Backdoor Entry to Gay Eugenics…
Frisell, T., Lichtenstein, P., Rahman, Q., & Långström, N. (2009). Psychiatric morbidity associated with same-sex sexual behaviour: influence of minority stress and familial factors Psychological Medicine, 40 (02) DOI: 10.1017/S0033291709005996
A worrying trend has emerged, whereby some health professionals and academics alike are stumbling over how to re-pathologise homosexuality while at all times wanting to appear to be fair-minded citizens. For example, the American Psychiatric Association has tussled for years over whether gayness is an illness or not. Similarly, the American Psychological Association continues to fudge around whether homosexuality is amenable to reparative therapy, seemingly to placate the powerful fundamentalist Christian bloc in the US. And here, in this article by Frisell et al. (2010), comes around the straight that each-way bet in a two-horse race, that gay people might be madder than straight people because of genetics and/or environment. Of one thing, though, the authors can be sure: gay people are independent of any glitter and gloss, mad as cut snakes. Which makes me wonder why perhaps gay rights advocates are so hung up on dross like singer John Mayer calling us ‘fags’ (we are) and yet remain so muted on what pretty much looks like reasons for eugenics, part 894. Frisell et al. (2010) claim that independent of any homophobia dumped upon us fags across the lifespan, we are more prone to mental illness than our straight counterparts are. In a flash, thus, the horrendous impact of homophobia is diminished and the burden to bear becomes fixing the diseased mind of the fag. I need not even wonder how unconscionable it would be to adopt a similar academic stance toward any other cultural minority.
Update: On p.474 of this article (see reference, below) Bostwick et al. (2010) concede that they have left out a context-based analysis and then note the critical importance of Meyer’s (2003) ‘minority stress model’ in understanding the relationship between stigma, discrimination, sexuality, and mental health (p.474). Since anxiety and depression and other such mood disorders are expressed as behaviours, you cannot seriously attribute sexuality to those behaviours in the absence of considering context.
Bostwick WB, Boyd CJ, Hughes TL, & McCabe SE (2010). Dimensions of sexual orientation and the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in the United States. American journal of public health, 100 (3), 468-75 PMID: 19696380
I haven’t read the study and I couldn’t care less if this, or any subsequent studies prove that certain sexual tendencies are linked to other diseases. Science can’t hurt you. How it is used, is a different matter.
It’s a long path from linking anything to genes to endorsing eugenic treatment (be it institutionalized, optional, or whatever). There is an excellent book on the subject, called “From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice” by Allen Buchanan (Author), et al. The more I read it, the more I realized that there are no easy answers. The matter of genetic engineering will end up being just another power struggle, between the various interest groups. But with homosexuality, it will be very easy to resolve.
You see, there is no case for institutionalized eugenics, when ‘the afflicted’ can prove that they live happy, fulfilling lives, without threatening the welfare of others. In short, the research is irrelevant. But there will be a battle, on the options parents will have for their offspring.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that one or more genes are found to cause homosexuality and the technology exists to prevent it. Should a fundamentalist Christian couple be free to make the choice for their own offspring? Now, this is tricky.
Regardless of the law, I expect that once the technology is there, people will customize their babies based on their own beliefs. They will not care if their choice is legal, or whether it marginalizes any given group of people that they deem ‘abnormal’.
The battle then will be the same that gays and lesbians have been fighting all along. The battle for equality before the law, elimination of prejudice etc. I am sorry to say that in my country (Greece), this battle is still in its early stages. If gays and lesbians do not demand their rights as they have done elsewhere, nothing will change. If acceptance is not achieved before genetic engineering is widely available, the problems will only get somewhat worse.
Still, do not judge a paper based on anything other that its rigour. It’s good that you hint at the dangers, but don’t worry about the academics. Worry about everyone else.
P.S. I’m straight, but sexual orientation means nothing to me. Justice does.
It took gay and lesbian activists a great deal of time and energy to fight the accepted view that homosexuality was a mental disorder. As I have mentioned elsewhere, professional clinical associations still dither on whether same sex attraction can or should be pathologised. Scientific research is not value free. It exists within a context and is heavily value-laden. As I see more and more research coming out, seeking to establish a co-existing, genetic basis to mental disorder and homosexuality, I am wary of the motivation of such research. You are optimistic that gay and lesbian citizens constitute enough of an accepted, insider group that this might stave off an institutionalised eugenic effort to snuff out homosexuality. But you also put the frightening proposition that if down the track, parents might be given the option to choose not to have a gay or lesbian child, they might take that option. I would suggest that if homosexuality is again entombed within the concept of ‘sickness’, it will at the very least increase support for our enforced treatment, if not eventually our annihilation.
I see an awful lot of reactionary thinking in this post.
So what if the biological underpinning for homosexuality did have some sort of intrinsically unhealthy side effect? Would it be wrong to acknowledge it, would the right approach be to bury the study that brought it up?
I acknowledge that such ideas bring up troublesome consequences, but.. the only solution I see being suggested here is to refuse to even consider such ideas, and to criticize any such research on the basis of the possible consequences of it rather than the validity of the study itself.
If you’re concerned about equal rights for homosexuals you ought to understand that the fallacy of the argument from consequences has been employed frequently to argue against gay marriage itself. Surely you’ve seen it, the “if we allow teh gey to marry then the next thing you know people will be marrying garden furniture” argument.
Honestly, I can take on this eugenics bullshit easily. You find attaching a negative medical condition to a minority to be unconscionable?
Are you suggesting that homosexuals would be the first group ever in history to have a known medical problem associated with it? Never heard of sickle cell anemia, have you? Never noticed that race is a component of the risk factor for various cancers, heart disease, and other medical problems? If a modern eugenics movement were to seize upon the increased risk of heart disease among black people, would that then mean that we could no longer acknowledge such risk factors?
I understand that the situation is more fragile for the homosexual community, I understand that such studies can and will be used by the bigoted opposition. I’ve seen it done already, in some pretty absurd ways. My particular “favorite” was someone using the suicide rate of homosexuals as an argument against homosexuality. Yeah, the suicide rate of an oppressed minority which doesn’t enjoy the same rights that the majority does is an evidence of an intrinsic fault rather than the negative effects of being in an oppressed minority, right. But I just can’t see the value in the knee jerk reactionism of attacking the studies unless you have an issue to make with their method. I found the suicide reference rather odious because instead of trying to compensate for the effects of such negative social influences it relished in them, whereas this study has at least attempted to make an adjustment.
The American Psychiatric Association (the authors of the DSM) concede that there is no objective test for the existence of any mental disorder (using the word ‘illness’ to describe such states is a misnomer, a mistake that I myself sometimes make). Symptoms vary within individuals and across space and time. So, at the outset, trying to form the argument for a genetic basis for the co-existence of mental illness and homosexuality is flawed. You would be looking to control an extraordinary set of variables. Further, how do you control for the obvious and the more insidious impacts of homophobia on the stress levels of gay men, then separate that out from some intrinsic mental ‘defect’? I would worry that we should run with the idea that any research is OK, so long as it is rigorous in its methodology. What about the ethical arguments?