Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality

The relationship between science and society, particularly concerning research into homosexuality, is the subject of this book from Simon LeVay, whose 1991 report on an observed difference in brain structures between gay and heterosexual men is one of the starting points for Chandler Burr's book, A Separate Creation. LeVay recaps that research here, but within the context of a broader history that begins in 19th-century Germany and goes on to include the Kinsey report as well as contemporary gene identification. LeVay combines material from various scientific disciplines with a clarity that makes us think that much harder about the social and cultural issues to which that material has been linked, issues which address, without necessarily defining, the nature of gay identity.