TORONTO (CUP) — During a conference held at Harvard University last spring, neuroscientist Simon LeVay sounded alarmed. In 1991, LeVay conducted a study of the brain structures of gay and straight men which concluded that the hypothalamus (an area of the brain) of some of the gay men was substantially different than their straight counterparts. At the time, other scientists raised questions about LeVay’s methodology — his research used the ca- davers of supposedly gay men whose sexual history was uncertain and did not address potential envi- ronmental causes to explain the difference in size, even though brain structure is partly determined by lifetime experience. But at the conference in March of 1993, LeVay was less concerned with defending his research than he was with Other Press ever, medical ethicists, gay rights activists and even some scientists are sounding the same alarm as Le Vay. Notall gay rights groups share that concern — some, like the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the largest US. group for gay and lesbian rights, have seized on the research as potentially helpful to their cause. They feel that presenting sexual orientation as “im- mutable” may be an easier argument to make than combating anti-gay hatred. But as Bryson points out, relying on the unchangeability of one’s status has not done any- thing for women or visible minorities. “It has not lessened racism to rely on biological determinism.” And for an increasing number of gay rights groups, ethicists and even some scientists, trying to find a genetic reason for sexual orientation has more dangers than benefits. “The idea becomes that if you have a problem in society, you just eliminate it — so you don’t fix rac- ism,” says Christine Donald, spokesperson for the Coalition of Lesbian and Gay, rights in Toronto; criticizing its potential uses. If ho- mosexuality is seen as hav- ing a physical CaaS. 6° warned How many people do you know who would willingly keep an unborn child they presumed had the ‘gay gene’? LeVay, then some could also try and find a “cure.” It is not of- ten that a member of the scientific community, which prides itself on pre- senting its re- search as neutral, warns peers to think about the so- cial and po- litical impli- cations of that research. But it is also not often that scientific re- search could have such wide ranging implications for human ak. rgnats. Increas- ingly, how- January 10, 1994 Many of the critics of genetic research into sexual orientation point to the larger context in which it is being conducted —that of the Human Genome Project. Started in 1988, the project, which aims to find and map all human genes, now involves the United States, the European Community, Japan and Canada, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Its detractors say the scientific community is not prepared for the potential impact of mapping all human characteristics on a genetic map. And for some, the most worrying aspect of the research lies in its potential to identify group characteristics, mak- ing it easier in a society still imbued with racism and homophobia to discriminate against those groups. It is in this context that critics say such research is the first step on a slippery slope which could lead to eugenics — the “science” used by theThird Reich to identify and exterminate jews, homosexuals and other undesireables. Even the former head of the U.S. National Centre for Human Genome Research, James Watson, who won the Nobel prize for pioneering the research of genes as DNA sequences, has warned that beyond genetic research lies the spectre of eugenics. “Statistics on what is deviancy depend on what is considered normalcy,” says Bryson. “The results have never been used to benefit a disadvantaged group.” Bryson says this attempt to define “normalcy” is embedded in the Human Genome Project’s aim of mapping the whole of human experience into strands of classifiable DNA. Whatever genetic mate- rial falls outside that of the majority’s will be con- sidered abnormal. Diana Long, a history professor and director of the women’s studies program at the University of Southern Maine, says that the division of sexuality into straight and gay, with heterosexuality being defined as “normal,” is fairly recent. Long says that in the process of establishing what is normal, scientists also create a definition of what is “deviant.” Deviancy then is seen as an illness. “His- torical construction is based on the construction of the normal and the pathological,” says Long. She points out that historically, discrimination against gays and lesbians was based on exactly this notion of homosexuality as illness, as a condition to be corrected. It was only in 1973, for example, that the American Psychiatric Association dropped its categorization of homosexuality as a mental ill- ness. From here, say some critics of the research, it is a small jump towards elimination of what is abnor- mal, of what is effectively defined as a disease. And Bryson says that while in the case of illness, the con- FE