Unusual Fingers

Ric-ch04.qxd 4/3/2002 6:54 PM Page 55 4 Unusual Fingers Scientific Studies of Sexual Orientation LYNDA BIRKE Animal models have indicated that who we are may seem quite distant from our [hormones] acting before birth might influ- everyday lives. But it matters profoundly ence the sexual orientation of adult because not only does science seek to define humans … we examine the … pattern of finger lengths, and find evidence that how we came to be as we are, but it has also homosexual women are exposed to more offered attempts at cures aimed at eradicat- prenatal androgen than heterosexual ing homosexuality. women are; also, men with more than one If homosexuality is indeed just another older brother, who are more likely than ‘natural’ variation of sexuality, then it may be first-born males to be homosexual in reasonable for scientists to study how it adulthood, are exposed to more prenatal develops – as the quote from Hamer and androgen than eldest sons. (Williams et al., 2000: 455) Copeland suggests. They might then look for a gene which seems to predispose a man to be some scientists have begun to view both gay, or ask whether lesbians have been heterosexuality and homosexuality as exposed to high levels of the hormones called natural variations of the human condition androgens. But whether or not it is ‘natural’, that are at least as deeply rooted in nature as in nurture. (Hamer and Copeland, 1994: 20) homosexuality has also been stigmatized behaviour; indeed, all non-procreative sexual Questions about the origins of homosexu- practices are condemned and vilified by ality would be of little interest if it were some people. That social/cultural context not a stigmatized behavior. We do not ask comparable questions about ‘normal’ sex- profoundly influences the choices scientists ual preferences, such as preferences for make to study one phenomenon rather than certain physical types or for specific sex- another: it is ‘deviant’ sexualities, not hetero- ual acts that are common among heterosexuality, which is called into question. sexuals. (Hubbard and Wald, 1993: 95) My aim in this chapter is to sketch out some of the ways in which science has dealt Gay genes, different length fingers – the with the idea of homosexuality. ‘Science’ biology of homosexuality seems to be rather (by which I mean the natural sciences, newsworthy. What science has to say about notably biology in this context) is a word we Ric-ch04.qxd 4/3/2002 6:54 PM Page 56 56 Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies usually take to mean the study of the natural Michele Ana Barale has written that world; it includes, among other things, ‘heterosexuality … seeks to create lesbians certain methods, devices and narratives whose desires are as apprehensible as its which help to give it its authoritativeness. own … the lesbian body itself is made the Thus, to say that something is scientific is to site for such self-depiction’ (Barale, 1991: give it great significance in our culture; we 237). Science lends authority to such re- believe something more easily if there creation, telling tales of homosexual desire seems to be ‘objective proof’. as a reflection of heterosexual desire, but a Yet whatever its claim to objectivity, desire in which something is amiss. Thus, in science is not neutral; its practitioners live in many scientific narratives, lesbian desire is a particular historical period, in a particular understood in terms of masculinity, and culture. That history and culture influence markers of such masculinity have been how they generate hypotheses, how they sought in lesbians’ biological bodies. interpret data, and whether and how they Both heterosexuality and masculinity are obtain funding or publication. Thus, in a cli- the dominant narratives in scientific tales mate in which massive international funding (Butler, 1993; Fausto-Sterling, 1997). That goes to ‘mapping’ genomes and moving bits is one reason why the question, ‘what makes of DNA around, ‘the’ gene has become such us gay?’ can be asked; for we are the other a powerful cultural icon (Nelkin and Lindee, to the heterosexual norm. Without that 1995); it is then hardly surprising that geneti- binary opposition between heterosexual and cists search for all kinds of genes – including homosexual, the question would have little those putatively determining our sexuality. meaning. Thus, scientific stories seek out Throughout this chapter, therefore, I try that which is amiss with the lesbian/gay to locate ideas in their social and cultural body – what is ‘other’ about it – be that parts context. Although I outline various theories of the brain or parts of the chromosomes. about the biological bases of homosexuality, These are the reasons why I write primar- I argue that there is little evidence of any ily about homosexuality rather than drawing such biology. But that is not to say that our on more recent concepts of queer, which biology is never involved in our sexuality have little or no