Twins are fascinating. Everyone assumes twins are *exactly* the same but what happens when twins have different sexual identities? 29-year-old Sarah Nunn and Rosie Ablewhite are identical twins from Essex.
One identifies as heterosexual, the other as homosexual. And now, researchers are keen to find out why this is despite the twins having the same upbringing and the same genes. The 29-year-old pair are part of 56 pairs of twins with varying sexual orientations that are part of a study at University of Essex. Rosie told Metro.co.uk that she found it very ‘odd’ her twin was straight after realising she wasn’t attracted to boys. ‘It made me question myself for so long as I’d only ever heard of two identical twins having the same sexuality.’
Her twin Sarah added that although she was ‘really surprised’ when her twin came out as gay, she didn’t find it ‘odd at all’. ‘I thought to myself “how did I not know this sooner?” And then the next question I asked myself was “does that mean I might be gay too?” ‘We’ve always been so different, and it made a lot of sense to me once she told me.
Growing up, I really liked that we didn’t fight over similar toys or clothes, we were always asking for different things.’ Even so, she said that people are often surprised when they find out Rosie is gay. ‘It’s probably the biggest difference between us and one that has made many people scratch their heads as to whether nature plays more of a part in sexuality than nurture. ‘It’s always fascinated me too,’ she added.
University of Essex psychology academic Gerulf Rieger and his colleague Tuesday Watts recruited identical twins with ‘discordant sexual orientations’ (that is, heterosexual twins with homosexual co-twins). They’re aiming to find out whether the differences are due to the environment or their upbringing. Dr Rieger believes sexuality is determined by factors prior to birth. ‘Prenatal hormones are the number one candidate,’ he said. ‘Our theory is that even though twins are identical, what happens in the womb can be quite different. They can have different nutrition, different levels of hormones.’
Rosie says that since the study, she’s found more sets of twins with different sexualities. ‘It’s wonderful for me to see! ‘Ultimately, it’s kind of cool. Our parents have ‘one of each’ and there’s no fighting over partners.’
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