These findings were formally presented at a Brisbane seminar last Friday as joint research by senior lecturer at the Queensland University of Environment/ Technology, Dr. Michael Dunne and Dr. Michael Bailey, of Northwestern University. The seminar was titled "The Social and Ethical Implications of Recent Research into the Genetic Basis of Psychological Diversity."

Similar instances in interdisciplinary struggles erupted in the 19^th century with like studies on twins and other gay males utilized as "proofs" of one view or another, just as occurs today. For an extended period—until 1991—social constructionist views prevailed. This prevalence was temporarily interrupted by assertions advanced by biologists. Now, with the release of the Australian/American research, constructionist views are once again being reasserted.

The new study challenges the biological, or genetic assumptions launched in 1991 after a gay-identified researcher, Simon LeVay, resurrected the century-old struggle between biological and psychological theorists by advancing biological perspectives concerning homosexual origins based mainly on autopsies he'd completed on 19-AIDS-felled corpses.

He'd found, he said, a larger hypothalamus in heterosexually-identified males than in homosexual males. Mainstream media and a great number of gay activists who lacked awareness of long-existing interdisciplinary battles, quickly seized upon LeVay's research as a strategy needed to fell religious fundamentalist propaganda about homosexual contagion in the general population.

As a matter of strategy, they thought, the "inborn" argument might help quell fundamentalist claims that the lifting of the homosexual taboo would lead to "perverse" mass conversions to same-sex love. Thus, many gay activists became enthusiastic purveyors of the theory of genetic causation.

George Weinberg, Ph.D. a heterosexually-inclined psychotherapist who coined the word "homophobia" and author of the groundbreaking work, Society and the Healthy Homosexual, critiqued the validity of LeVay's biological research shortly after its release. He pointed out in 1991 that the school of psychobiologists that LeVay represents are "forever trying to reassert dominion over human behavioral patterns."

The latest Australian/American research, which calls LeVay's findings into question, seems to back up Weinberg's contention.

Weinberg referred to LeVay's research as "garbage", explaining that these theoretical wars or "psychobiological binges" are forever erupting and getting front page play, and that later they "fade into the backdrop of our collective memory, and are never again reconsidered as they move on into the limbo of perpetual non-importance."

When asked what lies behind biological research such as LeVay's, Weinberg replied, "These theories will be propounded as long as conventional citizens want to explain human differences rather than celebrate them."

Dr. Weinberg told GayToday: "We come into this world with no innate selection preferences or knowledge of the outside world. To assert a preference for one sex-object would be to assert a much larger "first" for human beings, namely the discovery that we are born with ANY knowledge of this world."

Biology, as feminist scholarship has long contended, is not, therefore, necessarily destiny. If it were, human social evolution would remain stymied by biological fiat.

The Australian researcher, Dr. Dunne, believes his new studies show "it's pretty clear that the expression of something like sexuality really depends upon the time in which you live."

He said that evidence of sexuality in women was much less certain, but that nurture as well as nature was a factor with both sexes. Studies show that women, far more so than men, tend to be changeable and fluid in their sexual responses, that is that many respond homosexually or bisexually with greater ease. Whether or not this fluidity signals social or biological impetus is part of the ongoing interdisciplinary debate.

About genetic influences, Dr. Dunne said that "it looks like, for most human traits, it's very unlikely that there is any single gene influence, so it might be the case that you're going to need a number of genes, and also particular types of environment for that trait (of homosexuality) to express itself."

The fears voiced by activists that nurture arguments open the door to fundamentalist demands for "therapeutic" changeovers to heterosexuality are either cancelled or balanced in the long run—by the new research, as Dr. Dunne explains.

Explanations of homosexual origins based on biological arguments also have their downside: namely, genetic manipulation, or "selecting against gay babies while they are still in the womb."

In 1951 Edward Sagarin, writing under the pseudonym Donald Webster Cory, argued that once intense pleasure has been derived from same-sex contact, no therapy could eliminate the pleasured individual's recognition of the source of his or her pleasure. Therefore, he argued, homosexuality cannot be eliminated.

The research conducted by Dr. Alfred Kinsey posited homosexuality as one side of the natural sexual continuum. The 1948 Kinsey studies indicated that 37.5 percent of all males (heterosexual or homosexual) reach at least one orgasm homosexually in adulthood. Clearly, in sexually repressive societies, there are fewer overt same-sex lovers. As taboos are lifted, some now believe the natural homosexual component in human beings becomes increasingly expressive.

This view challenges old theories and brings into focus what both psychologist William James and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud taught about the human psyche, namely that it is, at birth, bisexual.

Two Nineteenth Century gay pioneers, poets Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter, reflected parallel perspectives. "The germ (i.e. seed) is in everyone," said Whitman, while Carpenter reflected in 1896: