"Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why"

Evan KahnCopy EditorBook ReviewIt shouldn’t matter why some people like men and some people like women. It shouldn’t matter, and yet lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are the targets of discrimination and persecution worldwide, even in our own backyard. In 2008, California voted to withhold the right to marry from same-sex couples, and Los Angeles voted “yes” on that proposition by a margin of 0.2 percent. In Uganda, a bill is on the ballot proposing to punish “repeat offenses of homosexuality” with death. It seems that people need more than a moral argument to convince people that there is nothing wrong with loving someone of the same sex.I found exactly what I was looking for in acclaimed neuroscientist Simon LeVay’s “Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why.” Amazingly, the book compiles all the recent relevant research on the biological origins or causes of sexual orientation and condenses it all into fewer than 300 pages. And I mean every piece of research: the bibliography is one-fourth of the book.LeVay makes no direct assertions on the subject; only once he has given all the information does he present his own opinion. His stance, supported by copious amounts of evidence provided, is that sexual orientation is part of a “package” of “gendered psychological traits” determined by a variety of possible biological factors. He proposes a plethora of these factors, making sure to reiterate that there is no definite answer as of now, but he puts particular emphasis on the most evidenced factor: prenatal hormones, especially testosterone.Judging from the information available to us, he says, if testosterone levels during a certain period of prenatal development are high, or if the brain is particularly receptive to testosterone, then the brain is organized in such a way that the person is predisposed to becoming “typically masculine” in various traits, including sexual attraction to females.As evidenced above, this subject is undoubtedly complex and rather scientific, and that is where the book has its drawbacks. Although LeVay has written ten previous books, “Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why” still reads like a scientific analysis, probably because that’s exactly what it is. He makes a genuine and partially successful effort to make the book reader-friendly, explaining scientific jargon on every other page and providing a huge glossary of terms ranging from “perirhinal cortex” to “gaydar.”Each chapter can stand alone, so the book needn’t be read from cover to cover. The first chapter outlines the rest of the book and provides the basis of information one needs to understand some concepts in later chapters, and the last chapter summarizes. LeVay’s conclusions on all the subject material. I highly recommend reading these two chapters first, then going to whichever chapters in the middle are of the most interest.This book is by no means a definite answer to the question “Why are some people gay?” There is still much research to be done before there can be a true conclusion. However, this book does provide evidence that homosexuality, at least, is primarily due to biology. The field of “queer science” is slowly garnering more research and more publicity — and this book is at the forefront of it all.