Queer Science

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The second book by the recent novelist and author of The Sexual Brain explores the politics of research into sexual differences. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Since the mid-1800s, the thrust of much research on homosexuality has been twofold: to understand what "causes" it, then to "cure" it. LeVay (The Sexual Brain, MIT, 1993), who in 1991 published a landmark article on structural differences between the brains of gay and straight men, argues that any one-dimensional research focus is misguided. He surveys the history of research into homosexuality from its beginnings in the cognitive sciences to today's genetic and biological work. LeVay claims that to study homosexuality is, by extension, to study all human sexuality, for you cannot ask what "makes" somebody gay without asking what "makes" somebody straight. He also shows how scientific research into homosexuality colors how the public perceives gays and lesbians, for better or worse. A thoughtful and objective synthesis that deserves broad readership.Gregg Sapp, Univ. of Miami Lib.

William Beatty

LeVay presents the many likely causes of homosexuality that research is pursuing and explains who should be interested in that pursuit. He speaks as an insider, for his pioneering 1991 article on possible brain structure differences in homosexual and heterosexual men made quite a splash, and the next year he helped establish the Institute of Gay and Lesbian Education. LeVay explores anatomical, endocrinological, psychological, social, cultural, religious, and legal aspects of homosexuality, beginning with the work of two Germans, nineteenth-century jurist Karl Ulrichs and Weimar-era physician and gay rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld. He demonstrates how research reports have been properly and improperly used to promote either scientific growth or biased attitudes. LeVay's research interests lead into occasional patches of difficult reading, but readers who stick with the well-thought-out and documented text will learn much about science and humanity. Evenhandedness is the pervasive atmosphere of this book, which should be useful in both academic and public settings, although the latter must not miss Burr's "Separate Creation".