Doing a little research (and I'm deathly ill so 'scuse goofs), I notice that Dean Hamer did research with LeVay. IMS, LeVay's work was discredited? It also turns out that Hamer couldn't replicate his own findings and another attempt by yet another researcher likewise failed. Found this interesting review online, pasted below.
frankly, i like the research they were doing on testosterone levels in the mother's bloodstream while fetus was developing. i posted about it awhile back as evidence against sexual dimorphism. Apparently, a higher T level is linked to length of your ring finger. The longer the ring finger in comparison to the index finger, the more T at birth and will usually indicate higher than "normal" levels of T in general. Goes for both women and men. What is funny, to me, is that men who identify as bi have the highest T levels. I haven't looked to see if there is any research on lezbeans and queer women, but my guess is no.
still, it makes ya wonder. maybe Woody Allen was right about why people are bi. :)
The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. - Review - book review Bertram J. Cohler
The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation. By Edward Stein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 388 pages. Cloth, $35.00.
With the emergence of modernity as a mode of thought at the end of the nineteenth century, understanding of the experience of same-gender sexual desire was transformed from the realm of moral discourse to that of medicine. Work such as that of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis provided the basis for later claims, such as that of Freud, that same-gender desire could be understood objectively within a systematic psychology. This shift in discourse regarding same-gender desire was presumed to be more humane than trial and possible imprisonment for those persons (generally men) given the new designation of "homosexual." As Nungesser (1983) has observed, there must be something threatening to society about men loving and having sex with other men which is particularly intriguing and also threatening which underlies continuing preoccupation with finding presumed determinants for this same-gender sexual desire.
<....> However, over the past 3 decades there has been increased critical discussion regarding the effort to demonstrate a biological foundation for sexual orientation. This reconsideration has been inspired by critiques such as that of Foucault (1975), emphasizing the relationship between social power and determination of scientific knowledge, together with the realization that heterosexuality, itself, is a sexual orientation which must be "explained" (Chodorow, 1994). Increased awareness both of bisexuality as a sexual identity, and also that the experience of same-gender desire may first be realized across the course of life, shows the complex ways in which social factors may contribute to present self-identification within the LGBT community. This more recent study suggests the importance of moving away from conceptions of same gender desire as necessarily binary (Chodorow, 1994; Katz, 1995; Stein, 1992).
In what may be the most careful and detailed exploration to date of the claims of those maintaining biological factors as essential in the origin of a same-gender sexual desire fixed from earliest prenatal life, the philosopher of science Edward Stein has countered these biological claims in his cogent review of findings regarding the biology of same-gender sexual desire. With a doctorate in philosophy from M.I.T., Stein is particularly well qualified to undertake this reconsideration of the scientific evidence. Designed to counter such claims as those of LeVay and Hamer (1994) and, like them and also the present reviewer, self-identifying as gay, Stein is careful to present findings from biological study in impartial terms before presenting his critique.
Claims regarding a biological substrate determining nonnormative (alternative) sexual orientation are most often founded either on presumptions of social evolution or on findings from behavior genetics and genetic linkage studies, animal models of prenatal development presumed relevant for human development, and comparative study of gender and neuroanatomy. In a previous volume, Stein (1992) had systematically examined the assumptions underlying claims that sexual orientation is founded either on some essential (biological) attributes or that it is founded in particular meanings of self and sexuality present in particular times and places. Critical both of those positions emphasizing an essentialist-biological claim, and also of the social constructionist claim that sexual desire takes many forms determined entirely by the meanings provided by a particular culture at a particular time, Stein observes that a so-called social constructionist view does not necessarily negate the essentialist view.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2372/is_3_37/ai_68273927/print
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