The Gay Gene

This Sunday on Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked U.S. Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty whether or not he thought it was a choice to be gay. Pawlenty essentially copped out by saying that he would leave it up to scientists to determine the answer to that question (even while asserting his committment to "traditional marriage").

This demonstrates, once again, the unassailable strength of scientific authority. It is simply unparalleled in the contemporary world. Even with the most contentious issues - evolution and global warming - debate centers largely around the question of whether the science is "good" or "unbiased." If anything is up for debate, it is only because human bias can occasionally taint the purity of scientic truth, not because the authority of scientists themselves should be subject to the same type of scrutiny that we apply to other sources of authority. In fact, those on the "pro-" side of the evolution and global warming debates often assert boldly that you can't question science! Science is science! Furthermore, it is very clear that, even while religious authority is rejected or critiqued/satarized by many, including the religious themselves, and those with political, economic, and social power are trusted even less, not even religious fundamentalists dare question the basis of scientific authority. Pawlenty's invocation of science as a "safe" response to Gregory's question demonstrates this quite well.

My series of posts on evolution focused on debunking this faith in science. However, Pawlenty's claim that only science can establish the true nature of homosexuality brings up another interesting domain in which to examine science as a social activity - deriving from and shaping the society in which it is embedded.

The terms "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" did not exist until the end of the 19th century and were not in widespread use until the 20th. In their earliest incarnation they were medical terms, and did enter the popular lexicon until later. Herein lies one basic flaw in Palwenty's reasoning: we are not waiting for science to determine the nature of homosexualtiy; science created the concept of homosexuality and has been defining it (and redefining it) since its inception.

In this light, it is interesting to see how the terms of the debate have shifted. At the beginning, homosexuality was defined within the medical establishment as a biological, pathological condition - like a disorder or a disease. The dissidents argued, in contrast, that it was a lifestyle choice and not a pathology. It was not until religious institutions and the concept of "sin" became involved that the positions completely reversed themselves. Now religious fundamentalists argue that sexual orientation is a choice, while "born this way" has become a rallying cry of the gay rights movement.

By allowing the "opposition" to decide the terms of the debate (essentially defining their positions in reaction to the heterosexist establishment, rather than on their own terms), these particular gay rights activists (who are certainly not representative of the entire movement) are placing themselves in a vulnerable and disadvantageous position. For example, there is the grave risk that if scientists were somehow to find a "gay gene," this would once again turn homosexuality into a form of deviance, on the order, say, of autism. Who will be able to argue against those that say being gay is "unnatural," when they are armed with the evidence that homosexuality is caused by a genetic mutation?

Scientists may find a "gay gene," but only because they can always find what they want to find. Am I arguing, then, that homosexuality has no biological basis? Is that why the concept did not emerge until the last century? Absolutely not. Rather, the concept itself is only one particular way of understanding, organizing and representing a far more complex reality (a reality that cannot be boiled down to the criteria used to define the differences and between homo- and heterosexualtiy).

First, sexual attraction is not as much a black-and-white matter as the homo-hetero duality suggests. No one is attracted to all men. No one is attracted to all women. We are attracted to particular people - maybe all of the same gender, maybe a mixture. Take two "straight" women, and one could be attracted only to very effeminate, androgynous men, while the other prefers the burly, masculine type. Furthermore, if you asked either of these women to rank order everyone that exists (hypothetically, of course) in terms of their willingness to be intimate with them, at some point women would start appearing ahead of some men.  (Who wouldn't prefer to snuggle with Natalie Portman over Ted Kaczynski?)  What does it mean, then, to say that you are "attracted to men"?? The variations of attraction are perhaps infinite. The basis of attraction may be biological (though it is surely social as well), but it is not a discrete, binary trait that can be controlled by a single or isolated set of genes.

