The Race of Sexology: Homosexuality,
Hermaphroditism, and Developmental Theories of Sex and Sexuality

In The Race of Sexology, I argue that scientific theories such as natural and sexual selection (mechanisms of evolution theorized by Charles Darwin), degeneration (the notion of biological regression of a person, family, or race to an earlier stage of development), and original bisexuality (the assumption that all humans develop out of an original state in which they are equally “male” and “female”) were foundational to many prominent sexological texts. I contend that scientific “facts”—including the existence of greater variation amongst men, the original bisexuality of living organisms (including humans), and the understanding of “savage” races as being developmentally closer to the state of original bisexuality than European races—produced a coherently racialized and gendered narrative of sexual development that rationalized white male heterosexuality as the pinnacle of human evolution. This evolutionary narrative figured white male homosexuality as the byproduct of civilization’s monosexual development and as the exemplary site of “true” inversion, relegating white women and men and women of color to varying, lesser degrees of sexual differentiation and development.