[h=2]Born This Way?[/h] [h=1]Scientists may have found a biological basis for homosexuality. That could be bad news for gay rights.[/h] By Mark Joseph Stern|Posted Friday, June 28, 2013, at 5:45 AM Slate EXCERPT:
Baby, you were born this way. As soon as Lady Gaga sang these words on her smash hit "Born This Way," they became a rallying cry for gay people around the world, an anthem for sexual minorities facing discrimination. The shiny, catchy song carries an empowering (if simple) message: Dont be ashamed about being gay, or bi, or trans, or anythingthats just how you were born. Gaga later named her anti-bullying charity after the same truism, and two filmmakers borrowed it for their documentary exposing homophobia in Africa. A popular "Born This Way" blog encourages users to submit reflections on their innate LGBTQ selves. Need a quick, pithy riposte against anti-gay bigotry? Baby, we were born this way.
<SNIP>
Theres a problem with this explanation. Even though the gay rights movement theoretically wants proof that homosexuality is inborn, this particular hypothesis is, unintentionally, a little insulting. The scientists behind the [maternal immunization] hypothesis talk about it as if theyre not making judgments, but there are implicit judgments, says Jack Drescher, former chair of the American Psychiatric Associations Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues. Drescher points out, correctly, that the hypothesis is fundamentally one of pathology. If Blanchard is right, then (at least some) gay people are indeed born gay, but theres still something wrong with them. The hypothesis turns homosexuality into a birth defect, an aberration: Gay people are deviants from the normative mode of heterosexuality. We may have been born this way, the hypothesis implies, but thats not how it was supposed to happen.
Drescher is skeptical that scientists will ever uncover a single biological basis for homosexualityhe suspects the root causes are more varied and complexand suggests that its the wrong question to ask in the first place. But the hunt will go on. The gay rights movement, like the black civil rights movement before it, begins with the proposition that we should not discriminate against people because of who they are or how they were born. Thats a belief most Americans share, and it explains the success of the born this way anthem. If homosexuality is truly biological, discrimination against gay people is bigotry, plain and simple. But if its a birth defect, as Blanchards work tacitly suggests, then being gay is something that canand presumably shouldbe fixed.
End Excerpt
Baby, you were born this way. As soon as Lady Gaga sang these words on her smash hit "Born This Way," they became a rallying cry for gay people around the world, an anthem for sexual minorities facing discrimination. The shiny, catchy song carries an empowering (if simple) message: Dont be ashamed about being gay, or bi, or trans, or anythingthats just how you were born. Gaga later named her anti-bullying charity after the same truism, and two filmmakers borrowed it for their documentary exposing homophobia in Africa. A popular "Born This Way" blog encourages users to submit reflections on their innate LGBTQ selves. Need a quick, pithy riposte against anti-gay bigotry? Baby, we were born this way.
<SNIP>
Theres a problem with this explanation. Even though the gay rights movement theoretically wants proof that homosexuality is inborn, this particular hypothesis is, unintentionally, a little insulting. The scientists behind the [maternal immunization] hypothesis talk about it as if theyre not making judgments, but there are implicit judgments, says Jack Drescher, former chair of the American Psychiatric Associations Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues. Drescher points out, correctly, that the hypothesis is fundamentally one of pathology. If Blanchard is right, then (at least some) gay people are indeed born gay, but theres still something wrong with them. The hypothesis turns homosexuality into a birth defect, an aberration: Gay people are deviants from the normative mode of heterosexuality. We may have been born this way, the hypothesis implies, but thats not how it was supposed to happen.
Drescher is skeptical that scientists will ever uncover a single biological basis for homosexualityhe suspects the root causes are more varied and complexand suggests that its the wrong question to ask in the first place. But the hunt will go on. The gay rights movement, like the black civil rights movement before it, begins with the proposition that we should not discriminate against people because of who they are or how they were born. Thats a belief most Americans share, and it explains the success of the born this way anthem. If homosexuality is truly biological, discrimination against gay people is bigotry, plain and simple. But if its a birth defect, as Blanchards work tacitly suggests, then being gay is something that canand presumably shouldbe fixed.
End Excerpt
