On the "Gay Brain" Study
For the uninitiated:
Researchers using brain scans have found new evidence that biology — and not environment — is at the core of sexual orientation. Scientists at the Stockholm Brain Institute in Sweden report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that gay men and straight women share similar traits — most notably in the size of their brains and the activity of the amygdala — an area of the brain tied to emotion, anxiety and aggression. The same is true for heterosexual men and lesbians.
Study author, neurologist Ivanka Savic–Berglund, says such characteristics would develop in the womb or in early infancy, meaning that psychological or environmental factors played little or no role.
Images showing the symmetry here. One should note that the study is relatively small: “90 volunteers — 25 straight and 20 gay members of each sex.”
The most interesting aspect of this report to me is the fact that it, unlike the current (and popular) “older brother” theory of male homosexuality, actually explains lesbianism. It also has a clear causal underpinning; the “older brother” theory is merely a strong data correlation but without any obvious physiological cause (hormonal responses in the mother during gestation are suspected, but as yet unproven).
In any case, my standard hasty stitches, first chronicled in this post and also here, remain unchanged:
–Immutability of characteristics (i.e., “born that way”) has long been a major prerequisite for warranting suspect class status for equal protection purposes (i.e., strict scrutiny for discrimination based on race; intermediate scrutiny for gender or national origin, etc. — see, e.g., Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973)). The more evidence that homosexuality “is a biologically fixed characteristic” (which, remember, is not quite the same as “is genetic”), the more defensible granting suspect class status to gays becomes, as the California Supreme Court just did in In re Marriage Cases. Perhaps other courts will follow suit.
–To the bigots, all the research in the world won’t make a scrap of difference. If it’s not biological, then it’s a “choice.” If it is biological, then it’s a “disease.” Either way, it’s wrong and deserves no equal treatment (other than in a hospital or asylum). All they’ll do is run a search-and-replace in their talking point documents. But they will definitely not stop talking.
Filed under: Gay Rights and Issues