Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 168 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 168, October 1993.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Although Mark Brown’s and John Parrington’s articles on the gay gene debate (September SR) were excellent, I would like to add a couple of points.
Firstly, Mark left out a vital piece of evidence to explode the myth about the gay gene. If homosexuality was determined exclusively by our genetic makeup, then the proportion of people engaging in homosexual practices in single sex environments (such as prisons and public schools) would be no greater than elsewhere. The very much higher incidence of these practices in such institutions is crucial in destroying the gay gene theory.
But a second point must be made. In the week the British media launched the gay gene debate, the BBC allowed its Radio 4 Any Answers programme to be used as a forum for two kinds of homophobic bigots.
In one corner stood those who embraced this new ‘scientific’ evidence. They argued that the ‘problem’ of homosexuality can now be solved by screening for the gay gene, and aborting ‘defective’ embryos. In the other corner stood those on the fundamentalist religious right. Being as vehemently anti-abortion as they are anti-gay, they lack any incentive to accept the gay gene theory. No one is born gay, they argue. Homosexual practices are a result of ‘sin’.
Socialists have to address themselves to the fact that the debate is currently being conducted in terms which, if unchallenged, can only benefit one or other kind of the anti-gay bigots.
It is certainly vital that socialists expose the shoddiness of the evidence supplied so far. But we need not rule out the possibility that more plausible evidence for a genetic component to sexual orientation might one day become available. I think Mark is wrong to deny even the possibility that there is a proportion of the population who are exclusively heterosexual and another exclusively homosexual.
There are certainly many workers today who genuinely believe themselves to be 100 percent heterosexual. Some of these will in due course change their minds. Others, however, will not. Socialists have nothing to gain by arguing that homophobic society represses heterosexual workers into denying one side of their sexuality.
Rather than denying outright the possibility of evidence for a genetic component to sexual orientation, it would be better for socialists to assert the complete irrelevance of such evidence.
Our task surely is not to deny that our genetic makeup might play some minor part in determining which of us engage in homosexual activities. Our task is to explain to workers that homophobia is used, as are racism and sexism, as a means of dividing workers.
|
|
Tom Delargy |
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 27 February 2017