For the first time that I know of, a junior minister has
acknowledged that homosexuality is an innate condition. It was done very subtly,
almost as an aside. What such a public admission means is yet unclear.
The Sunday Times, 1 December 2002, carried an extract of a speech made by
Minister of State for Health, Balaji Sadasivan. The speech was the annual
oration of the Obstetrical & Gynaecological Society, and entitled "The
Limits of the Brain". Dr Sadasivan is a neurosurgeon.
The
extract itself was about 1,800 words. How long the speech was, I don't
know, since I've not been able to get the original text. Reading from
the Sunday Times' abridged version, Dr Sadasivan spoke about how he chose his profession and
how the neurology of the brain imposes limits on what humans can or
cannot do. He devoted much of the speech to language acquisition. Our brains evolved in
conditions of monolingualism, and is probably hard-wired for it, yet in today's world, we require lots of
people to be bilingual or even multilingual.
He went on to make the point that
behaviour, e.g. risk-taking, has a
neurological basis. Males, he said, tended towards more risk-taking
behaviour than females.
The Sunday Times carried two paragraphs of his, on homosexuality. I
don't know if he said more than this, as the text of his speech was not
available on the Ministry of Health's website.
"Research has also shown that the brain of
homosexuals is structurally different from heterosexuals. It is likely
therefore that the homosexual tendency is imprinted in the brain in
utero and homosexuals must live with the tendencies that they inherit
as a result of the structural changes in their brain.
Within the moral and cultural constraints of
our society, we should be tolerant of those who may be different from
most of us."
The second paragraph (above) was in line with the general thrust of
Dr Sadasivan's speech, which was that social policies must take into
account natural facts.
Towards the end of the oration, he said,
"Politics, my present vocation, is the art of
understanding human behaviour and the science of making rules for the
greater good of society.
To succeed, the rules must work within the
limits of the brain's intrinsic patterns of behaviour. This is the
challenge in political leadership and government."
* * * * *
What is the significance of Dr Sadasivan mentioning the origins of
homosexuality in a public speech? What is the significance of the Sunday Times
choosing to include 2 paragraphs on this when selecting what to reproduce on its
pages (and this newspaper is usually very sensitive to what the government wants
said)?
Quite likely, Dr Sadasivan was just speaking his mind, since it was an
oration to a professional body. But unless a minister is very naïve, he would
have thought long and hard about what subjects to mention, and what to avoid, if
he knew it would be reported.
One can be
optimistic, and say this is subtle way of preparing the population for
more tolerant policies to come.
My guess, however, is that the neurological basis for homosexuality was
a fact that simply interested the junior minister, and so he chose to
include it. However, in choosing to mention it, he must also have believed
that it was no
longer a sensitive topic in Singapore, or that it was time to air the
subject.
The effect of stating his position, and of the Sunday Times carrying
it, is to suggest for the first time, that government policies will in
future be
grounded on this scientific fact.
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BBC, 5 Nov 2002:
Sheep study poses sexuality
questions
US scientists claim to have found
evidence that brain structure influences sexual preference in
sheep. They say a region of the brain involved in sexual
behaviour is different in "gay" rams which prefer to
mate with other males.
Similar types of findings have
been found in humans, according to researchers at Oregon Health
and Science University (OHSU) in Portland.
The part of the brain studied is
an area of the hypothalmus involved in mating behaviour, the
preoptic hypothalamus. In humans and some other animals it is
about twice as large in males compared with females and contains
twice the number of cells. Its function in behaviour is not
fully known.
Researchers studied sheep in an
attempt to understand the biological basis of sexual behaviours.
They say previous studies have
shown that between six and 10% of rams are attracted to males
rather than females. They analysed the brain structures of 17
rams, nine of which preferred to mate with males, and 10 ewes.
Research focused on a group of
brain cells in the preoptic hypothalamus called the sexually
dimorphic nucleus.
