A Soy a Day Doesn't Make a Boy a Gay

The wingnuts have been buzzing about over a bizarre notion that soy can make you gay. Pam has been documenting the madness. As with most things that excite wingnut males of the conservative blogosphere, the link between being gay and soy is nonsense:

Soy contains phytoestrogens. The overwhelming evidence is that these compounds, and the protein in the soy, are very healthy for you, and may reduce the risk of breast cancer in women. At the very least, beans are good plant food, happy for you, happy for mother earth; happy happy happy. (Just ask Dr. Weill, who says: "I'm aware of Internet paranoia on the subject of soy and the contention that only fermented soy is safe to consume. That is simply not true.")

Phytoestrogens are estrogen mimics. BUT - get this - they are actually less effective than regular estrogens when they hit estrogen receptors on your cells. That's right - these substances, far from juicing you up with lady-hormones, might actually block the effects of estrogen, which as we all know is a good and important thing if you're a man, since John Wayne is dead and it's on us to pick up the slack. (Riiiight.)

Anyway no one's ever shown that soy is biologically active in the amounts a normal human can consume in a day.