parallel in biomedical (which, after all, is often expressed through discourse. Here, the division is usually sim- our biological bodies); rather, we have yet ply hetero/homosexual, male/female. While to find ways of talking about biology and sex- some areas of science have recognised uality that are liberatory and not determining. greater diversity (sexology, for example, has Among other things, biomedicine has historically tried to map out sexual diver- drawn heavily on cultural stereotypes of sity), the search for biological causes of homosexuality that collapse sexual orienta- sexual variation has been mired in dichoto- tion and behaviour onto stereotypic notions mies. Nature, it would seem (or at least as it of gender division. On the whole, the is described by many scientists) has no space scientific literature is concerned with what for gender as performance, or as multiple makes someone a homosexual; and not just (see Butler, 1993). a homosexual, but a gender-stereotyped one. Despite newer ideas about sexualities and So, the personae of the scientific stories are multiplicity in the wider culture, however, the effeminate gay man and the butch les- there has been a recent upsurge of interest in bian. Thus, the scientists reporting on finger biological bases of homosexuality, but why length started from the assumption that les- now? Addressing these questions raises, I bians had been masculinised by hormones in would argue, crucial issues for lesbian and the womb. What these stereotyped charac- gay studies; although our academic inquiry ters actually do is not at issue; it is their has included discussion of essentialism (our) lesbian/gay identities, their essences, (Fuss, 1989; Stein, 1992), we have directly that matter. addressed science and its claims much less Ric-ch04.qxd 4/3/2002 6:54 PM Page 57 Unusual Fingers 57 often. Given the hegemony of the ‘new In addition, scientific arguments rely on genetics’, we need to know whether claims material produced by apparatus in the labs – about ‘gay genes’ really help to reduce what Bruno Latour (1987) calls the output discrimination against us, as some have from inscription devices. To be persuasive, argued. Or do such claims merely reinforce a scientist must draw on tables, graphs, and the same, tired, old prejudices? And, if we so on, from some device set up to measure find fault with them, is simply rejecting or something. Merely observing that’ x affects ignoring biology the only answer? Could les- y is not enough – you have to demonstrate it bian/gay studies benefit from a less polarised quantitatively through graphs: indeed, labo- view of the place of biology? These are ratory work is largely organised around themes that I want to draw out in this chapter. ways of ‘“framing” a phenomenon so that it can be measured and mathematically described’ (Lynch, 1990: 170, emphasis in SCIENCE … IN CONTEXT original). In other words, what actually happens in laboratories is not only observa- tion of ‘nature’ (if, indeed, it is nature once Before going into details of scientific inside the lab: Knorr-Cetina, 1983) but theories, however, I want to ask a few ques- also practices which set up ‘nature’ in tions about science. Science has enormous measurable ways. authority; within Western culture, we are Scientists, moreover, must learn not only more likely to believe claims if they are to produce such inscriptions, but also to read ‘scientific’ than if they derive from other them. Learning to ‘read’ nature through frameworks. That is why recent claims about apparatus is a central part of scientific train- putative ‘gay brains’ or ‘gay genes’ are so ing. You have to learn how to see down a significant: they were claims made by scien- microscope, for instance, and how to inter- tists and published in prestigious journals. As pret what you see – even if all you actually a result, they were widely heralded in the see at first is a reflection of your own eye- media, which further enhances scientific ball (Keller, 1996). In learning to read authoritativeness;1 headlines typically empha- scientific diagrams, you must learn to sise that ‘scientists have found such-and- generalise from the specific (the particular such’, thus reinforcing the notion that what tissue you see under the microscope, say) to science creates is certainty. When researchers the general (a diagram of ‘the’ ovary, for at the National Institutes of Health in the example). I am stressing these themes from USA located a gene associated with increased recent sociological studies of science male-to-male courtship among Drosophila because they are relevant to thinking about flies, it was reported as a ‘gay gene’ in fruit biology and homosexuality. How we learn flies (e.g. Highfield, 1995). No matter that to read scientific images matters when the this has nothing to do with humans, the head- paper in question shows us photographs of, line implies a similar genetic mechanism to say, ‘gay brains’.

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