Biological Determinism and Homosexuality

Abstract

The recent upsurge in scientific claims about biological bases for malefemale differences (including assumed characteristics such as female intuition) and for differences in sexual orientation (cast as either homosexual or heterosexual) comes from some unexpected quarters. Openly gay or pro-gay scientists have joined traditionally conservative biological determinists and are apparently impelled by reasons ranging from simply feeling they were born gay to recognizing the strength of legal arguments that if gayness is inborn rather than a lifestyle choice, people cannot be blamed for something over which they have no control.' Despite its emergence from worthwhile motives promoting gay rights, the optimistic reception of such biological theories downplays two key histories: first, the use of biological determinism to support racism, sexism, class bias, ethnocentrism, and heterosexism-where difference is used to form a hierarchy of superior-inferior values that justify undeserved advantages for some over others; and second, the trail of bad science associated with biological-determinist claims (Gould; Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin among many). In Myths of Gender, feminist scientist and activist Anne Fausto-Sterling offers a detailed analysis of the science behind biological determinist assertions about sex differences in ability and cognition. She shows that such purportedly scientific claims work with predominating theories of the time but consistently and with few exceptions are abandoned in the face of conflicting evidence, inadequacies in theory, nonreproducible results, or major sociopolitical events (such as the Nazis' use of biological determinist theories to support mass murder) which discredit assumptions that frame the social and scientific significance of questions. Many of the purported explanations for sex differences have flip-flopped when new data prove the first theory wrong, as occurred regarding theories about