Psychology Seminar
Queer Science: Chapter Seven & Eleven
Spring, 1998
Aubyn Fulton
 

Chapter Seven
1. Discuss the two currents of feminist thought on gender differences.

2. Discuss gender differences in spatial ability and mathematics. Discuss the evidence that these differences are, at least in part, biological.

3. Discuss evidence of gender differences in brain lateralization.

4. Discuss gender differences in sexuality; explain the evolutionary explanation for these.

5. Why is LeVay interested in evidence for biologically based gender differences? What confession does he make near the end of this section?

6. Discuss the data on spatial ability and sexual orientation in men. Are these results consistent with the gender shift hypothesis?

7. What do asymmetrical breasts, testicles and fingerprints have to do with cognitive ability and sexual orientation?

8. Summarize the data of Ellis, and of Gladue and Bailey, which might suggest that male homosexuality is a solution to one of America's most troubling social problems.

9. Which seems to be more true, that homosexuals are more promiscuous than heterosexuals, m or that men are more promiscuous than women? Explain the related findings.

10. What are the three caveats that LeVay gives to his conclusion that there is support for the notion that homosexuality is part of a package of sex-transposed traits?

Chapter Eleven
1. Is homosexuality a disease? Explain the two events that LeVay marks as turning points in the history of the American gay-rights movement.

2. Explain the three different definitions of disease given by LeVay.

3. Why does LeVay say that Szasz is "decidedly artificial" in light of recent developments in psychiatry? How might this illustrate LeVay's tendency to over interpret biological explanations?

4. Explain the significance of the work of Evelyn Hooker. Discus the two limitations to her study that LeVay identifies.

5. Explain the Wolfenden Committee's conclusion that homosexuality was not a disease.

6. Who is Robert Spitzer? Explain his role in the deletion of homosexuality from the DSM.

7. Was the APA's (American Psychiatric Association) decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM a scientific or political decision? Explain. Include an explanation of what, according to LeVay, it "all came down to".