Let's leave aside the question of risk and possible complications and look at the philosophical issue at hand. We are talking using hormonal therapy, not even gene splicing or some kind of freak science, to alter/prevent/ensure a person's sexuality before they are even fully conscious, let alone aware of what sexuality is. So it's a bit ridiculous to claim that this is somehow discriminatory as regards the individual involved. If you had this hormonal therapy as an infant or fetus and then grew up into a normally functioning straight person, it's not like you would feel that some integral part of your identity was being suppressed. Straight would be your identity and you'd be fine with it.

So the real issue here is a cultural one. I imagine that gay people are worried that, given the majority preference for heterosexuality, the application of such technology could possibly wipe them out. But it's important to note the difference between genocide or persecution (as I'm sure many will cry out) which is the targeting of actual existing people, and generational selection, where it simply happens that we end up with a world with no homosexuality. Assuming an equal level of happiness, is there any objective measure by which we can say that such a world would be morally wrong or inferior to the one we have now?

Of course the reverse also applies. Objectively, is a world without homosexuality is no better than one with it? Perhaps one could even say that it is a built-in control to prevent overpopulation. But on an individual level, if the choice is up to the parents, who usually want their genes passed down and such, the scales would be tipped in the favor of the former.

One question that I saw come up was the
possibility of using the hormone therapy for the opposite purpose - to produce gay children. I suppose this is a feasible scenario if a gay couple had biological children of their own through artificial means. But should they be allowed to do this? I don't think it's a question of equal rights. Like I said, the rights of the actual person aren't being infringed in any way. The only rights at stake are the parents' "right to raise a child who is like themselves" which is a pretty sloppy conception of rights, and certainly not a basic right in the sense that we normally understand it. The main argument against it would be that the child would be more likely to be ostracized if he were gay. But of course this is contingent on the social environment, which would probably become less accepting of gays precisely as a result of this new treatment.

So the question is whether the law (since that is what would decide the legality of such treatment) should be able to take upholding and strengthening existing social norms as an end in itself. To which I would reply yes. Social cohesion has undeniable benefits. The only problem with it is when it marginalizes individuals on the basis of either inborn factors, or their personal choices. And we have already seen that neither is the case here.

Basically we have to examine the fundamentals. Homophobia is wrong because it targets individuals based on a factor beyond their control. But now we can change this factor. So while gay people have the right to exist unharassed on the basis of being human individuals, can we say that the abstract concept of gayness has the same right? It's an interesting question if you can manage to leave your politics at the door and engage in some abstract philosophical thought.

You overlook the fact that homosexuality might be a POSITIVE thing, like population control. I'd laugh my frickin ass off if you homophobes suddenly doomed the human race to extinction because of doing away with homosexuals.

Rough estimates of homosexuality put us at around 10% of the population. Suddenly having 10% more breeders per generation would accelerate overpopulation TREMENDOUSLY.

So go ahead - for the sake of "social norms" you go right ahead and get rid of us. Instead of doing away with homophobia - you'd rather get rid of homosexuals. Next thing you'll say is "Let's get rid of racism by doing away with all the blacks and browns and yellows and reds..."

achilleselbow, you are making a huge assumption that a degayed (did I just invent a new word?) baby would be happy and normal adult. What if the degayed baby grew up to be quite unhappy but was well accepted in society by being ungay (another new word?), is it still the better choice? You are also assuming that the burden of change should rest with the gay baby and not the people who don't like gay babies.

Social cohesion and social conformity are not the same, you are confusing conformity for cohesion.

achilleselbow:

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Basically we have to examine the fundamentals. Homophobia is wrong because it targets individuals based on a factor beyond their control. But now we can change this factor. So while gay people have the right to exist unharassed on the basis of being human individuals, can we say that the abstract concept of gayness has the same right? It's an interesting question if you can manage to leave your politics at the door and engage in some abstract philosophical thought.

The concept of gayness. Interesting.

Thinking in just terms of advantage/disadvantage to the species of man, with no other overlays. It seems to me that gayness is a nullity. not an advantage or a disadvantage. Going back several thousand years, the survival of the few humans at that time would not be jepordised by the gays of the group. If needs be gay persons can procreate. They may find the act distasteful, certainly not impossible.

namu,

Why would the straight baby whose mom took extra hormones be any less happy than a straight baby whose mom did not?

It's not as though the child would grow up knowing that he or she could have been gay. And, assuming it is the physical brain structure and that the hormones ensure that the brain is formed the same as your everyday straight brain, it's not as though the person would have any desire to be homosexual or to have been born homosexual.

@dingle: Actually I mentioned the overpopulation issue in my post, if you had bothered to read it. But of course you were more interested in calling me a homophobe. A perfect example of why it's impossible to have a philosophical discussion when everyone comes with their own prepackaged agenda.

Since you want to be philisophical, let me ask you this: Could this be some moderinzed form of eugenics? And would it really be any more effective than the old-fashioned kind?

@achillieselbow: While dingle lashed out at you, I don't think your response--that his is a prepackage agenda--is either fair or conducive to the objective, or philosophical, discussion you've asked for. What you're missing, I think, is that there is no 'abstract concept of gayness,' really. (Yes, of course just like race, religion, nationality, we may well be in the realm of social constructions. But, in the practical world in which we live and act, these things are all very concrete and contribute to each individual's sense of identity.)

What you're seeing as an abstract concept in a fetus is for many, many people very concrete indeed, not to mention the key aspect to many different, living, vibrant gay cultures.

So, can you not see the that by allowing members of the dominant culture to make this decision, we may well be participating in a sort of assimilation project, and a project which becomes morally palatable unlike the older, scarier eugenics, because the child's parents are the actors?

Furthermore, your and dingle's focus on population control is a mistake. Like removing a species from an ecosystem, the dominant culture would be irrevocably damaged without its subsets. This is probably especially true in America. Try and imagine how different we would be without a gay point of view! Wouldn't "A Supermarket in California" have been completely different if Alan Ginsburg were pining for a woman? Wouldn't the beat movement have been altered? We are mistaken if we think homosexuality, or any minority group for that matter, is the cultural equivalent of a growth to be excised; it is a limb.

One last point, "what you don't know won't hurt you" on an individual level, where you originally intended it, only holds water if we take on faith that these hormones are the one and only factor, and the beginning and the end. If you'll permit anecdotal evidence, the relatively well-known stories of those few children in the 1970s who due to hermaphradism or irregular genitals were reassigned a gender, given hormone therapy, and never informed of their original gender identity, have provided scientists and sociologists countless questions stemming from these two: How did they know? And, why are they so unhappy?