Second, the ways in which people relate to one another are incredibly diverse. There is more than one kind of intimate relationship, and intimacy is more than just physical attraction or sexual impulses. Many gay people will contend that being gay is not just about who they are sleeping with: it is about emotional and intellectual connections; it is also an identity and a culture. Thus, the notion of "sexual orientation," as it encounters the richness and complexity of the human experience of intimacy, reduces it to its sexual dimension. It creates the categories of "homosexual" and "heterosexual" in order to induce homogeneity within the boundaries of each. (And to completely neglect those who cross or straddle boundaries - bisexuals, I'm looking at you!)

It is clear, then, that scientists, in pursuit of a "gay gene" (and proposing ridiculous evolutionary justifcations of homosexuality - gay people exist only to help care for their sibling's kids), are actively working to uphold a heterosexist social order. The entire experience of human intimacy is reduced to a simple binary, wherein one end is marked as a "default." Gay people then continue to be defined as a coherent, monolithic group; according to their difference from the norm; according to their sexual behavior; as a fundamentally different "type" or "essence" from the "straight" person. And then they continue to be treated differently.

"Leaving it up to science" means ceding more power to the white, middle-class, straight, male establishment. Which probably is precisely what Pawlenty would want.

Myth 5: It's All About Genes and Germs

Or: Understanding a medical condition involves locating a gene or isolating a foreign agent.

The fundamental premise of this myth is that the human body is characterized by simple, linear cause-and-effect relationships. Granted, some leeway may be given for multiple causes and "complicating facors," but these are mere qualifications of the basic linear model which is employed.

Example 1: Genes. Medical researchers have become obsessed with finding the gene or set of genes responsible for everything from autism to homosexuality to political preference.

However, any responsible researcher will also admit that the relationships between genes, "internal" bodily processes, and "external" environment are not clearly understood. Furthermore, as discussed in Myth #4, many of these conditions may not be of a homogenous or easily definable nature (i.e. they are not "things" that can take part in a linear causal chain), and some (such as sexuality and political preference) are social constructions. This is akin to looking for the gene that causes one to speak French rather than English! True, genetic correlations are often found. But correlations are pretty easy to construct, and they do not by any necessity have any real significance.

Example 2: Germs. "Sickness" is most often conceived in terms of infections and germs. We take all sorts of measures to avoid "catching" other people's germs, which some people carry to the point of clinically-defined neurosis. We also view germs within a military framework - invasions and attacks - and seek all-out assaults on the perpetrators of illness via copious use of pharmaceuticals.

The whole idea that ill-health is caused by the intrusion of foreign agents derives from a Medieval religious perspective in which physical malady was conceived as a moral condition caused by the invasion of the body by tiny demons. This idea has persisted and, stripped (partially) of its religious component, frames our current understanding of illness. In fact, medical researchers throughout history have often ASSUMED the presence of foreign agents with absolutely no proof of their existence, and worked laboriously to find material evidence to back up what they already believed to be true.

There are several shortcomings of the "invasion" perspective. First, the body does not have a clear "inside" and "outside." In fact, the skin is the largest organ of the human body. Second, there is not always a clear distinction between what is part of the body and what is "foreign." Parasitic relationships are extremely common, and the human body also makes use of this arrangement. Bacteria, in fact, perform many vital functions in the human body. If you have ever taken an antibiotic that has killed too many of your intestinal bacteria and experienced the uncomfortable results, then you might not think of them as intruders! Third, most disease-causing agents are already present in the body under normal circumstances.

Some in the medical field have sought alternatives to the "invasion" metaphor. Ludwik Fleck suggested that the human body might more effectively be likened to a garden, in which the key to health involves a particular balance among its various components. Certain stressors or events may upset the balance from time to time. Since there is no distinct barrier between the "outside" and "inside," altered balances in the overall environment (for example, the people who surround you) may ripple and affect you as well. This is still a notion of contagion, to be sure, but a more holistic one, which does not rely as heavily on a linear causal chain, and views the body together with its environment as a unified, complex system.