Transcript
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Selena Simmons-Duffin (0:21)
Hi shortwavers. Selena Simmons Duffin in the host chair. Years ago, I can't remember exactly when I became aware that gay people are often the youngest kids in their families. As a gay person who's the youngest in my family, there was something kind of appealing about this idea. Like there was a statistical order to things, and I fit neatly into that order. When I started reporting on the science behind the idea, the whole thing turned out to be much more interesting than I originally imagined. Also stranger and darker. That darkness comes in part from how scientists first started researching what makes people queer in the first place. Near the middle of the last century,
Justin Torres (1:04)
there's this sudden visibility of underground queer culture. And then the concern is that there's something pathological happening with these people.
Selena Simmons-Duffin (1:17)
That is writer Justin Torres. He's thought a lot about the way scientists have studied sexuality. Last year he won the National Book Award for a novel titled Blackouts.
Justin Torres (1:28)
My novel is kind of interested in these kind of pre Kinsey sexology studies, specifically, specifically this one called Sex Variance. You know, it was really informed by eugenics and they were looking for the cause of homosexuality in the body in order to treat it or cure it or get rid of it.
Selena Simmons-Duffin (1:47)
The queer people scientists were studying were also living in a world where this facet of their identity was dangerous.
Justin Torres (1:53)
It was criminal, it was career destroying, life destroying. To be outed against your will was incredibly dangerous. And to live out was dangerous as well, because then of course you get backlash and you get persecution. So the closet was a dangerous place to be. Outside of the closet was a dangerous place to be.
Selena Simmons-Duffin (2:17)
So researchers first began studying queer people for generally sinister reasons at a time when being queer was dangerous. And the studies themselves turned out to be really hard, says Jan Kibatek, a social scientist at the University of Melbourne.