"Interestingly, this bundle
of neurons is smaller in ewes and in rams with same-sex
preferences than it is in rams that prefer ewes," said lead
researcher Dr Kay Larkin. "We also determined that the
volume of the sexually dimorphic area is approximately the same
in rams that prefer rams as it is in ewes."
The researchers believe sheep
could help provide clues about human sexuality.
Professor Charles Roselli said:
"While we realise that sexuality is more complex in humans
than reproductive behaviours in sheep, this model will help
illuminate the basic principles that apply to all mammals, and
may be helpful in understanding the biology of human behaviours
as well."
Previous work on a possible
biological basis to sexual orientation has caused controversy.
There has been conflicting evidence on whether genetics might
underpin homosexuality to some extent.
David Allison of the UK gay
rights group Outrage says there is nothing wrong with the
so-called nature/nurture debate; what matters is getting rid of
prejudice. "It's the prejudice that is wrong not how gay
people come into world," he told BBC News Online.
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It's an indication that this cognizance has permeated the highest level of government.
With this cognizance, the
state cannot any longer wish away homosexuality, castigate it as deviance
and compel individuals to change. But to what extent the state should
accommodate it, at what pace the state will revise its existing homophobic
policies, remain open questions – especially a state that has a long
record of social engineering and is no great example of human rights.
© Yawning Bread
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Yahoo-Reuters, 5 Nov
2002:
Gay Sheep May Help Explain
Biology of Homosexuals
Gay sheep that mate only with other
rams have different brain structures from "straight"
sheep, a finding that may shed light on human sexuality, U.S.
researchers said on Monday.
The differences are similar to
those seen in some homosexual humans, but probably only go a small
way to explaining the causes of different sexual preferences, the
team at Oregon Health & Science University said.
"We are not trying to explain
human sexuality by this study," Charles Roselli, a professor
of physiology and pharmacology who led the study, said in a
telephone interview. "Whether this is a big component of what
contributes in humans, that's still debatable."
Working with a team at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois,
Idaho, Roselli's team studied 27 sheep -- 10 ewes, nine rams that
mated only with other rams and eight rams that mated only with
females. The "gay" sheep are strongly homosexual,
Roselli said.
"They don't pair-bond,"
he said. "But they are exclusive. They don't court or mate
with females. They only court and mate with males."
First the scientists watched the
sheep to be sure of their behavior -- something that cannot be
done with humans. Then they took apart their brains.
"They don't pair-bond,"
he said. "But they are exclusive. They don't court or mate
with females. They only court and mate with males."
First the scientists watched the
sheep to be sure of their behavior -- something that cannot be
done with humans. Then they took apart their brains.
"There had been reports in
humans that a certain area of the hypothalamus, the preoptic area
... was usually larger in males than females," Roselli said.
This area was also found to be larger in heterosexual humans than
in homosexual men. But the researchers had used the brains of men
who had died of AIDS in their study, which meant the disease or
drugs used to treat it could have had an effect on the brain.
"With an animal model you can
be more selective and do more controlled studies," Roselli
said.
The sheep had similar differences
in their brains, the researchers told a meeting in Orlando,
Florida, of the Society for Neuroscience. "In a sense we
confirmed what been found in humans," Roselli said.
The brain cells in this area also
made greater amounts of an enzyme called aromatase in the
heterosexual rams. Aromatase is involved in the action of
testosterone, the so-called male hormone.
This does not mean the gay rams had
less testosterone in their brains, Roselli stressed. "It is
not necessarily the activational effect of the hormone," he
said. Other types of neurons are probably active – they just
have not found them yet.
No differences in testosterone
relating to sexuality have been found either in the sheep or in
humans, he said. "It's not that gay men have lower levels of
testosterone," he said. "And it's not the case with
these sheep."
Roselli believes that exposure to
hormones while still in the mother's womb may affect the brain and
cause differences in sexual preference, and more experiments will
aim to show whether this is true.
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