everyone has their perfectgenes.
It's all about designer babiesokay um, which is another big
topic in ethics, um, butessentially it's like, if you
(30:49):
can pick your own genome, likewould you?
And what the societal effectsof that would be if people were
actually able to control theirown genetics.
Right, and I won't go too muchinto it because it's it's a very
complex, complex movie withlike a lot of like nuances right
but it's if you are looking forsomething that really explores,
um, the dangers of like editinggenomes and what that can mean
(31:09):
to us, because you have toremember that genome
technologies aren't availablefor everybody.
And actually in my ethicalgenetics courses one of the
girls that I really looked up toher name is Julia she.
She brought up the concept thatI had never heard before and I
think she generally brought itlike made it up herself, it was
a genetic stratification Okay,heard before and I think she
(31:35):
genuinely brought it like madeit up herself, it was a genetic
stratification okay which isthat, like, over time, through
the use of like genetic umtechnologies, that rich people
can increase their genomics umbetter than poor people can and
that, over time, certaindiseases will only be prevalent
in poor populations, right,which will then cause certain
doctors to not know about thesediseases because they're not
prevalent in their people thatthey're treating right which
causes a disproportionate effecton poor people wow, which is
(31:58):
crazy because it's like, it'slike segregating the entire like
population.
But genetically be only becausethey're poor right because so,
for example, do you know what?
Joey (32:06):
ivf is.
Tom (32:07):
Yep, so IVF, you definitely can control certain genetic
factors in that development.
And here's the thing is I thinkit was 2014,.
The CRISPR babies were born.
The what babies?
Oh, CRISPR babies.
Joey (32:20):
What's that.
Tom (32:20):
So CRISPR is a genome editing tool.
Basically, you give it asequence of DNA, okay, and it
goes, and it finds that exactsame sequence of DNA and it cuts
it out.
So only that sequence of thatgenome is gone.
Joey (32:36):
And what give an example Like.
What is that?
What like?
Tom (32:39):
so, for example, like what would you be cutting out?
Joey (32:41):
What do you know?
I'll tell you about my researchUm so I did research on heart
development.
Okay.
Tom (32:47):
So I was determined to figure out how this one gene
called PD-LIM7 would factor intoheart development and what the
actual mechanisms of that genewould do.
So I used CRISPR-Cas9 solutionand it would remove the PD-Lim7
(33:11):
gene so that I could watch theheart develop in the absence of
this gene, and so I could seewhat things went wrong in the
heart in the absence of thisgene.
Joey (33:19):
Okay, does that make sense ?
I'm curious what went wrong.
Tom (33:23):
So CRISPR-Cas9 is really useful because it allows someone
to make the CRISPR babies,which was the first genetically
altered human.
Joey (33:32):
Okay, there's two of them.
Tom (33:33):
So it happened in China and like so the world, all the
scientists had agreed we weren'tgoing to do this, because once
you do it, once, there's nostopping it.
It's truly Pandora's box,because a lot of people can get
access to these things Right,and I did this as an
undergraduate student like I.
I mean, obviously I could notdo that to a human because
there's so many other likefactors involved there.
Joey (33:54):
But right all it takes is one doctor who's like I want to
try something, but even like,and like you talking about like
on fish, that's like what we eat.
Like if I accidentally gotreleased into, like the wild,
that could change, like our food.
Tom (34:09):
It can.
Joey (34:09):
Yeah, and like are, like you know, like anything, like
you know, like what you'resaying, like there is, like this
, a lot of factors that, onceit's done, once it could, like
you know, negatively impact usfor the future.
Tom (34:20):
Well, also just because, like what?
If so, I'll give you theexample.
Joey (34:30):
The reason they did it was that because the mother was HIV
positive.
Tom (34:32):
So she the mother of the fish, no of the babies.
Joey (34:34):
Oh, okay, the human babies .
Okay, so we're talking, we'reprobably going back to okay, she
has an active HIV infection.
Okay.
Tom (34:39):
She has two babies.
Hiv infections need a certaincell thing to I can't remember
the name, uh, to land on.
If you remove that, that, thatcell marker HIV cannot
infiltrate the cell, the CRISPRbabies.
He was able to geneticallyalter these two children to make
(35:00):
it that they would becomeimmune to HIV, because during
the birth process blood is mixed.
So if this person did not usethis CRISPR modification, the
children would have gotten HIV.
Joey (35:13):
They'd be positive.
Tom (35:14):
But because there is this CRISPR injection, the babies are
perfectly resistant to HIV.
Joey (35:22):
Okay.
Tom (35:23):
And it's really important because you can only do these
gene modifications at the embryostage, because I was talking
about how it has to affect everysingle cell.
You'd have to get injectionsinto every single cell, it
wouldn't work, whereas if you doit during the embryo, that
they're still like forming andlike growing it starts with the
one cell and then when you makethat change in that one cell,
(35:44):
when that cell divides into twocells and then four.
Joey (35:46):
Right, it's in all of those cells.
So at that stage, that's whenit's kind of like multiplying
yes.
Tom (35:51):
Right.
So what he was able to do ismake these two babies that were
completely immune to HIV Soundslike a great thing, right.
Your babies were going to havethis HIV infection.
Now they're not.
They get to live a happy,healthy life.
(36:15):
However, you first started theact of genetically modifying
humans for what we think weshould be doing.
So if you start with HIV,what's so wrong about saying,
okay, well, I don't want my kidto have HIV?
Could you also make my kidtaller?
Joey (36:24):
Could you make?
Tom (36:24):
my kid smarter.
Could, you give my kid blueeyes and then it comes to the
fact of you actually get to pickyour own baby, right?
Crisper babies are the wholedesigner babies, right?
And those things have happenedlike we are aware that there are
humans out there that have beengenetically modified using
these to be stronger likestronger.
I mean, here's the thing isthere are definitely.
(36:44):
I'm sure you could find amyoskeleton mutant.
So myoskeleton mutants are,they have like massive muscles
and it's due to some specificgenetic modification and we can
do it in animals.
What happens if that samemodification was done in a human
Right?
You know what's stopping nowthat we've done one modification
, what's stopping us from tryinganother Right?
Joey (37:06):
And that's the thing we're so curious is like a race to
where's the line.
Tom (37:10):
Right, when is it too far?
Right, you know?
Ooh, it's scary because, likethere really is.
So I'll go back to the wholegenetics stratification thing.
Okay, because if someone isusing IVF technologies to, to,
to have offspring over a coupleof and they get to pick only the
best attributes, they havefully weeded out all of their
(37:32):
negative problems in theirfuture.
And I think people often marryand have children within their
own socioeconomic groups, like,for example, if you grew up in a
really poor area, it's muchharder for you to be in contact
with people who are in reallyhigh socioeconomic groups.
So it's more typical for you tobe in contact with people who
are in really high socioeconomicgroups.
So it's more typical that youwould find someone who you were
(37:52):
felt those connections withwithin your own socioeconomic
group.
Joey (37:55):
You really interact with them more.
Tom (37:56):
Yeah, yeah so what ends up happening is people kind of try
and stay within their ownsocioeconomic groups, but over
time those socioeconomic groupsare going to start having
problems that they didn'tbeforehand.
Joey (38:08):
Right.
Tom (38:08):
Because right now a good example, let's go malaria you
know, yep.
If malaria is affecting itspopulation.
Right now everyone's studyingit so that when you go to the
hospital and you get a malariainfection, you have some course
of treatment because they'veseen it before.
What happens if you live in areally rich neighborhood and you
get this disease that onlyaffects poor people?
Joey (38:28):
Right.
Tom (38:29):
And there's not medical access to treatment around you I
mean, obviously these arecompletely made up situations
and they're going to happen overlike hundreds of years.
Joey (38:37):
Yeah, but it's true, genuinely you wouldn't carry,
like you know, the, the, I don'tknow what it's called the
inoculation or whatever for thatspecific virus.
