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Nature v.s. Nuture - an Old Argument Revived

Deborah Lashman

On August 30th, in a study released to
Science magazine, a neurobiologist
claimed he had found a difference be-
tween the brains of straight and gay men.
The report generated widespread atten-
tion in the media, including front page
headlines in the New York Times and here
in Vermont in the Burlington Free Press.
In response to the study and the media at-
tention, Lambda Legal Defense Fund is-
sued a press release which we have re-
printed in its entirety because we think it
so well discusses the issues raised by
both the study and the attention it gained.

While some in the gay community wel-
comed the study, feeling that it proves
that gayness is not something that comes
from their upbringing or that can be
cured, we agree with David Barr of the
Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York
when he says, “It doesn’t really matter
why people are gay or not gay. That’s not
the important question. What’s really im-
portant is how they’re treated.” Frances
Kunreuther, director of the Hetrick—
Martin Institute agreed. “The issue is not
what causes sexual orientation, but the re-
action to it. ...that reaction causes gay
people to be beaten up, to be thrown out
of their homes, to be in incredible iso-
lation. If this work could be a magic bul-
let to make people accept lesbians and
gays I’d say terrific. But I don’t believe
that’s going to happen.”

Lambda Legal Defense Fund State-
ment On Study Linking Brain Struc-
tures to Sexual Orientation

In response to a study released today by
Science magazine suggesting male sexual
orientation could be related to brain struc-
ture, Lambda Legal Defense and Educa-
tion Fund welcomed honest scientific in-
issues regarding sexual
orientation but cautioned against drawing
conclusions about the preliminary find-
mgs.

First, as a matter of historical perspective,
minority groups have often been the ob-
ject of studies seeking to locate a bio-
logical explanation of the difference.
Most of these studies have been fully dis-
credited. For example, the first “biology
as sociology” research was conducted in
the 19th Century on prisoners in Paris.
Their head size and facial structures were
studied to develop the “prototype” of the
biological head of a criminal. Whether
this preliminary study of the purported

“biology” of homosexuality will even-
tually be confirmed is completely un-
clear. It is therefore probably prudent not
to draw too many sweeping conclusions
from the San Diego study.

Second, there are some methodological
questions raised by the study. How is ho-
mosexuality defined by the study? If
Kinsey was right in finding that human
sexuality is not fixed at the poles but
rather distributed across a broad continu-
um, does this affect the validity of Dr.
LeVay’s findings?

Third, all of the homosexual men studied
in Dr. LeVay’s studies died of AIDS. It
is now understood by medical specialists
that HIV disease has a profound impact
on the brain, although the degree to
which we fully understand this impact is
limited. Recent evidence suggests that
HIV’s effect on the brain may even be
far greater than originally thought. Until
we know more about HIV’s effect on the
brain, it would seem prudent to hesitate
before broadly extrapolating to the gen-
eral population data regarding the neuro-
logical characteristics of men with
AIDS.

Furthermore, lesbians were not studied
in the survey. Not only does the study’s
failure to study sexual orientation in
women merely reflect the medical and
scientific community’s historic failure to
include women’s issues in their work,
but it means that Dr. LeVay’s study only
addressed one component of the concept
of sexual orientation. The research thus
exhibits the perpetuation of invisibility
of women’s and lesbian’s sexuality by
the scientific community.

Notwithstanding these methodological
questions, Dr. LeVay’s findings are in-
triguing, from a purely scientific per-
spective. But it is important to remember
that, regardless of whether homo-
sexuality is biologically based or ac-
celerated, a person’s sexual orientation is
an intrinsically private matter. Even if
homosexuality were completely the
product of free choice, there would still
be no basis for criminal, coercive, or dis-
criminatory penalties against same-sex
orientation. And regardless of any bio-
logical basis for homosexuality, it is dif-
ficulttto fathom on what moral, ethical,
or religious basis one can reasonably dis-
criminate against people who are sexual-
ly and emotionally oriented toward their

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own gender. Homosexuality, since it
clearly occurs with a significant fre-
quency and regularity in all cultures, is
an orientation that is as “natural” as het-
erosexuality. This fact remains true
whatever the “origins” of homosexuality
or heterosexuality.

Dr. LeVay’s research, and other studies
of its kind that may follow, do raise pro-
found ethical issues that ought to be ad-
dressed. The history of this century,
which has included the racial eugenics
movement and Hitler’s Germany,
should make us wary of the uses to
which such preliminary findings might
be put by the unenlightened. A key his-
torical and ethical lesson which our cul-
ture seems astonishingly hesitant to un-
derstand is that diversity is not a
problem to be dealt with but instead is
one of the most beautiful characteristics
of human existence. If research like Dr.
LeVay’s assists in helping society un-
derstand the beauty of human differ-
ence, then it is to be welcomed. The les-
bian and gay community, however, has
no intention of watching such pre-
liminary research become the putty for
biological engineers who want to make
homosexuality extinct.

Finally, we have to question why the
media is so interested in this study and
the origins of sexual orientation. During
the past two decades, many more sig-
nificant data have been available (e.g.,
statistics of violence against us, our lack
of access to health care, the denial of
benefits to same-sex partners, the denial
of the rights to care for and raise chil-
dren, discrimination in the workplace);
almost never has one of these issues
reached the front page of the New York
Times. We would propose one answer to
the question: stories like this one of Dr.
LeVay’s preliminary findings do not re-
quire the media to treat us like subjects,
like equal members of a greater com-
munity struggling for full participation
and inclusion, but rather, they can con-
tinue to see us as objects whose de-
viance is fascination like that of psy-
chotic murderers or a newly discovered
animal. A story of this nature merits
space in the science section. The front
page placement, the wire service re-
sponse, the television coverage all sug-
gest a sensational tid-bit meant to grab a
market share and not a serious interest
in the lives and concerns of some mem-
bers of our community. V

November 1991