Anne Fausto-Sterling Frameworks of desire Genes versus choice. A quick and dirty tain unalienable Rights . ” Moreover, search of newspaper stories covering sci- rather than framing research projects in enti½c research on homosexuality shows terms of the whole of human desire, we that the popular press has settled on this neglect to examine one form, heterosex- analytic framework to explain homosex- uality, in favor of uncovering the causes uality: either genes cause homosexuality, of the ‘deviant’ other, homosexuality. or homosexuals choose their lifestyle.1 Intellectually, this is just the tip of the The mischief that follows such a for- iceberg. When we invoke formulae such mulation is broad-based and more than as oppositional rather than developmen- a little pernicious. Religious fundamen- tal, innate versus learned, genetic versus talists and gay activists alike use the chosen, early-onset versus adolescent genes-choice opposition to argue their experience, a gay gene versus a straight case either for or against full citizenship gene, hardwired versus flexible, nature for homosexuals. Biological research versus nurture, normal versus deviant, now arbitrates civil legal proceedings, the subtleties of human behavior disap- and the idea that moral status depends pear. on the state of our genes overrides the Linear though it is, even Kinsey’s scale historical and well-argued view that we has six gradations of sexual expression; are “endowed by [our] Creator with cer- and Kinsey understood the importance of the life cycle as a proper framework for analyzing human desire. Academics Anne Fausto-Sterling is professor of biology and –be they biologists, social scientists,2 or gender studies in the Department of Molecular cultural theorists–have become locked and Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown Uni- into an oppositional framework. As a re- versity. She has written “Myths of Gender: Bio- sult, they are asking the wrong questions logical Theories about Men and Women” (1985) and “Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the 1 I used the keywords ‘genes’ and ‘homosexual- Construction of Sexuality” (2000). Her current ity’ in the Lexis-Nexis academic database and work focuses on applying dynamic systems theory searched general newspaper articles for the past to the study of human development. two years. In well over one hundred articles, this is the framework for analysis. © 2007 by the American Academy of Arts 2 I except some anthropologists from the & Sciences broad-brush claim. Dædalus Spring 2007 47 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne and offering intellectually impoverished maining variability being explained by Fausto- accounts of the emergence and develop- nonshared environmental influences”5), Sterling on ment of human desire. they ultimately argue that the linkages sex suggested by such studies are important. A steady patter of research papers link- Since they believe that many genes are ing genes to homosexuality rains down likely to be involved, they decided to on us, hitting ½rst the scienti½c jour- scan the entire genome (X, Y, and all of nals; then soaking through to the news- the autosomes) in an attempt to ½sh out papers, blogs, and television news; and a set of genes related in some way to ½nally growing like mold, often wildly male sexual orientation. reshaped from the initial tiny spore into The authors hoped to avoid false posi- the mycelia of popular discourse. As in- tives caused by “gay men who identify tellectual efforts, each of these articles as heterosexual”6 by only studying self- has technical strengths and weaknesses identi½ed gay men. But the idea that –one can always criticize the sample there are gay men who identify as het- size, or the method of recruiting study erosexual suggests that there is some subjects, or the statistical test employed. biological essence of gayness that can But most of them share a similar–and exist genetically and therefore be meas- problematic–analytical framework. ured independently of identity and be- We can expose this general framework havior. This begs the de½nitional ques- by considering one recent and widely tion. The state of being gay (in adult- reported article, “A Genomewide Scan hood) might, in fact, reasonably include of Male Sexual Orientation,” authored identity, behavior, and/or desire. by six scientists from ½ve prestigious Indeed, in their groundbreaking work, research institutions dotting the United The Social Organization of Sexuality, E. O. States from California to Washington, Laumann and his colleagues studied the D.C.3 The article introduces the problem interrelation of these components of by citing scholarly research linking bio- homosexuality in 143 men who reported logical events or genetic structures to any inkling of same-sex desire. Of the male-male sexual orientation. While the men surveyed, 44 percent expressed ho- authors, Brian Mustanski and his col- mosexual desire but not identity or be- leagues, concede that the evidence is in- havior, while 24 percent reported having complete (they note the limited number all three of these components. Another of studies that attempt to locate speci½c 6 percent expressed desire and behavior genes related to homosexuality) and that but not identity, 22 percent expressed be- nonbiological factors must also be in- havior but not desire or identity, 2 per- volved (they mention, for example, two cent had only the identity, and 1 percent recent twin studies that “report moder- had the identity and desire but not the ate heritability estimates4 with the re- behavior. 