Tom (38:50):
If it was like in a poor community and you were in a you
know what?
Well, also, if that virus isn'taround, why would you have?
Information on it because youknow, as doctors, there's kind
of this like trade-off of whatyou know about a topic right
because you can't knoweverything well, it's like even
like country specific right,like if you you're more
aware of, like you know, morestreams of like viruses and,
like you know, yes, in your owncountry, common in your area,
(39:11):
right you know, if you know thatpeople have this like certain
disorder and it affects likeit's like your third patient,
that we could see that, like yourecognize those things.
But when you don't have accessto information on things because
they just don't happen to yourpeople, why would you keep
studying?
it right and like with like, forexample, a lot of like genetic
disorders there's people thatare like, are trying to decide
like.
You know which ones do we helpbecause some of them like
(39:34):
there's.
It affects so few people.
Why would we put resources intofinding a solution for this if
it only affects one person outof 300 million?
Right, you know it's.
It's hard to.
Joey (39:46):
It's a rarity it.
Tom (39:47):
It's such a rarity that it becomes difficult for people to
justify putting money andresources into studying it
Mm-hmm.
Whereas something like canceraffects so many people.
It's so common that, like that,funding is very accessible to
oncologists, mm-hmm, whereas ifyou are working on some rare
genetic condition that affectstwo people out of every hundred
(40:12):
million there's no studies onthose, yeah, exactly, so it's
hard for you to find resourcesfor them.
Joey (40:19):
With this being theoretical, let's go back to,
potentially, how this couldaffect the queer world.
Tom (40:25):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
So I would like to touch on thetopic of the whole like hunt for
the gay gene, because as we tryand decide which factors are
more increasingly like, theyhave more likelihood chance of
being involved in creating abehavioral change and
essentially making it makingsomeone queer.
The more that we study thosethings, the closer we we do get
(40:46):
to the actual genetic,biological components.
I think this can be extremelydangerous because as we progress
through society with genetictechnologies, these are just
things that people can use totarget queer people.
Um, and I think that when itcomes to the fact that people
are going to have designerbabies pretty soon, they're
going to start selecting againstqueer people and that when we
(41:08):
find these actual biological andgenetic factors, it just gives
a route for people to target.
If you can then cut out thosegenes in the offspring and have
a significantly lower chance ofyour child being queer, people
will do that under the guise ofI want my child to have an
easier life, which just removesthat genome, that person's that
(41:29):
queer person from the pool and Iunfortunately create some
diminishing numbers over time.
Joey (41:37):
OK, my, I'm processing.
Tom (41:40):
No, it's a lot.
Joey (41:41):
Well, yes, it is and I understand it.
But now my my like.
Going back to my originalquestion question do you think
there is a gay gene then?
Do you think there's somethinglike a piece of us that is like
created, like from our?
Tom (41:56):
you know, I think, that, um , there's definitely some
genetic factors component, likefactors that are heavily
involved.
I don't think it's one deciding, and so I think that, like you
could have all genetic factors,I think there has to be some
kind of environmental factorthat does create some kind of
change in you, and sometimesthat is actually just the
uterine environment.
So have you heard of the theorythat the more boys a mom has,
(42:19):
yeah, okay, great.
Joey (42:21):
So Paul talked about this on his episode.
Yeah, correct.
Tom (42:24):
Yeah, so that's because during when a mother is pregnant
with a baby, um, there is sometransfer of amniotic fluid.
Joey (42:32):
Right.
Tom (42:33):
Um, so the mother's blood does get mixed with the baby's
blood a little bit, and thereason that the more males would
have you have increased thechance of your child being gay
is because during the mixing ofthe amniotic fluid, the mother
has a mixing of the baby's blood, but the baby's blood has a Y
(42:55):
chromosome and they got thatfrom the dad.
But so that's specifically whyit only matters with boys.
Is that when a person ispregnant with a fetus that is XY
, there is some of that Ychromosome that intermingles
with her blood and what ends uphappening is she has no Y
chromosomes in her body, so herbody is like what the fuck is
(43:17):
that?
That shouldn't be here.
That's not part of our.
It's not part of the human orthe baby, so why the fuck is it
here?
So what she does is she startsbuilding these um antigens
against the y chromosome orwhatever boy factor it was.
So what she does is her bodyattacks the, the embryo in this,
in a biological sense and itnon-invasive non-invasive yeah,
(43:42):
but it doesn't hurt the childbut um it does apply like, apply
like some factors to it, likethere is like an actual
physiological response thathappens, um, and they call it
feminizing the uterus.
Um, so the more, the more, themore often it happens.
So if mother has, like one boy,her body, her, her body makes a
certain amount of antigens tothis, this protein.
(44:02):
When she has a second boy, ithappens again and her body and
all the antigens go off andthey're like whoaogens go off
and they're like whoa, whoa,whoa, that thing.
Again they're coming back.
We need to make more.
And then if you have a thirdboy, it feminizes the uterus
even harder.
So this is why, as you have afamily of boys, the youngest is
more often to be gay becauseit's been feminized harder than
the other ones.
Joey (44:23):
Right.
So in logistic terms theyoungest would be more feminine
versus the first birthed boy, asthe womb hadn't been it didn't
have yeah, it didn't have, likethose war, those warning signs
yet interesting.
That makes sense.
I think the way paul describedit was more so like the body or
(44:45):
like the uh, I can't rememberwho it was, but paul.
Like I know paul said it, but Ican't remember who, um where
the theory came from, whetherit's research or his own theory
but there is research on it.
It's like it's documented yeah,no, but paul had said that in in
different terminology.
It was more so that the moreboys you give birth to, um, it
wouldn't matter, like, like the,the family name would still be
(45:07):
carried on.
So one of them could bepotentially gay because your
bloodline was automaticallygoing to be passed along by the
other.
Tom (45:15):
Yeah, uh, male brothers, one of them, one of the other
brothers, yeah, yeah like aslong as someone is passing it on
there's, there could be achance of that comes back to the
whole.
Does having a queer person inyour family increase fitness?
Because a lot of sociologists,sociologists, uh, sociologists,
will argue that they did and youknow, by having a queer person
at home it increases, like theoverall fitness of the family
(45:38):
why does it though?
well, um it just it's anotherperson to stay at home, right?
So if you have, like a queersibling, they like they're not
doing the typical male rolesthey can help out more at home
well, thanks for sharing that.
Joey (45:49):
I feel like that was um very educational great, I love
talking about these things yeah,I um yeah I feel like it's
really important that we bringon different people's
perspectives, educations likeyou know um their experiences,
onto the pod and just like talkabout.
You know what makes us queer,or diversity is great.
Tom (46:10):
Yeah, you know that's good, let's listen to the same thing
over and over again let's testtwo babies.
Joey (46:16):
Everyone's gonna be the same.
We're all gonna look the same,sound the same.
Tom (46:18):
Oh my god it's own can of worms.
Joey (46:21):
I'll be gone before then yeah, ai will take over by then.
Tom (46:25):
Literally yeah, it'll all be chat GBT and they'll tell us
how we're supposed to look atthat point, yikes.
Joey (46:32):
I think that's all I have in regards to genetics and that
We've talked about your earlystories.
We've talked about natureversus nurture and the genetic
pieces, the scientificbackground and what you have to
share there.
Tom (46:45):
Yeah, I think that's a big point.
Joey (46:48):
We went through a lot, I know, yeah, we should definitely
do a part two.
I think that brings us to theend of like a this, this segment
, um, so well, thank you forbeing here.
I had a great time.
Thank you for having me, yeah,and thanks for sharing your like
knowledge on um genetics andand just kind of like opening my
eyes especially to likegenetics and um, yeah, we
(47:09):
probably will have you back,most likely very soon, right?
Tom (47:24):
next up on this pod, we'll go over histones.
Hey, google define histones.
Welcome back to another episode of I'm Not Gay you Are.
Today we have Tom here to talkto us about genetics and listen
to his journey and his storyhello, hello.
Tom (00:25):
How's everybody doing?
Joey (00:26):
I'm really excited to share the wealth of knowledge
that you bring on like geneticsand talk to you about, like
nature versus nurture, likebeing gay your experience again
like tom is a good friend ofmine through the hospitality
industry and like we connect onlike a really great level, I
feel like we just get each other.
Oh, we absolutely do yeah, andlike I thought you were a fire
sign and, as you were gonna hear, he's not a fire sign but
(00:46):
you're gonna think he's a lot ofmystery a lot of mystery, yeah,
um, let's get into it yeah,sounds great.
I can't wait to get into it I'ma fan of nature versus nurture,
okay, and I want to talk to youabout your early years, like
when did you know you were gay?
Um, you know like, talk to meabout, like your you know
relationships when you wereyounger, schooling and and like
(01:09):
how being gay like affected yourchildhood.
Tom (01:15):
Yeah, I mean I was always like really flamboyant as a kid.
Like I think it was prettyobvious that I was gay.
Like I think that like I meaneveryone in like middle school
told me that I was gay before Ireally even connected those dots
.
I just thought I was reallyinto my best friend did anything
ever happen oh god, no, he wasstraight um like I remember,
like telling him that I had agiant crush on him, like on my
(01:35):
trampoline in like seventh gradein the summer, um, and he was
like I don't feel the same and Iwas like like it's crazy, are
you sure?
Joey (01:46):
You're like.
What do you mean?
You're using my trampoline.
We're so good together, likelook at the way we bounce
together.
Literally.
Tom (01:53):
And so like I think everyone kind of knew that I was
kind of gay and it was likebecause I like had like this
best friend that I was superinto, so yeah, so it wasn't
really like a surprise foranyone.
Like I didn't really have likea big coming out moment in high
school.
Um, I will say, in grade 10 Iwas, I had like this crush on
another one of my guy friends.
His name is michael and like hewas an art kid does he know?
Joey (02:14):
pardon, does he know or did he know?
Tom (02:17):
because what's if he listens to the pod?
We're still.
Oh sorry, does he know?
Does he know that he weretalking about this or?
Joey (02:22):
does he?
Did he know that you had acrush on him?
Tom (02:24):
Oh yeah, oh wait till you.
Oh, you're going to hear thestory.
Joey (02:26):
Okay okay.
Tom (02:27):
So I had like a little bit of a crush on him, but it wasn't
anything crazy.
But he was an arts kid so helike invited me to like one of
his like theater parties and weended up getting like really,
really, we were so cool at adrama party and our friend like
(02:47):
our mutual friend was like youguys should make out and I
instantly was like no, because Iknow what that means.
I was like uh michael grabbed meand made out with me okay,
which obviously I kissed himback, yeah, um, and then he kind
of like stopped kissing me andlike realizing like what he did
and like freaked out and had themost dramatic reaction and ran
into traffic, um was he notsober?
Joey (03:07):
no, he wasn't.
He was like blackout wasted.
Tom (03:09):
He was like he was just started crying and it was the
most embarrassing thing, everyeah um, like I'm not
embarrassed about it now, butlike, obviously the time I was
like devastated, like oh, wasthat like your first, like
public gay kiss, yes, okay um,and having someone try and run
into traffic afterwards was like, hey, it wasn't that bad you're
like this is gonna cause traumafor me.
I'm gonna have to talk tosomeone about this um but it was
(03:33):
, yeah, it was just really funny.
So I remember like walking intoschool the next or like the
following monday and like notthinking anything about it
because this was like right atthe dawn of facebook and I just
remember like walking into likemy last class of the day and
this girl's standing on her deskand like, pointing and going,
you kissed a boy and I was likeyeah, what the fuck about it?
And so like when I had thatreaction, I don't think people
(03:53):
like we're kind of like, oh yeah, like he's clearly gay, like we
all clearly kind of knew aboutit, like it's not really
anything thing to make fun of atthis point, like right, he, he
doesn't give a shit, so why doesanybody else give a shit?
Yeah, see for me, like I wouldhave cried.
I wasn't that kid.
I had a lot of walls up when Iwas a little one.
(04:14):
I was very defensive.
I was that punk kid who didn'twant.
I was.
I thought I was too cool foreverybody.
I didn't let anyone tell mewhat to do.
Good for you I did not marchanyone else's beat to their own
drum.
I went by my own, nice yeah Iuh, I did not I to anyone else's
beat to their own drum.
Joey (04:26):
I went by my own.
Nice, yeah, I did not.
I was like where's the marchingband and how do I fit in?
Tom (04:32):
Oh my God, I was like the antithesis of that.
I think it's just because I'msuch a hater at heart, I'm not a
follower.
Joey (04:38):
I think it's safety response.
Tom (04:40):
Oh, of course, it's almost like a trauma response, you know
, yeah it's like these walls areup for a reason.
I'm protecting myself and Ilook like I'm on the like but
normally not hurting areactually the ones that care the
most.
Yeah, you know like.
Yeah, speaking from personalexperience, like put it, and
making, making making it seem asif you don't care about
anything means that you care toomuch about everything
(05:01):
everything speaking of what'swhat's your, what's your sign?
Joey (05:04):
I'm a libra.
Okay, it's not a water sign.
Tom (05:08):
No, it's not a water sign it's a I'm a libra sun, a libra
rising and a pisces moon sothere is some water in there
there is some water in therethat's up.
That's up, a little bit of firea lot of no fire, no, no fire,
no.
I actually have zero fire signsin my chart.
What's a Libra?
Joey (05:28):
Air.
Okay, this makes sense.
It's aligning.
Tom (05:30):
I actually have zero fire signs in my chart, though it's
kind of crazy.
Which is crazy?
I?
Joey (05:34):
know, I expected you to be like I'm an Aries, mm-hmm, a
little stubborn.
Well, sister signs.
Well, I'm an aries.
I know that's why I made thegesture.
Okay, I'm like yeah, confidentas a kid.
Tom (05:48):
Then, like me on the outside which is crazy because
like, where'd that come from?
Yeah, it wasn't.
It was confident.
Joey (05:52):
I was just like, very like comfortable, like you knew who
you were like you were like soyou're in high school at this
point, like when did you knowyou were gay?
I?
Tom (06:01):
mean making out with a boy at the party was and liking it
unfortunately solidified somethings confirmed it.
Joey (06:06):
Yeah, for sure.
How old were you at that point?
Tom (06:08):
I think I was 15 yeah, oh, sorry you mentioned that.
Yeah, yeah, I think I was.
Joey (06:11):
I was in grade 10, so and then what did it look like
moving forward for you, goingback to school, and, like you
know, obviously you said that.
Like that girl stood up andsaid that to you, so, like, did
you have any relationships inhigh school?
Tom (06:20):
no, there was like there was one gay kid in my high
school and like it was you.
No, no, sorry there was anothergay kid in my high school and I
just like we didn't.
Joey (06:31):
We just had nothing in common like it was, whereas the
whole school thought you two hadto be together because you're
the only, no, it was like oiland water, like we couldn't be
near each.
Tom (06:38):
It was just like he was very like preppy and into again.
He was just the antithesis ofme just not.
Yeah, not your type no, like, Igot my first tattoo when I was
like 14 in high school, so I waslike what was that kid, um, it
was a raven on my ribs.
Yeah, I'm, I am one.
My best friend, um, got atattoo from this guy in a
basement on her ribs and I waslike that's so cool, I want one.
(06:59):
So I got this giant raven on myribs and it's horrible and I've
had to blast it over like twiceto try and fix it.
Joey (07:05):
Oh, are you lasering?
Tom (07:07):
it.
