Sheep are typically considered docile animals with uneventful lives, so it might be surprising that a few flocks in Oregon are at the center of a protracted gay sex scandal.
In 2002, researchers from Oregon Health & Science University announced the findings from their analysis of 27 sheep that suggest “marked differences” in the brains of heterosexual and homosexual male sheep, or rams.
The researchers observed that the preoptic hypothalamus — the region of the brain that influences sexual behavior and partner preference — in heterosexual rams contained higher levels of a group of neurons known as the sexually dimorphic nucleus, than the preoptic hypothalamus of rams who prefer to mate with other rams.
The researchers also concluded that the volume of the sexually dimorphic nucleus in gay rams is similar to what is found in female sheep, or ewes. Essentially, it means that heterosexual rams had higher levels of testosterone in their sexually dimorphic nucleus compared to gay ram and ewe.
“There’s a lot of talk about homosexuality in animals, but nobody’s really studied it in-depth, and this is one piece of research in a field with a lot of clues and no answers to these questions,” said Charles Roselli, an OHSC professor who was part of the team researching factors that determine sexual orientation in rams.
“Here is another little building block in understanding parts of the brain that could be involved in sexuality,” Roselli said.
But critics of the experiment, led by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, assign much more sinister implications to studying sexual orientation among sheep. In particular, they point to researchers’ follow-up studies that attempted to determine “whether sexual preferences can be altered by manipulating the prenatal hormone environment … [in order] to test their hypothesis regarding development of this area of the brain.”
Those follow-up studies — some of whose results were published in the June 2006 issue of the journal Endocrine — involved pregnant ewes receiving testosterone-inhibiting treatments, either surgically or by injection, to determine whether the level of testosterone in the womb determined a baby sheep’s sexual orientation. The results from the studies were inconclusive, but critics argue they could open the door to human beings attempting to influence a child’s sexual orientation prenatally.
“Obviously, this carries insidious implications that homosexuality can be cured,” said Shalin Gala, a research associate for PETA.
PETA accused researchers of attempting to change gay rams into heterosexuals; but since the pregnant ewes were being denied testosterone, researchers said that if the results had been conclusive, it would have meant scientists altered the prenatal environment in a way that produced gay rams.
“PETA will co-opt whatever cause it can to help advance their own agenda, and that’s what PETA has done with the gay community,” Roselli said.
Wayne Besen, a gay activist who monitors attempts by religious organizations to change a gay person straight through “reparative therapy,” agreed that the prospects of tampering with sexual orientation in the womb presents “a huge moral problem.”
“There is an enormous possibility for abuse, and even a genocide of sorts of gay people, with such knowledge,” said Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out. “If the science advanced [to the point where sexual orientation could be altered in humans] right now, we would be in deep, deep, deep trouble, and anybody who tells themselves otherwise is living in la-la land.”
But Besen added that he considers the study looking at sexual orientation in sheep “both exhilarating and terrifying,” and he disagreed with efforts by PETA to end such research for good.
“There’s not a discovery out there that can’t have dire consequences,” Besen said. “I have a great interest, as do many people, in the origins of sexual orientation, and science is going to continue to do this research whether we like it or not.”
With countless polls suggesting a greater acceptance of gay rights among people who believe there is a biological factor to sexual orientation, studies like the one out of Oregon might “lead to a very quick, much expedited march to equal rights,” Besen said.
Instead of trying to prevent such studies from taking place, gay rights supporters should work to make society more tolerant of gay men and lesbians so that if the possibility to alter sexual orientation in the womb ever comes to fruition, it would no longer seem socially necessary or desirable to avoid having a gay child, Besen added.
Roselli and his colleagues deny that they ever considered extrapolating their research on the sexual orientation of sheep to human beings.
“We’re studying the physiology of behavior, not looking for ways to apply it,” Roselli said. “I don’t believe [the preoptic hypothalamus] is the only area controlling these animals’ sexual attraction, so the idea that a simple procedure that attempts to change the number of neurons in order to change behavior is fantasy.”
But researchers who explore hot-button topics such as sexual orientation have a duty to ensure that their findings are presented in a way that makes it difficult to be exploited by partisans on either side of the social discussion, said Paul Root Wolpe, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Knowledge is not neutral, some knowledge is very politically charged, and for scientists to misunderstand or ignore that, is trying to separate science from society in a way that is not possible,” said Wolpe, who is also a medical ethicist with Penn’s Center for Bioethics.
The origin of sexual orientation remains part of what Wolpe referred to as “forbidden knowledge” — sensitive topics that inspire self-censorship among researchers to avoid criticism. Research into sexual orientation and human sexuality is vital, but if the results are presented haphazardly and spark a backlash, it makes future studies all the more less likely, Wolpe said.
“You end up sabotaging your own field when you talk about it irresponsibly,” Wolpe said. “Particularly when you are engaging in politically and socially sensitive topics, you must talk about them in a careful way.”
Ryan Lee can be reached at rlee@sovo.com.
