From: ddaniel@xymox.palo-alto.ca.us (D. Daniel Sternbergh)
Subject: Re: Brain Sex
Organization: Jade and Jett Incorporated
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 19:51:10 GMT

In his article steve@hpuplca.nsr.hp.com (Steve de Simon) writes:

> We still can't say for sure
>whether brain structure differences led to certain behaviors or whether
>the behavior made the brain structures develop differently throughout
>childhood and perhaps even later on.

Or whether both are symptoms of a common root cause, or are caused by
two different things which are themselves statistically correlated,
or... 

>Naturally, such research *could* be used for
>evil ends, but the prospect of replacing century-old freudian psycho-babble,
>not to mention centuries-old religious mythology, with hard scientific 
>measurement, IMHO, is well worth the risk.

Hear, hear!  The truth is better for us all in the long run, even if
it challenges world models we hold dear.

I'm less optimistic about replacing centuries of religious mythology.
I think I'm right in saying that most Christian denominations, at
least, are changing their opposition to gay people in such a way as to
make the origins of homosexual desire irrelevant.  They seem to be
conceding the argument of "we were born this way" and are
concentrating on "the acting out of same-sex sexual desires is
sinful".  Therefore, it won't matter whether I'm gay because of poor
upbringing, hormonal differences, or just plain orneriness, as long as
I fellate I'm going to hell.  I think that without a justification as
to why same-sex activity is wrong, this will disappear just as
religious support of slavery eventually vanished when the
justification for it (descendants of Ham and tripe like that) was
given up.

(The RC church on the other hand is essentially crafting a stance
whereby I'm simply a different creature, that looks like a human being
but is morally different, deficient and inferior, sort of like a human
incubus.  Their response, therefore, is as on target as it would be if
one treated epileptics like they were demon-possessed.)

More interesting to me than the effects on outdated thinking like
anti-gay religious jerks and Freudians is the question it raises for
us who are gay.  Suppose it turns out to be something complicated
physiologically but avoidable.  

There are at least two scenarios here: if it were detectable while the
foetus was abortable, would it be okay to choose not to bear a gay
child?  This is similar to the question of terminating pregnancies of
handicapped children, and is essentially the same question as that
raised by mothers who determine the sex of their babies in order to
abort girls.

The other case is this: Just as a thought experiment, what if you
could prevent a child from being gay by carefully monitoring and
controlling the blood levels of Vitamin W, or hormone X or something
like that?  This is a very different question even from that of "would
you take a pill that would turn you straight?" (which I most
emphatically would not).  It necessarily changes, I think, the whole
way we think about what it is to be gay or bisexual from the current
models which we (both gay and straight, gay-positive or homophobe)
have constructed to deal with a phenomenon which is currently treated
by many as "a given".

So in that sense, I find the changing of the paradigm a little
frightening and potentially threatening.  But I agree wholeheartedly
with Steve that it is better to know.  Thinking should never
deliberately be based on ignorance.



	== Daniel ==

[Hillel] used to say:	If I am not for myself who is for me?
         If I am only for myself what am I?  and If not now, when?

Xref: sparky ba.motss:1544 ba.politics:5057