No, I'm like going over it withlike darker ink to try and like
make it look nicer.
I gave up on it.
Now there's so many that I justwhatever they all kind of they
all blend together, I mean, theylook great, thank you thank you
.
I feel like I have a very uniquetattoo style, yeah, but I like
it works for you.
It looks good.
(07:27):
I just like it because I neversee anyone with tattoos similar
to mine.
Sometimes I see people take agray arm and I'm like, oh wow,
that must suck a gray arm youdon't even see someone with a
sleeve and it just all looksgray oh, yeah, because you can't
decipher any actual things onit.
Joey (07:38):
You're right, what it is right?
Yeah, I don't like that.
Tom (07:40):
It's uh, I think it's a sign of bad artwork.
Joey (07:42):
Personally yeah, well, it's, it's, it's kind of blended
right.
So there's no like you can'tdetermine what is actually on
and included in the sleeve,because it becomes one piece of
art to me, it just screams.
Tom (07:56):
I just went into a tattoo shop and said I wanted a sleeve
to look tough yeah, it's more ofan aesthetic than like an art.
Joey (08:03):
When was your first boyfriend my?
Tom (08:06):
first boyfriend was just out of high school.
Okay, I had an online boyfriend.
Joey (08:11):
Oh, you've told me about this.
Tom (08:12):
Yeah, he's, uh.
So I dated this loser who justhad too much money coming out of
high school and I moved to NewYork for a little bit.
I was like I took a year offschool to go to new york and it
was but he was your pen palfirst right oh yes, yeah, so
like literally I this is so 2013.
Joey (08:32):
I like fully had a tumblr boyfriend this is giving like
your punk emo phase, like likepeak of it, yeah also like, by
the way, tumblr.
Tom (08:40):
This time was like hot yeah , it was the place to be on the
internet you know, know, taylorSwift still uses Tumblr.
Oh, no little.
This is.
This is the time that she waslike having secret sessions with
people.
Joey (08:49):
This is when.
Tom (08:49):
Taylor was into Tumblr and I fully had a Tumblr boyfriend,
um, and that was my firstboyfriend and I met him and he
turned out to be a crazy person.
Joey (08:58):
Well, hey, well, hey, it happens you know, while you live
, you learn and then youdeactivate tumblr literally
blocked.
So then you, you were livingwhere?
Tom (09:11):
in edmonton I was in edmonton and I went back to the
university of alberta and Ifinished my degree there okay
and what was your degree?
Again, I took a bachelor's ofscience with a specialization in
molecular genetics so you'resmart, smart I mean, I don't
like to toot my own horn.
Joey (09:27):
I just I just really enjoyed what I got to do.
Tom (09:29):
Okay, I love that it was a very intense program and I I
really enjoyed all the thingsthat I got to do.
I got a lot of really coolopportunities a lot of really
cool learning experiences.
I got to do my own research, alot of things that I definitely
would not have been able to dojust with a regular bachelor's
degree yeah, yeah, and you'reinterested in it which is like
you know, helps obviously Likewhat you're learning is like
(09:49):
something you're interested in,passionate about.
Totally.
Joey (09:53):
Perfect.
Tom (09:53):
And I was very passionate about it, still am.
Joey (09:56):
The biggest question, I guess, in like queer history
that I always get asked is likenature versus nurture and like
what are your thoughts aroundthat is like nature versus
nurture and and like what areyour thoughts around that?
And then, obviously you havinglike this educational background
in genetics, I'm curious toknow what your scientific brain
is telling us um, versus just myqueer brain.
Tom (10:17):
being like I like boys I have so many opinions about this
, truthfullyfully.
So, for example, the wholenature versus nature argument, I
think, is great becauseunfortunately both are true.
There's no such thing as natureor nurture in entirety, and I
think a really good example ofthis is twin studies.
They'll use twin studies todetermine a lot of behavioral
(10:42):
things, because they canactually take a look at the
genetics being similar oridentical.
And you know, with a scientificprocess you want to eliminate
all of the control variables aspossible.
So, specifically with twinstudies, what you can do is
there's one.
Nordic country that like haslike a really crazy record of
(11:03):
all of their twins that they putup for adoption and like where
they went and what they did isthey?
They tracked people like overhistory and they they determined
like behavioral traits betweenthem.
Okay, so for example,schizophrenia was a really good
example.
When they were looking at thegenetic components behind
schizophrenia, they used twinstudies and they determined like
(11:23):
like if.
For example, if one twin hadschizophrenia, they would use a
twin study to determine if theother twin also had
schizophrenia.
So they could determine somekind of correlation, not like
causation, but at leastcorrelation.
Like you know, if one twindevelops this disorder, will the
other, because their geneticsare the same, and if it is a
completely genetic component toschizophrenia, then the other
(11:45):
twin should also haveschizophrenia.
And what they ended up findingis sometimes it happens,
sometimes it doesn't.
And when they dug a littledeeper they found out that
people that developschizophrenia was a result of
what they called a psychoticbreak.
So they were geneticallypredispositioned to have
schizophrenia, but they waitedfor a really stressful moment in
their life for it to happen tothem right so let's say someone
(12:08):
is genetically they have likeall the genetic factors that
would.
That would give themschizophrenia.
Um, if they are a drug addictand their mom dies and they're
super stressed out, they couldhave the psychotic break which
causes them to have triggersthat yeah.
So if they, if they had a twinand they had a very, they had
the exact same genome and one ofthem went through a stressful
(12:29):
life event and one of themdidn't, that could heavily
influence something likeschizophrenia.
Um, same with being queer.
Um, because queerness itself is, is a behavioral trait that us,
as biologists, have tried tounderstand.
And it's very difficult becausethere's this topic in genetics
called fitness, which is theability for someone or anything
(12:50):
to pass off its genetic materialdown, essentially having
offspring, because if you have acertain trait that makes you
more successful to stay alive orto mate, that will increase
your fitness.
And queerness in itself is kindof counterintuitive to fitness
because you know, as queerpeople, we don't procreate the
(13:12):
way that we're supposed to rightand biology doesn't want us
well, we can't yeah yeah, well,I mean we could, but, like I
mean, depends how much dialysisyou got, you know, yeah, I mean,
which also might not work, wait.
Joey (13:23):
Yeah, true, no, but wait, we obviously can't procreate in
the same way like male andfemale can, right, obviously
like we're not designed to holda baby.
As much as I would love tocarry a child.
Tom (13:37):
I know you look so cute pregnant, but it raises a really
important question, which iswhy, if there is a genetic
component to queerness, if it isevolutionary disadvantage a
disadvantage, why is it stillaround?
Because something is preventingit from dying off, Something is
making it sustain inpopulations.
(13:59):
Because we're still around.
We see evidence of this.
So, something is making it thatthose genetic factors are not
being selected against entirely.
They can be selected against,for sure, but something is not
making sure that they're notbeing selected against entirely.
Joey (14:14):
Right.
Tom (14:15):
So it's raised.
Some questions with biologistshave led to like oh like, just
having queer people in yourimmediate family increase your
overall fitness, because we aresocial creatures, we're not
individuals.
So maybe having a gay siblingcould massively increase your
fitness because it would haveyou could have a male around to
(14:35):
support the child.
You know, queer men often takeon like more feminine roles.
When we look at how we areviewed by society, we do more
quote unquote feminine thingsand those actually might provide
a evolutionary fitness forspecies.
So, that kind of correlates intohow there definitely is a
nature side of genetics andbeing queer, because it
(14:58):
definitely implies that there isa biological component, that
something is being selected on.
Joey (15:04):
That makes sense.
So what I'm hearing is thatpotentially somewhere in my life
before now I've been like notgot through a stressful event or
something, but like somethinghas happened to trigger me to
feel like I want to be queermaybe you know.
Tom (15:29):
I mean, I don't think that was the best example because the
psychotic break is veryspecific to schizophrenia and I
don't think that I want to call.
