A Brief History of the ‘Gay Gene’ Is there a genetic basis for sexuality? ... And does it even matter? By Timothy F. Murphy
In 1929, neurologist John F.W. Meagher observed that “Indulgent male inverts like pleasant, artistic things, and nearly all of them are fond of music. They also like praise and admiration. They are poor whistlers. Their favorite color is green . . . where most individuals prefer blue or red.”1 Like many clinicians and psychologists before him, Meagher believed that some people were homosexual for genetic reasons, and that these account for the alleged similarity in tastes and behavior. Others pointed to genetics as an explanation of homosexuality, too. The psychologist Richard von KrafttEbing (1840-1902) said in 1886 that “An explanation of contrary sexual feeling may be found in the fact that it represents a peculiarity bred in descendants, but arising in ancestry.”2 Not everyone has turned to genetics to explain homosexuality, especially since homosexuality could arise situationally. But the idea that genetics was responsible for some homosexuality led some clinicians to express worries that homosexual men and women would pass that sexuality on to their own children, should they have them. Even the foremost advocate of the rights of homosexual people of his time, Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) cautioned that “from the viewpoint of race hygiene, the marriage of a homosexual is a risky undertaking.”3 Volume 24 Number 6
The idea that sexual orientation was biological for some people did not, however, close the door to the idea of therapy for homosexuality. Krafft-Ebing thought a return to heterosexuality was possible for at least some ‘inverts.’ Yet the idea of a biological basis for sexuality did give some psychologists pause about whether psychotherapies could work. Psychologist Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) worried that even if homosexual men could bring themselves to engage in heterosexual intercourse, the underlying “perversion” would remain largely undisturbed. He called intercourse under these circumstances masturbation per vaginam.4 For his part, Freud thought of human beings as psychically bisexual by nature, as able to express erotic interest in both male and females. Freud saw exclusive homosexuality as a halfway phase between autoeroticism and mature sexuality.5 Even so, he thought of some men and women as congenitally disposed to homosexuality, not that he thought psychoanalysis could go much beyond that conclusion: “It is not for psychoanalysis to solve the problem of homosexuality. It must rest content with disclosing the psychical mechanisms that resulted in determining the object choice, and with track back the paths from them to instinctual dispositions.”6 In the end, Freud was skeptical about sexual
reorientation, but did not rule it out altogether. The theory that homosexuality is genetic—and therefore inborn in at least some people—was resisted by certain psychologists and clinicians who were unwilling to give up the idea of therapy. In 1957, a British government committee issued The Wolfenden Report, which declared that homosexuality was not itself evidence of a disease and which recommended decriminalizing homosexuality among adults. In 1963, psychiatrist William Menninger wrote a forward to a copy of that report published in the United States. Contrary to the spirit of the Report, he noted that homosexuality ranks high in the kingdom of evils. He said, “Whatever it be called by the public, there is no question in the minds of psychiatrists regarding the abnormality of such behavior.”7 He thought there were ways to re-educate and rehabilitate homosexual men and women, and he called on medicine to rise to the challenge of restoring heterosexuality to all men and women. Gradually, however, genetic researchers challenged the dominance of psychological accounts of homosexuality. In the early 1950s, psychiatrist Franz J. Kallman carried out the first studies of homosexuality in twins.8 Kallman looked at 95 cases of twin brothers and found that among GeneWatch 11