The Gift of My Gay Brain

So HERE's a thought: The reason I am good at the things I am good at is because I have a specifically gay brain. From whence this personal epiphany? The light bulb went on as a tangent from the independent study I'm doing at massage school on neurology.  I had so many questions in the required anatomy course when studying the nervous system that the instructor suggested I take the more detailed class independently with one of the other teachers. Being an over-achiever, naturally, I did. So in the process of learning about brain structures and functions I was reading about the limbic system.  The limbic system is a group of brain bits that encircle the brain stem (the piece that pokes up in the middle from the spinal cord) and is responsible for your emotions.  It also seems to be involved in spiritual experience. The text book didn't say so much about the amygdala, so I did a websearch to find more.  Among other results, this one in particular caught my eye:   http://www.shaktitechnology.com/gaybrain.htm This is an article written by Todd Murphy (a behavioral neuroscientist who studies the connection between spirituality and the brain) 10 years ago about about brain differences in gay men, one of which involves the amygdala, an almond-shaped (hence the name) brain bit in the limbic system.  There's one on each side of the brain and they are connected by a group of fibers called the anterior commissure.  Studies have found that women tend to have more connective fibers between the two amygdalae than hetero men, and so do gay men. Murphy suggests that this extra connection makes the gay male brain more likely to perceive meaningfulness in the environment, and because the brain is also male and less likely to multi-task, has the ability to focus attention on articulating those meanings. Well, he said it better than that, but it occurs to me that I have known this about myself for a long time: I am able to articulate difficult pieces of the human experience that are hard to name.  What Murphy is saying suggests to me that this ability comes to me BECAUSE of the structure of my brain, because it is a GAY MALE brain.  Further: because the the connectivity of both sides of the amygdala enhances emotional interpretation I wonder if this is why I've always been able to play expressively.  My raw musical aptitude for pitch and rhythm patterns is dead average, but when I practice enough to overcome those deficits I've usually been able to put real "soul" into my playing.  Once again, a feature of my gay male brain. Reading emotion, nurturing feelings - amygdala.  I'm better at it than most hetero males, not as good at it as women with whom I work at school.  But there it is again, it is my gay male brain that makes me good at working with young children.  And probably also why I'm pursuing massage therapy.  I liked Murphy's article and what he had to say about gay men - but I wonder how seriously I should take him, because he's also selling THIS: http://www.shaktitechnology.com/winshakti/rotating/index.htm Oh lord. There is a more recent and less, umm, flaky study that does corroborate some of what he theorizes: http://lgbtlatestscience.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/a-photo-of-your-gay-brain/ or for a more technical report of the same study: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/30/10273.full Gay male brains appear more like female brains when looking at blood flow to the amygdala and when looking at the sizes of the right and left halves.  Hetero men and lesbians tend to have one side slightly larger than the other and somewhat less connectivity between halves of the amygdala, homo men and hetero women tend to have both hemispheres about the same size and more connectivity between the amygdalae. Translation: there are features unique to gay male brains.  These features involve structures that are integral to the kinds of work I do. Bottom line?  It took me decades to be happy with who I am and to be in my own skin, to be grateful for the gift of being gay.  I've written about it a couple of times and posted it here on DS (but you'll have to root around in OLD posts to find it, if you have the patience - if not then pester me and I'll look it up for you).  Now it seems that this gift of being gay is even MORE integral to who I am and how I am in the world than I ever knew, and that my gayness is EXACTLY that piece of me that gives me the abilities I have and value about myself, that have made me successful in the vocations/avocations I have chosen for myself.  It really is the best part of me. Woo.