Honors Humanities Spring Speaker: Patrick R. Grzanka (University of Tennessee)
Honors Humanities Spring Speaker: Patrick R. Grzanka (University of Tennessee)
Join the Honors Humanities for a talk by Dr. Patrick R. Grzanka, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and chair of the Interdisciplinary Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Tennessee. His talk is titled, '"Born This Way" Wars: Sexuality, Science, and the Future of Equality."
Despite the lack of scientific consensus about what sexual orientation actually is and what factors (biological, environmental, individual) affect it, arguments about the etiology of sexual orientation are central to ongoing struggles for sexual minorities’ legal rights, as well as broader social equality and acceptance in American society. This talk will chart the relatively recent rise of biogenetic explanations of sexual orientation at the end of the 20th and early 21st century and the connections between these beliefs and LGBT activism. Grzanka will also offer findings from survey research and interviews with scientists, journalists and activists that has attempted to capture multidimensional beliefs that individuals hold about sexual orientation, which both reflect and challenge dominant understandings of sexuality’s nature, mutability and essence. Finally, he will discuss the implications of the “born this way” wars—political debates about whether sexual minorities are born, not made—on how we imagine the future of sexual orientation in the United States.
EVENT FLYER:
Join the Honors Humanities for a talk by Dr. Patrick R. Grzanka, associate professor in the Department of Psychology and chair of the Interdisciplinary Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Tennessee. His talk is titled, '"Born This Way" Wars: Sexuality, Science, and the Future of Equality."
Despite the lack of scientific consensus about what sexual orientation actually is and what factors (biological, environmental, individual) affect it, arguments about the etiology of sexual orientation are central to ongoing struggles for sexual minorities’ legal rights, as well as broader social equality and acceptance in American society. This talk will chart the relatively recent rise of biogenetic explanations of sexual orientation at the end of the 20th and early 21st century and the connections between these beliefs and LGBT activism. Grzanka will also offer findings from survey research and interviews with scientists, journalists and activists that has attempted to capture multidimensional beliefs that individuals hold about sexual orientation, which both reflect and challenge dominant understandings of sexuality’s nature, mutability and essence. Finally, he will discuss the implications of the “born this way” wars—political debates about whether sexual minorities are born, not made—on how we imagine the future of sexual orientation in the United States.
EVENT FLYER: