On the Crisis of Scientifically Studying Homosexuality

Crossposted, Original Link

Unless addressing HIV, AIDS, or sexual health, queer communities, at least in Lebanon, often disregard scientific interferences in our issues. Even though it is understandable, this hatred is still misleading, disturbing, and damaging to our movement. At the heart of my article is my scientific side trying to analyze and explain how scientists fucked up when they pointed their microscopes towards our identities.
If you bring up most scientific research talking about the genetic, psychological, or hormonal origin of our identities, you are most likely to get rolling eyes for a response. In some cases, you could harshly be reprimanded for being self-hating or naïve.
This scientophobia, if I may call it that, is a direct result of our bitter history with unethical or biased scientists trying to prevent us from accepting, or to heal us from, our identities.
In this article, we will not go over theories and studies that discuss biological and psychological origins of homosexuality. For those, you may find a well-referenced discussion about the subject on Wikipedia.
Scientific flaws permeate most of these research papers: The first being that they often study small groups of “homogenous” homosexuals. The studied homosexual is usually the stereotyped homosexual, white, cute, HIV+ and effeminate man.
There are rarely any mentions of other sub-communities, of lesbians, bisexuals, non-effeminate gay men, or transgender individuals. Perhaps, including everyone in one study would be too much of a hassle – I understand.
But here’s the catch: When you limit the scope of your study, you limit the scope of your conclusion. When you study a very specific population of homosexuals, you clarify the profile of that population.
After all, when science brags about finding an origin for homosexuality, and after looking at one sub-group in the queer community, random fucks, and their random assumptions about me, are legitimized, when in fact, science has barely ever studied people like me!
Of course, there are also issues of methodology that surface with some of the research. LeVay’s research* for example had a small sample of 7 homosexual men who died of AIDS. A sample of 7 is not enough to draw any conclusions whatsoever; the margin of error would remain too large. The differences observed could have resulted from sample artifacts, random population drifts, pure luck, etc.
Needless to say, these findings always fail the fundamental scientific test of replication. The laywoman may not know this, but for any scientific quantitative research to be acknowledged and for the scientist behind it to be accredited, it needs to be verified by another research team, while studying a different sample of the same population. If the conclusions fail to conform, then the theory is dropped.
The analysis of the results is also problematic. Scientists are allowed and encouraged to draw conclusions, as long as they, on one hand, keep their assumptions within the limits of reason, and on the other hand, they ought to clearly state they are speculating.
In addition, scientific research was always plagued with the overlap between causality and correlation, and that often led to numerous cruelties concealed behind the veil of science. As a biologist, there is nothing that shames me more. When we speak of causality, it means that A causes B, sticking a knife in someone’s skin causes a wound. Correlation on the other hand, means A is highly common when B is highly common in a specific population, for example, IQ results are often low in African American populations in the United States of America. Correlation may indicate causality, but scientists must be extremely careful when making a conclusion for a scientific research. Because s/he will steer the public opinion based on her/his research.
The African American IQ studies for example were disastrous and shameful for the scientists who performed them. Because of their racism and blunt bias, they frauded (they plea innocence on the basis of ignorance, but I personally refuse to let them off that easily) the results. Instead of drawing attention to some fundamental social problems affecting a minority’s ability to integrate the school system, such as language barriers, they chose to stigmatize the African American population and formulating correlation in the guise of causality.
Similarly, when scientists speak of homosexuality, they often speak of correlations with subtle phenomena such as unhealthy family dynamics, or a succession of older female siblings, and so on. They often fail to bring the social into the scene: After all, when parents notice that their son may be homosexual in a homophobic society, they often turn aggressive, if not violent.
You can also notice how some scientists, mainly genetic engineers, conduct certain “gay mice and homosexual flies” types of research and manipulation. It sounds interesting, that’s for sure, but when you think about it, what on earth do we have in common with mice? And flies? To top it off, the definition of a “homosexual fly” is one that just sticks its genital organ into another male. The same goes for mice. Such populations do not “choose partners” and have no preferential attitude towards anyone in the population. Give them a 100 mates and they will fuck 100 mates. I believe that the queer populations, throughout the different sub-communities, agree that what we define as sexuality is far more complicated.
Some argue that we look at animals in order to counter the normalcy argument. A comparison with insects and rodents is irrelevant for this purpose, because our social structures are fundamentally different from theirs: Drinking human blood is not rendered normal because mosquitoes ingest blood, is it?
If we need to better understand the evolutionary advantage our sexuality and identities present to society, then we can study animals that are socially closer to us, maybe primates. For such populations, non-heterosexual romance and sexual practice have been observed for as long as these animals have been observed.
For this, we also need to clarify, or maybe remember, that the concept of “normal” is void by definition, humans are normal, our non-conforming identities and orientations are by definition normal because a human being feels them, if these feelings were not “normal”, we wouldn’t be able to feel them. Psychological problems and illnesses are normal, they usually occur as a coping mechanism against stressful environments. Why do we treat them as illnesses? Because they pose a handicap to the individual’s life, hinder their ability to resolve the source(s) of stress, or causes danger to those around them. The same is not true for being queer. Rape, murder, violence, infanticide, pedophilia, necrophilia, and other unacceptable behavior have been observed and documented throughout history and across the ecosystems. This does not mean that we want to legalize them or defend pedophile rights, does it?
If we were to point out the patriarch of all scientific mistakes regarding homosexuality, it would be the desocialization of a deeply social matter. If you want to study homosexuality you need to know that you are stepping into an intricate field, where identity collides with a deeply heteronormative and homophobic society. You also need to understand that, whether or not you have a problem with homosexuals, and most modern societies have a problem with them, and that problem has a name, homophobia.
Unlike members of ethnic minorities, we are often born into heteronormative families, our persecution starts in our cradles. Such a struggle stains our whole life, it influences how and if we come out, it influences how we identify and how we interact with scientists, and other professionals. So the question cannot be what makes a man physically incapable of tolerating a pussy. The question is more complicated, I personally don’t know how to define it, and until you absolutely know what you are looking for, don’t venture into a world that you can’t even understand.
Just a friendly reminder, please stop mixing up gender identity, sexual orientation, and socially prescribed gender roles. A girl who likes to play football can be a person with an alternative gender identity or simply a child that likes to play football. She is not a homosexual, and the word “pre-homosexual” is one of the most disturbing and unscientific words I have ever come across.
And for all the queer folks out there, don’t fear science, dive headfirst and grab the beast with its horns. A PhD in neuroscience gives a white middle class man no advantage against you. Biology is a simple natural science, argue!

* LeVay, S., A difference in hypothalamic structure between homosexual and heterosexual men. Science 253:1034-1037 (1991)

Book review - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I've recently finished reading the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. It'd be difficult to summarize this book into a simple tagcloud, my favorite tool to summarize a text, or textful object. Ah, the beauty of technology! How it helps me shroud my laziness and ignorance.

Anyway, regarding the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, it is supposed to be the story of a young black woman, diagnosed with cancer, then her cells were taken away from her without informed consent. The cells quickly turn into a biology legend. They were the first and most successful human cells ever cloned.

Egypt 'torturing HIV sufferers'

I am usually very skeptical when International media is suddenly interested in the “poor Middle East’s“ suffering. I am against selective support for human causes which is in fact nothing but an international abuse of our struggle for human rights.

But I am above all against the abuse that we suffer from in our own societies, international media might be insulting in the way they take advantage of us, but our own people TORTURE and PERSECUTE us, for no reason, be it apparent or not.

But I speak of discrimination because of this case where an Egyptian guy states that he is HIV positive, a sort of social crime in our society exactly like lesbianism is, as we all know. So… notice the chain of events:
1. The police arrests him
2. Arrests the male friend that was with him
3. Handcuffs both of them 23h/day on the hospital bed
4. subjected to anal tests to "prove" their homosexual conduct (against their will)
5. beaten for refusing to sign statements written by the police
6. Two others were arrested when police found their photographs and contact numbers in the wallets of those detained
7. Then four others in November when police raided the flat of one of those being held, which had been placed under surveillance

Now the first four are being convicted of "habitual debauchery"… Which is one of several ways an Egyptians could be legally punished for being Homosexual, other pretexts may include obscenity or prostitution…

What is sad and pathetic and heart breaking is that these people, may or may not be Homosexuals, the only thing that is known for a fact is that one of them is HIV positive… A person that is not even sick but the requires and might require in future medical assistance and support, I guess being tortured and inhumanly treated will force them not only to snap out of homosexuality but also snap out of HIV, right?

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Sources:

BBC News: Egypt 'torturing HIV sufferers'
PinkNews: Egypt accused of criminalising HIV positive gay men

Anencephaly

Information taken from: Wikipedia Anencephaly Information

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Anencephaly literately means the absence of a brain. It’s a very rare case of congenital malformation of the neural tube. The neural tube being the origin of the whole nervous system, it is a structure that develops early on and any defect on its level has dramatic repercussions.
Technically:
The neural tube is formed starting from the 3rd week of pregnancy. It’s formed from the thickening of a precise region of a tissue called Ectoderm, the rest of the ectoderm will form the skin and the neural plate will penetrate the embryo and later on form a closed tube (neural tube), the sensory cells scattered around in the skin. The neural tube will give the brain and the spinal cord.
Unfortunately, in some cases this is not how things happen, the neural tube fails to close in the cephalic region. The tube is no longer a tube in that region, and the skin can’t climb over it and close it. Instead some underdeveloped nervous cells pile up, in a more or less organized manor without any bones to protect them or even skin.
Not all kids affected die prematurely, 45% of them reach the term of their gestation, but none lives a lot longer than 6 days. They are born blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Never in their short life will they gain any consciousness and most of them actually die because their rudimentary brain cannot regulate properly essential body functions.
95% of parents, once informed with their child’s situation choose to terminate it. Though medical intervention (reparatory surgeries for other defects that may accompany anencephaly, antibiotics, assisted ventilation…) may increase the life of such a baby, but most of the times the child is allowed to die smoothly and with as much dignity as possible.
There is no cure for this defect, because by the time the case is diagnosed the development is already altered, and there is no way to fix it. The only weapon we have is folic acid which is known to reduce the prevalence of this defect, problem is that by the time a woman knows she is pregnant then it’d be too late!
When I read this I can’t help but to remember all the babies/kids/people that only get a partial chance of living, the ones that are born with severe defects, the ones that are born in severe poverty, in war, in abusive families. I can’t help but to think of Layal. In my mind I keep on thinking: which one had a better chance? Which life was better? Certainly Layal lived till teenage and sure she actually KNEW the world, these kids never had that chance. But on the other hand Layal only had the chance to know a world she REALISE she would be deprived off, a world that she KNEW she never belonged to, and a world she SAW how she will leave… She felt pain and she realized she will die… Soon!
Isn’t that much more cruel than leaving a world you never knew to care for?

Orca's: Out of your posterior

This is very interesting, at first sight hilarious but actually very important to know. It’s a surgeon’s experience (his nickname is Orac) with “odd objects” that he extracted over the years from people’s rectum. I often heard that people would stick weird objects in their “posteriors” but don’t take my word for it… Read about his experience: Pulling it out of your posterior
What struck me as odd is that it’s usually men that he has operated, I am sure that there were women, but maybe women don’t need to stick things up their asses so often. After all, if it is for sexual pleasure we can always get a guy or a dildo, men wouldn’t. But what about the psychological disorders… we have lots of that too!