Joey (15:36):
I want, I want to have a gay psychotic break.
Tom (15:38):
I mean, isn't that just like when we're 14 in the target
underwear aisle?
Yeah I think that's actuallylike the psychotic break, the
gay version of a psychotic break, literally like watching, like
looking at the underwear package, like why did I look?
Also, they had no reason togive them that abs like that
intense I know.
Joey (15:55):
And also, why were they all in black and white?
I know, why did they always putthe hottest straight men on the
underwear too?
It's like.
Do straight men feeluncomfortable wearing it?
Like Like?
I gotta know?
And?
Tom (16:03):
also, why is it so universal that every queer
person knows what we're talkingabout right now?
Yeah, literally.
Joey (16:10):
Anyways, yeah, I'm just thinking about the Target
underwear.
Tom (16:13):
I know I'm lost, I'm distracted.
Joey (16:16):
I'm seeing a lot of TikToks recently and like
Instagram videos of like peoplelike working out without
underwear on and like that's thething, what yeah?
Tom (16:26):
Outing my for you page.
Joey (16:28):
Yeah, like I feel like everything I watch on like
TikTok and Instagram right nowis like just men working out and
like usually they put likesomething like some form of
enhancement in their underwearor like their, their shorts or
something, and they do like aworkout and everyone's like
obviously the comment section ispopping off, being like damn
like I have seen a bunch ofworkout videos where it's just
like a close-up of someone's assdoing like leg curls for no
(16:50):
reason yeah, I mean I guess Inever really noticed if they
were wearing underwear or notanyways, um yeah, meanwhile,
like yeah, my for you page isbooked.
Tom (17:01):
Mine is unfortunately too political.
At the moment, I feel likemine's just like gay baiting.
Joey (17:06):
It's like a bunch of like straight people.
Tom (17:07):
I hate that.
Joey (17:08):
Yeah, I cannot get into it , it's straight people that are
like just using their body andlike the queer community is kind
of like jumping in and I'd belike wow, look how sexy and wow
hot, and like you know what Imean like it's very gay baiting.
Of course the average straightwoman isn't being like wow, look
, how big your ding dong is inthose shorts like no, absolutely
not.
Tom (17:26):
Yeah, I would say the queer baiting really pisses me off
like I cannot.
I don't find the whole straightguy attractive, nonsense yeah I
can't get behind that.
Straight people that lean intoit, I think, are also equally
weird well, they're just usingthe situation to their advantage
.
You know like yeah, but I thinklike it crosses a line when it
gets financial.
You know, it's one thing ifyou're just trying to get
(17:46):
yourself out there, but like alot of these people are doing it
for financial reasons and Ithink you're just taking
advantage of queer people yeah,rainbow washing yeah, especially
like in the adult industry well, that's the thing is.
If you want to actually supporta queer creator, they're out
there you know, if you werelooking for someone to just look
at their ass.
Only.
Fans is a great platform forthat.
You know like it's not hard tofind.
(18:08):
Yeah, you don't have to go forthe straight one, pretending to
be gay that's so true.
Joey (18:12):
I want to give the advantage to some people that
they don't know whether they'requeer or not, and that's why we
call it gay baiting is because,like you know, they're
purposefully taking on thisidentity that they're not to
make money and profit from um,which is which is sad it is sad.
Tom (18:26):
Well, it's mean.
I hate that we live in asociety where people are that
desperate to like fake asexuality for financial gain
yeah, the exploitation or evenyeah, like media attention, you
know it's I hate that we live inthat world because also like
yeah, I'm super happy that likebeing queer is like great in the
public eye and that people likealmost aspire to be so because
it's.
I think it's something we shouldbe proud of right, but like
(18:49):
people have to fake being queerfor attention, I think that
we've really lost the plot sowhat are your thoughts on the
quick segue?
Joey (18:55):
while we're talking about this, then, what are your
thoughts on um, like a straightperson playing a queer person on
tv, or like a movie set, orlike is that okay?
Tom (19:03):
like I mean, yeah, I think that everybody can play any role
.
You know, um, I think with allof these situations, context is
everything you know is this isthis like a super pivotal queer
role going over like the aidscrisis?
Maybe that could actually go toa queer person.
Joey (19:21):
Yeah.
Tom (19:21):
You know.
But if it's just a sitcom wherethere's a side character and
that their biggest qualm isn'tbeing gay, they're just, they're
just part of who they are, thenI think that like, sure, I
think.
But when, especially when beingqueer is integral to that
person or that character'sstoryline, I think that it is
(19:41):
important that a queer personrepresents that, for two reasons
one, I think they can do abetter job because it's real,
and two, I think it meanssomething to people.
Joey (19:48):
And I think when straight people are like meaning
something to queer people, weagain we lose the plot right a
little bit and I also find that,like, like you said, context,
everything like when you know anactor is playing a certain
character, like it's publicizedthat that actor is straight or
you know, gay or whatever theiridentity might be, versus gay
baiting online that's trying tomake a profit a pretty penny.
(20:10):
They take on this persona, thisidentity, so far that it's
almost like you genuinely thinkthat they are queer and that's
how they're making their moneyuntil they're, until they come
out when they're like ohactually no girlfriend the whole
time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah,yeah, thank you for your money,
because my girlfriend's got anew car.
Tom (20:27):
That was a whole thing that like I don't know if you know
who like timothy champagne isyeah, that's kind of where this
is stemming from.
Okay, great he made this videothat I saw about how he was like
complaining that him and hisgirlfriend are having problems
right, which went, which wentviral probably.
I almost say I don't believe it.
It sounds like you're justtrying to like make up shit,
just to like skirt the issue.
Joey (20:48):
He just released a video recently telling his platform
that he's not doing any morelike adult films anymore, like
in the mail-on-mail.
Tom (20:57):
I mean that's good, I think .
Joey (21:01):
I mean mean like I don't think he, I think it was weird
that he was in it for the firsttime, I don't know why.
Tom (21:03):
Here's the thing gay for pay has always been a thing.
We we been new, um, but likebroke straight boys, I just I
think that in our current like,social and political climate,
there's no reason for us to begoing for that type of content.
Like, with the access that wehave to actual queer content, I
(21:24):
think it's weird to know thatthis person's straight know that
they're like participating inqueer activities and profiting
off of it.
Those three things together,when you group them together,
I'm like I'm no longerinterested, especially because
there's other options, and Ithink that, like, if you have
the option of, like if you wantto support a content creator
(21:46):
doing gay porn, I think it'sweird to to specifically opt in
for the straight person and notthe queer person right you know,
like I, when I'm watchingsomething, I want to make it
seem like everyone's actuallyenjoying it.
If someone looks uncomfortable,I'm not interested in that scene
.
Personally, I mean, hey, maybeit works with other people.
No king shame in here.
Joey (22:07):
But like I don't get it right.
Yeah, it's not for you, yeah,but I think like the most
important thing here is the factthat he's portrayed kind of
like online as I want to trythis and this is, whereas we
don't necessarily think that'strue anymore and now it's more
so like I think that that's veryobviously a lie and in his new
video.
What he did say was he's talkingabout, um, how his he's managed
(22:32):
to save over like a milliondollars or whatever from it.
And then now he's like onlygoing back to like straight
roles and he's gonna lose 65percent of his income or
something.
Don't quote me on like theanalytics and he's gonna lose 65
of his income or something.
Don't quote me on like theanalytics.
But he's like I'm willing tolike take a pay cut because I
want to go back to like what Iactually enjoy versus, and I was
like you've already tookeveryone's money, honey, like
yeah, like the damage has beendone, and also it's like, yeah,
(22:54):
like I good for you, you madeyour bag.
Tom (22:56):
But like at that point, why not just quit?
Why not like thanks, boys.
Joey (23:02):
I feel like at that point, just carry on.
Like you know what I mean.
Like give the people thecontent.
Like like at this point, likeyou know, just don't don't be so
shameful about it.
Like that's the problem is that, like we're like in our power,
you know, and then you've gotlike people that are like
shaming the queer community,being like you know, I don't
want to be this person, I wasjust doing it for money.
Like okay, well then youshouldn't have done it like
morally like that's probablylike wrong.
(23:25):
Like you made this bed, yeah, nowell I mean, I, I get it too.
Tom (23:30):
It's like he's probably upset about the money that he's
gonna be losing.
It's like, but okay, well, ifyou were accepting that you were
gonna be like almost like anobody in the straight porn
world.
Okay, well then don't yeah andthat's my thing is that I think
that everyone should be allowedto like make that kind of
content if you want to totally Ithink that you shouldn't be
upset when people decide to notsubscribe to it.
Joey (23:51):
For those reasons, you know yeah or give you bad
comment sections you know what Imean, like you should kind of
like expect you know people tocome for you a little bit,
because at this point it's clearyou're gaybaiting.
Tom (24:03):
Because, especially with OnlyFans, the money doesn't come
from those videos.
The money comes from one-on-oneconversations with people.
So, he's not.
He is messaging peoplepretending that he's interested
in them.
Joey (24:16):
Or he's OnlyFans' manager.
That's the thing.
He definitely has an agencythat has his account that is
answering those messages forthem interested in them, or like
his only fans manager, orthat's the thing is someone's
running his account.
Tom (24:21):
yeah, that has his account that is answering those messages
for them yeah and and.
In those messages he is notpretending to be straight he is
selling an idea to people whichget your bag.
I don't care, but you have tobe aware of what you're doing.
You are lying to people inorder to take their money right,
yeah weird, yeah A queer person.
The lie is not there they arefeigning interest, which I don't
(24:42):
think is the same.
Joey (24:43):
I agree, to be fair, like I'm like you know, I fully, I
fully.
Yeah, I don't necessarilysupport like the the gay baiting
and I get like I do understand,like the whole, like you know,
like I understand what's goingon there, but I think like maybe
the step too far was just likehow real it felt and like maybe
like his Instagram and like youknow, like he kind of sold a lie
(25:06):
a little bit, like in like hiseveryday reality versus, like
you know, like on Instagram,like that's your reality.
Tom (25:13):
Just say that you're bi.
Yeah, who cares my guy?
Joey (25:17):
Oh.
Tom (25:18):
I have a girlfriend, but I sleep with guys.
Joey (25:22):
It's not an issue.
Yeah, I like cocking my ass.
Yeah, you know great likeproblem solved, like I I don't
know.
Tom (25:28):
The whole thing was like you have to like separate
yourself from the queercommunity, almost.
Oh, no, I'm not one of those.
Yeah, what do you mean?
And I'm dropping out about 20minutes ago?
Yeah, you had a mouthful yeah,literally.
Joey (25:41):
Oh, that is funny.
But what I do want to like snagback to was the nature versus
nurture.
Tom (25:48):
You gave your like example and psychotic break kind of how
people can be geneticallypredisposed to things.
Joey (25:54):
Right.
So knowing this and having thislike mindset, maybe like an
advantage, I want to call itlike this educational piece that
you have.
What is your genuine thoughtsLike?
What are your personal thoughtson nature versus nurture?
Like do you think you were bornthis way, gaga, or do you think
you were you?
Tom (26:14):
know it's so funny.
So my actual like final, likepresentation in university was
about it was an ethical geneticscourse okay it was just a
discussion-based course and wegot.
We just talked about likeethics problems and genetics,
because it's a very hot topic inthat field.
Um and like, for our final likepresentation, we had to like
pick a topic that we all got todo.
We wanted to do so and mine wasactually on the hunt for the
(26:35):
gay gene okay, ethics behindthat?
um, because I genuinely think itis extremely unethical for us
as scientists to try and isolatethe gay gene.
Um, if they're so, it's a notsorry.
Joey (26:46):
What do you mean by isolate it like?
Do you think it's not down toone?
Tom (26:49):
find like a, a gene that would like make someone gay okay
I would like to preface thisthat there's no such thing as a
gay gene.
Um, they have found like agenetic component to it, but
it's based on like multi-factorsright no one gene that makes
people gay, at least that weknow of um, but we what we?
The general consensus, to myknowledge, is that it's a.
It's a over a cross of multiplegenes that have influences on
(27:13):
your behavior, which wouldcreate being gay.
The hunt for the gay gene andthe ethics behind that?
I think that, based on ourcurrent climate, providing a
mechanism for changing people,um, is a very dangerous and
slippery slope.
Um, if you look at eugenics, doyou know what eugenics is?
Joey (27:35):
No idea.
Tom (27:36):
Eugenics is the idea that you can improve a race by not
allowing certain people to breed.
It was very heavily used by theNazis, umies um, as well as the
alberta government really um,oh yeah, they got a not good
history of that.
(27:56):
Um, the eugenics in alberta wasreal bad.
So, specifically, eugenics isthe the belief that if you take
people in this society that youhave deemed as undesirables, and
if you sterilize them orprevent them from from passing
on their genetics, that overtime society will improve, and
(28:17):
you can probably see how, um theGerman party, uh, in the 1930s,
um took this idea and ran withit.
Right Um, because there was acertain group of people that
they wanted to exterminate.
Um but and ran with it, right,um, because there was a certain
group of people that they wantedto exterminate.
Um, but so eugenics also fellunder the stair.
Uh, the um category of peoplewho were like were, uh, had
mental disorders, um, criminals,um, and a bunch of people were
(28:39):
forcibly sterilized, andspecifically in alberta, there
was a lot of people who, um,just from birth, just found out
that they were sterilized by theAlberta government because they
were deemed undesirables.
Joey (28:51):
What years are we talking here?
I think the.
Tom (28:52):
Alberta government ended this in 1980, in the 1980s.
Joey (28:56):
Ended yeah.
Tom (28:57):
It's most places across the world.
Once World War II ended, theyhad like a general consensus of
ooh, maybe we shouldn't do this,because the people who are
doing those really bad thingsreally liked this idea and they
used it to.
They use it to grow the idea ofwhat the germans wanted to do
right because obviously they hadto plant some ideas in people's
(29:20):
head and they used the theguise of improving germany
financially and socially to doso.
So they use that scapegoat andthe kind of the world realized
like, oh, that maybe thisscience doesn't have as much.
It's a pseudoscience, itdoesn't much much and much
weight to it or merit to it I'veI read a book actually
regarding like.
Joey (29:38):
Something like this is called um oh my god, it begins
with a d.
Is it called dystopia orsomething I can't remember, but
it's about, basically they thinkthe love gene is like um toxic.
Tom (29:50):
Okay, so on your 18th birthday.
Joey (29:51):
They remove the the ability to be able to like love.
Tom (29:54):
Okay.
Joey (29:55):
And then they like match you up with a suitor and like
your genes are like, basicallylike supposed to be like the
best of the best Cause, likeyou're going to procreate with
this person, like and stuff, butlike not in a way for love,
because they believe love istoxic and like love, so only
passing on the best geneticmaterial right, so like this is
kind of like for you talkingabout this, like that's what.
It's kind of ringing bell forme.
There's three books.
(30:15):
I can't remember what it'scalled.
Tom (30:16):
I think it's called I would love to read oh, it's called
delirium, delirium, okay, yes,yeah um, yeah, give it a read.
Joey (30:22):
It's actually a great book , but have you ever watched
gattaca?
Tom (30:26):
have you ever watched gattaca?
No, you have to watch this whatis that so?
It's?
It's a genetic movie, um, Ithink it came out like maybe the
early 90s, okay, um, and it'sall about in a world that has,
like, everyone has their perfectgenes.
It's all about designer babiesokay um, which is another big
topic in ethics, um, butessentially it's like, if you
(30:49):
can pick your own genome, likewould you?
And what the societal effectsof that would be if people were
actually able to control theirown genetics.
Right, and I won't go too muchinto it because it's it's a very
complex, complex movie withlike a lot of like nuances right
but it's if you are looking forsomething that really explores,
um, the dangers of like editinggenomes and what that can mean
(31:09):
to us, because you have toremember that genome
technologies aren't availablefor everybody.
And actually in my ethicalgenetics courses one of the
girls that I really looked up toher name is Julia she.
She brought up the concept thatI had never heard before and I
think she generally brought itlike made it up herself, it was
a genetic stratification Okay,heard before and I think she
(31:35):
genuinely brought it like madeit up herself, it was a genetic
stratification okay which isthat, like, over time, through
the use of like genetic umtechnologies, that rich people
can increase their genomics umbetter than poor people can and
that, over time, certaindiseases will only be prevalent
in poor populations, right,which will then cause certain
doctors to not know about thesediseases because they're not
prevalent in their people thatthey're treating right which
causes a disproportionate effecton poor people wow, which is
(31:58):
crazy because it's like, it'slike segregating the entire like
population.
But genetically be only becausethey're poor right because so,
for example, do you know what?
Joey (32:06):
ivf is.
Tom (32:07):
Yep, so IVF, you definitely can control certain genetic
factors in that development.
And here's the thing is I thinkit was 2014,.
The CRISPR babies were born.
The what babies?
Oh, CRISPR babies.
Joey (32:20):
What's that.
Tom (32:20):
So CRISPR is a genome editing tool.
Basically, you give it asequence of DNA, okay, and it
goes, and it finds that exactsame sequence of DNA and it cuts
it out.
So only that sequence of thatgenome is gone.
Joey (32:36):
And what give an example Like.
What is that?
What like?
Tom (32:39):
so, for example, like what would you be cutting out?
Joey (32:41):
What do you know?
I'll tell you about my researchUm so I did research on heart
development.
Okay.
Tom (32:47):
So I was determined to figure out how this one gene
called PD-LIM7 would factor intoheart development and what the
actual mechanisms of that genewould do.
So I used CRISPR-Cas9 solutionand it would remove the PD-Lim7
(33:11):
gene so that I could watch theheart develop in the absence of
this gene, and so I could seewhat things went wrong in the
heart in the absence of thisgene.
Joey (33:19):
Okay, does that make sense ?
I'm curious what went wrong.
Tom (33:23):
So CRISPR-Cas9 is really useful because it allows someone
to make the CRISPR babies,which was the first genetically
altered human.
Joey (33:32):
Okay, there's two of them.
Tom (33:33):
So it happened in China and like so the world, all the
scientists had agreed we weren'tgoing to do this, because once
you do it, once, there's nostopping it.
It's truly Pandora's box,because a lot of people can get
access to these things Right,and I did this as an
undergraduate student like I.
I mean, obviously I could notdo that to a human because
there's so many other likefactors involved there.
Joey (33:54):
But right all it takes is one doctor who's like I want to
try something, but even like,and like you talking about like
on fish, that's like what we eat.
Like if I accidentally gotreleased into, like the wild,
that could change, like our food.
Tom (34:09):
It can.
Joey (34:09):
Yeah, and like are, like you know, like anything, like
you know, like what you'resaying, like there is, like this
, a lot of factors that, onceit's done, once it could, like
you know, negatively impact usfor the future.
Tom (34:20):
Well, also just because, like what?
If so, I'll give you theexample.
Joey (34:30):
The reason they did it was that because the mother was HIV
positive.
Tom (34:32):
So she the mother of the fish, no of the babies.
Joey (34:34):
Oh, okay, the human babies .
Okay, so we're talking, we'reprobably going back to okay, she
has an active HIV infection.
Okay.
Tom (34:39):
She has two babies.
Hiv infections need a certaincell thing to I can't remember
the name, uh, to land on.
If you remove that, that, thatcell marker HIV cannot
infiltrate the cell, the CRISPRbabies.
He was able to geneticallyalter these two children to make
(35:00):
it that they would becomeimmune to HIV, because during
the birth process blood is mixed.
So if this person did not usethis CRISPR modification, the
children would have gotten HIV.
Joey (35:13):
They'd be positive.
Tom (35:14):
But because there is this CRISPR injection, the babies are
perfectly resistant to HIV.
Joey (35:22):
Okay.
Tom (35:23):
And it's really important because you can only do these
gene modifications at the embryostage, because I was talking
about how it has to affect everysingle cell.
You'd have to get injectionsinto every single cell, it
wouldn't work, whereas if you doit during the embryo, that
they're still like forming andlike growing it starts with the
one cell and then when you makethat change in that one cell,
(35:44):
when that cell divides into twocells and then four.
Joey (35:46):
Right, it's in all of those cells.
So at that stage, that's whenit's kind of like multiplying
yes.
Tom (35:51):
Right.
So what he was able to do ismake these two babies that were
completely immune to HIV Soundslike a great thing, right.
Your babies were going to havethis HIV infection.
Now they're not.
They get to live a happy,healthy life.
(36:15):
However, you first started theact of genetically modifying
humans for what we think weshould be doing.
So if you start with HIV,what's so wrong about saying,
okay, well, I don't want my kidto have HIV?
Could you also make my kidtaller?
Joey (36:24):
Could you make?
Tom (36:24):
my kid smarter.
Could, you give my kid blueeyes and then it comes to the
fact of you actually get to pickyour own baby, right?
Crisper babies are the wholedesigner babies, right?
And those things have happenedlike we are aware that there are
humans out there that have beengenetically modified using
these to be stronger likestronger.
I mean, here's the thing isthere are definitely.
(36:44):
I'm sure you could find amyoskeleton mutant.
So myoskeleton mutants are,they have like massive muscles
and it's due to some specificgenetic modification and we can
do it in animals.
What happens if that samemodification was done in a human
Right?
You know what's stopping nowthat we've done one modification
, what's stopping us from tryinganother Right?
Joey (37:06):
And that's the thing we're so curious is like a race to
where's the line.
Tom (37:10):
Right, when is it too far?
Right, you know?
Ooh, it's scary because, likethere really is.
So I'll go back to the wholegenetics stratification thing.
Okay, because if someone isusing IVF technologies to, to,
to have offspring over a coupleof and they get to pick only the
best attributes, they havefully weeded out all of their
(37:32):
negative problems in theirfuture.
And I think people often marryand have children within their
own socioeconomic groups, like,for example, if you grew up in a
really poor area, it's muchharder for you to be in contact
with people who are in reallyhigh socioeconomic groups.
So it's more typical for you tobe in contact with people who
are in really high socioeconomicgroups.
So it's more typical that youwould find someone who you were
(37:52):
felt those connections withwithin your own socioeconomic
group.
Joey (37:55):
You really interact with them more.
Tom (37:56):
Yeah, yeah so what ends up happening is people kind of try
and stay within their ownsocioeconomic groups, but over
time those socioeconomic groupsare going to start having
problems that they didn'tbeforehand.
Joey (38:08):
Right.
Tom (38:08):
Because right now a good example, let's go malaria you
know, yep.
If malaria is affecting itspopulation.
Right now everyone's studyingit so that when you go to the
hospital and you get a malariainfection, you have some course
of treatment because they'veseen it before.
What happens if you live in areally rich neighborhood and you
get this disease that onlyaffects poor people?
Joey (38:28):
Right.
Tom (38:29):
And there's not medical access to treatment around you I
mean, obviously these arecompletely made up situations
and they're going to happen overlike hundreds of years.
Joey (38:37):
Yeah, but it's true, genuinely you wouldn't carry,
like you know, the, the, I don'tknow what it's called the
inoculation or whatever for thatspecific virus.
Tom (38:50):
If it was like in a poor community and you were in a you
know what?
Well, also, if that virus isn'taround, why would you have?
Information on it because youknow, as doctors, there's kind
of this like trade-off of whatyou know about a topic right
because you can't knoweverything well, it's like even
like country specific right,like if you you're more
aware of, like you know, morestreams of like viruses and,
like you know, yes, in your owncountry, common in your area,
(39:11):
right you know, if you know thatpeople have this like certain
disorder and it affects likeit's like your third patient,
that we could see that, like yourecognize those things.
But when you don't have accessto information on things because
they just don't happen to yourpeople, why would you keep
studying?
it right and like with like, forexample, a lot of like genetic
disorders there's people thatare like, are trying to decide
like.
You know which ones do we helpbecause some of them like
(39:34):
there's.
It affects so few people.
Why would we put resources intofinding a solution for this if
it only affects one person outof 300 million?
Right, you know it's.
It's hard to.
Joey (39:46):
It's a rarity it.
Tom (39:47):
It's such a rarity that it becomes difficult for people to
justify putting money andresources into studying it
Mm-hmm.
Whereas something like canceraffects so many people.
It's so common that, like that,funding is very accessible to
oncologists, mm-hmm, whereas ifyou are working on some rare
genetic condition that affectstwo people out of every hundred
(40:12):
million there's no studies onthose, yeah, exactly, so it's
hard for you to find resourcesfor them.
Joey (40:19):
With this being theoretical, let's go back to,
potentially, how this couldaffect the queer world.
Tom (40:25):
Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
So I would like to touch on thetopic of the whole like hunt for
the gay gene, because as we tryand decide which factors are
more increasingly like, theyhave more likelihood chance of
being involved in creating abehavioral change and
essentially making it makingsomeone queer.
The more that we study thosethings, the closer we we do get
(40:46):
to the actual genetic,biological components.
I think this can be extremelydangerous because as we progress
through society with genetictechnologies, these are just
things that people can use totarget queer people.
Um, and I think that when itcomes to the fact that people
are going to have designerbabies pretty soon, they're
going to start selecting againstqueer people and that when we
(41:08):
find these actual biological andgenetic factors, it just gives
a route for people to target.
If you can then cut out thosegenes in the offspring and have
a significantly lower chance ofyour child being queer, people
will do that under the guise ofI want my child to have an
easier life, which just removesthat genome, that person's that
(41:29):
queer person from the pool and Iunfortunately create some
diminishing numbers over time.
Joey (41:37):
OK, my, I'm processing.
Tom (41:40):
No, it's a lot.
Joey (41:41):
Well, yes, it is and I understand it.
But now my my like.
Going back to my originalquestion question do you think
there is a gay gene then?
Do you think there's somethinglike a piece of us that is like
created, like from our?
Tom (41:56):
you know, I think, that, um , there's definitely some
genetic factors component, likefactors that are heavily
involved.
I don't think it's one deciding, and so I think that, like you
could have all genetic factors,I think there has to be some
kind of environmental factorthat does create some kind of
change in you, and sometimesthat is actually just the
uterine environment.
So have you heard of the theorythat the more boys a mom has,
(42:19):
yeah, okay, great.
Joey (42:21):
So Paul talked about this on his episode.
Yeah, correct.
Tom (42:24):
Yeah, so that's because during when a mother is pregnant
with a baby, um, there is sometransfer of amniotic fluid.
Joey (42:32):
Right.
Tom (42:33):
Um, so the mother's blood does get mixed with the baby's
blood a little bit, and thereason that the more males would
have you have increased thechance of your child being gay
is because during the mixing ofthe amniotic fluid, the mother
has a mixing of the baby's blood, but the baby's blood has a Y
(42:55):
chromosome and they got thatfrom the dad.
But so that's specifically whyit only matters with boys.
Is that when a person ispregnant with a fetus that is XY
, there is some of that Ychromosome that intermingles
with her blood and what ends uphappening is she has no Y
chromosomes in her body, so herbody is like what the fuck is
(43:17):
that?
That shouldn't be here.
That's not part of our.
It's not part of the human orthe baby, so why the fuck is it
here?
So what she does is she startsbuilding these um antigens
against the y chromosome orwhatever boy factor it was.
So what she does is her bodyattacks the, the embryo in this,
in a biological sense and itnon-invasive non-invasive yeah,
(43:42):
but it doesn't hurt the childbut um it does apply like, apply
like some factors to it, likethere is like an actual
physiological response thathappens, um, and they call it
feminizing the uterus.
Um, so the more, the more, themore often it happens.
So if mother has, like one boy,her body, her, her body makes a
certain amount of antigens tothis, this protein.
(44:02):
When she has a second boy, ithappens again and her body and
all the antigens go off andthey're like whoaogens go off
and they're like whoa, whoa,whoa, that thing.
Again they're coming back.
We need to make more.
And then if you have a thirdboy, it feminizes the uterus
even harder.
So this is why, as you have afamily of boys, the youngest is
more often to be gay becauseit's been feminized harder than
the other ones.
Joey (44:23):
Right.
So in logistic terms theyoungest would be more feminine
versus the first birthed boy, asthe womb hadn't been it didn't
have yeah, it didn't have, likethose war, those warning signs
yet interesting.
That makes sense.
I think the way paul describedit was more so like the body or
(44:45):
like the uh, I can't rememberwho it was, but paul.
Like I know paul said it, but Ican't remember who, um where
the theory came from, whetherit's research or his own theory
but there is research on it.
It's like it's documented yeah,no, but paul had said that in in
different terminology.
It was more so that the moreboys you give birth to, um, it
wouldn't matter, like, like the,the family name would still be
(45:07):
carried on.
So one of them could bepotentially gay because your
bloodline was automaticallygoing to be passed along by the
other.
Tom (45:15):
Yeah, uh, male brothers, one of them, one of the other
brothers, yeah, yeah like aslong as someone is passing it on
there's, there could be achance of that comes back to the
whole.
Does having a queer person inyour family increase fitness?
Because a lot of sociologists,sociologists, uh, sociologists,
will argue that they did and youknow, by having a queer person
at home it increases, like theoverall fitness of the family
(45:38):
why does it though?
well, um it just it's anotherperson to stay at home, right?
So if you have, like a queersibling, they like they're not
doing the typical male rolesthey can help out more at home
well, thanks for sharing that.
Joey (45:49):
I feel like that was um very educational great, I love
talking about these things yeah,I um yeah I feel like it's
really important that we bringon different people's
perspectives, educations likeyou know um their experiences,
onto the pod and just like talkabout.
You know what makes us queer,or diversity is great.
Tom (46:10):
Yeah, you know that's good, let's listen to the same thing
over and over again let's testtwo babies.
Joey (46:16):
Everyone's gonna be the same.
We're all gonna look the same,sound the same.
Tom (46:18):
Oh my god it's own can of worms.
Joey (46:21):
I'll be gone before then yeah, ai will take over by then.
Tom (46:25):
Literally yeah, it'll all be chat GBT and they'll tell us
how we're supposed to look atthat point, yikes.
Joey (46:32):
I think that's all I have in regards to genetics and that
We've talked about your earlystories.
We've talked about natureversus nurture and the genetic
pieces, the scientificbackground and what you have to
share there.
Tom (46:45):
Yeah, I think that's a big point.
Joey (46:48):
We went through a lot, I know, yeah, we should definitely
do a part two.
I think that brings us to theend of like a this, this segment
, um, so well, thank you forbeing here.
I had a great time.
Thank you for having me, yeah,and thanks for sharing your like
knowledge on um genetics andand just kind of like opening my
eyes especially to likegenetics and um, yeah, we
(47:09):
probably will have you back,most likely very soon, right?
Tom (47:24):
next up on this pod, we'll go over histones.
Hey, google define histones.
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