A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation

by Chandler Burr

An investigation of the biological origins of sexual orientation examines the latest breakthroughs in the fields of neurobiology, endocrinology, and genetics.

Genres: Psychology, Gender, Biology, Sexuality, Science

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Chandler Burr is the New York Times scent critic and author of The Perfect Scent, The Emperor of Scent, and A Separate Creation. He has written for The Atlantic and The New Yorker. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Mike]

Lots of good information in this one. I loved reading it, too because it was not overly verbose, but not overly technical either.

[Marsha Altman]

This book goes into a lot about science and research that I didn't quite understand, and amusingly interviews a lot of scientists who don't seem to quite understand that their research into the biological origins of sexual orientation might have political implications. The author's conclusion, based on the evidence available at the time, seems to be this: yes, homosexuality is hard-wired in the brain, people do not "choose" to be gay, but we don't have good evidence for how or why it happens. And the idea that there's a gay gene is actually terrifying - identifying it could mean that parents could choose to abort their child if the child carried the gene the same way they abort children diagnosed with Downs or tay-sachs. While there is some significance that there is a genetic component to sexuality, the implications of this are vast and the science is incredibly shaky and studies are hard to replicate. I actually thought this book would have aged more than it did; it still holds up quite a bit.