Homosexuality more about politics than biology
By LOH FOON FONGThe initial perspective in psychology was to treat homosexuality. Later, researchers who were mostly gays or lesbians carried out studies to prove the normality of homosexuality and gay affirmative psychology was developed.
However, until today, scientific results are still generally sketchy.
The first psychological theories about homosexuality, developed from the middle of the 19th century, dealt with its origin, says Theo Sandfort in his article “Homosexuality, Psychology, and Gay and Lesbian Studies” in the book he edited with others, Gay and Lesbian Studies – An Introductory, Interdisciplinary Approach.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, considers homosexuality the outcome of disturbed psychosexual development in which the child’s relationships with his or her parents were the sole determining factor in homosexual orientation.
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A participant of a gay parade in Bangkok. While studies on homosexuality are inconclusive, some observers cautioned that the debate is not about biology or upbringing but about politics. |
He says that several researchers compared lesbian and heterosexual women to see whether negative childhood and adolescent sexual experiences with men were predictors of a homosexual orientation. Some did not find any support for this hypothesis. However, J.H. Beitchman and others, in 1992, concluded in their paper, “A review of the long term effects of child sexual abuse,” in Child Abuse and Neglect, that adult women with child sexual abuse experiences had more homosexual experiences in adolescence and adulthood.
Biological studies
From the biological perspective, F.L. Whitman (1993) in “Homosexual orientation in twins: a report on 61 pairs and three triplet sets,” from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, showed that homosexuality was more often present in both persons if the twins are identical twins instead of fraternal. Other researchers looked at the composition of families and found that, compared with heterosexual women, homosexual women had a significantly higher proportion of homosexual sisters, says Sandfort.
In 1991, psychologist Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and psychiatrist Richard Pillard of Boston University School of Medicine also compared sets of identical male twins and fraternal twins. In each set, at least one twin was homosexual. Among the identical twins, 52% were both homosexual, while among the fraternal twins, 22% shared a homosexual orientation. Pillard and Bailey suggested that the higher incidence of shared homosexuality among identical twins meant that homosexuality was genetic in origin.
However, Joe Dallas, a former gay rights activist and founder of Genesis Counselling in California, in a booklet he produced, Is homosexuality inborn? argues that if 48% of identical twins who are closely linked genetically do not share the same sexual orientation, then genetics alone cannot account for homosexuality.
“Since all the twins Pillard and Bailey studied were raised in the same household, it is impossible to know whether environment or genes played a role. In order for such a study to be meaningful, one has to look at twins raised apart,” he says.
Dallas’ argument may have some basis. Take Ann (not her real name), for instance, who is a lesbian and whose two other sisters are also lesbians. They have an abusive father and Ann’s mother, who is very feminine and submissive to her husband, did not protect the children when they were abused, says Ann.
When asked why she would not date a man, Ann, who is in her 30s and living alone in Kuala Lumpur says she is repulsed by her abusive father as well as other men. She adds that she is inexplicably attracted to women as she feels they are weak and need to be protected.
The abuse of Ann and her sisters appears to have a psychological impact on them.
In March 1992, a study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that only 20% of the homosexual twins had a gay co-twin, leading the researchers to conclude that genetic factors are insufficient in explaining the development of sexual orientation.
Dr Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute of La Jolla, California, carried out a study on the brains of 41 cadavers – 19 homosexual men, 16 heterosexual men, and six heterosexual women. His study – reported in the Science magazine in August 1991 – on a group of neurons in the hypothalamus structure called the interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3) showed that this region of the brain was larger in heterosexual men than in homosexuals. He postulated that homosexuality was inborn.
However, Dallas pointed out that three of the homosexual subjects had larger INAH3s than the heterosexuals, and three of the heterosexuals had smaller INAH3 than the average homosexual subject.
However, his peers in the neuroscientific community could not agree on whether the INAH3 should be measured by its size and volume or by its number of neurons. It was also unclear whether brain structure affected behaviour or vice versa.
One year after LeVay’s study was released, Dr Lewis Baxter of the University of California, Los Angeles, obtained evidence that behavioural therapy can produce changes in brain circuitry, reinforcing the idea that behaviour can and does affect brain structure.
Politics of homosexuality
While studies on homosexuality are inconclusive, observers cautioned that the debate is not about biology but about politics.
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) deleted homosexuality from its list of disorders. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual initially listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance and in 1968 re-categorised it as a sexual deviation.
Dallas pointed out that Ronald Bayer in Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis says that gay leaders protested the annual conventions of the American Psychiatric Association, demanding reconsideration of homosexuality’s diagnostic status, and that they be included in future discussions. On Dec 15, 1973, the Board of Trustees of the APA, after months of negotiations with gay activists, voted to delete homosexuality from the Manual.
In 1974, the board called for a referendum after opposition from some psychiatrists. The entire membership of the APA was polled for their support or rejection of the board’s decision. Out of 10,000 voting members, 60% supported the decision while nearly 40% opposed it.
Regardless of whether homosexuality is inborn or nurtured, the greater question is: where does society draw the line in sexual behaviour? If homosexuality is justified if it is inborn, what about adulterous, incestuous, paedophilic or bestial relationships if they are also proven “inborn”?
“Violent behaviours are now thought to be genetically influenced, so are they legitimate because they are inherited?” asks Dallas.
If in cases where people become homosexual due to childhood trauma, are there professional counselling available for them in dealing with the trauma? And if they choose to express their homosexuality, what should a society’s attitude be without demeaning homosexuals as persons?
These are questions that every society needs to address.
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