3 B. S. Mustanski et al., “A Genomewide Scan Routledge, 2000). S. E. Lerman et al., “Sex of Male Sexual Orientation,” Human Genetics Assignment in Cases of Ambiguous Genitalia 116 (4) (2005): 272–278. and its Outcome,” Urology 55 (2000): 8–12. 4 See Kaplan’s discussion of the use and mis- 5 Mustanski et al., “A Genomewide Scan,” use of the concept of heritability in Jonathan 273. Kaplan, The Limits and Lies of Human Genetic Research: Dangers for Social Policy (New York: 6 Ibid. 48 Dædalus Spring 2007 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 So Mustanski and colleagues selected embryo formation or disease, the genet- Frameworks a subset of men who, judging from the icist’s method is to study the mutant in of desire Laumann survey, would comprise only order to understand normal processes. 27 percent of men expressing some com- Although Mustanski and his colleagues ponent of homosexuality. Thus, even if prefer to consider homosexuality as part the authors were to ½nd genetic linkages, of the natural variation of the human genetic studies of this sort give insuf½- species, this ½g leaf cannot hide the bas- cient theoretical attention to the possi- ic framework of ‘normal versus mutant,’ ble meanings of such ½ndings. which emphasizes ½xed typologies rath- The study also compares the dna of er than biological processes and life- gay men with those of their heterosex- cycle analyses. ual brothers. Since all siblings share 50 If some sociologists can frame homo- percent of their dna, the dna regions sexuality in ways that better appreciate (genes) that are present in higher fre- its complexities, why can’t biologists? quency in the genomes of the gay broth- After all, the tools exist within their ers then become regions of interest, as ½eld: biologists know how to look at be- potentially related to male homosexual- havior or cellular states as processes or ity. But to ½nd the brothers for the study, emergences rather than as static cate- the authors advertised in homophile gories. In studying the role of gene net- publications, and the mean Kinsey score works in the process of embryonic de- for their sample was 5.46.7 Again, this velopment, for example, Eric Davidson sample would represent, according to and his colleagues have pinpointed the Laumann study, only about one- ‘feed-forward’ genetic networks that quarter of men expressing or feeling de½ne cell transitions as the fertilized some aspect of homosexuality. egg divides and the resulting cells dif- As Mustanski and his colleagues free- ferentiate into specialized tissues. The ly acknowledge, their ½ndings are mere- process is self-generating, involves hun- ly suggestive, providing trails to be fol- dreds of genetic elements and their feed- lowed rather than explanations to be back loops, and progresses historically had. In their own words, they identify –each new cellular state provides the “candidate genes for further explora- necessary conditions for the next one tion” and hope that any future molecu- until a stable feedback loop is estab- lar analysis of “genes involved in sexual lished.9 Using a more complex version orientation could greatly advance our of a cybernetic thermostat regulation understanding of human variation, evo- loop, the system maintains a stable dif- lution and brain development.”8 But ferentiated state under a broad range of here, they reflect the point of view of (though not all) conditions. Conceptu- most classical genetic studies. From ally similar approaches have been em- Thomas Hunt Morgan’s ½rst analysis of ployed to devise models of the emer- the white-eyed fruit-fly mutant to pres- gence of perceptual competence in de- ent-day dissection of genes involved in 9 E. H. Davidson et al., “A Genomic Regula- 7 0=exclusively heterosexual, and 6=exclusive- tory Network for Development,” Science 295 ly homosexual. (5560) (2002): 1669–1678; E. H. Davidson, The Regulatory Genome: Gene Regulatory Net- 8 Mustanski et al., “A Genomewide Scan,” works in Development and Evolution (New York: 277. Academic Press, 2006). Dædalus Spring 2007 49 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/daed.2007.136.2.47 by guest on 24 September 2021 Anne veloping human infants.10 Such dynam- Grace, or in discussions about butch and Fausto- Sterling ic models have room for speci½c infor- femme lesbians, may derive from par- on mation about gene action during neural ticular, but certainly far from universal, sex development–the sort of information practices within the gay community.