Transgender biology professor Joan Roughgarden colors in Evolution's Rainbow
It was at the annual gay pride march in San Francisco that Stanford biology professor Joan Roughgarden had her epiphany. That day in 1997, after spending her first 52 years as Jonathan Roughgarden, she wanted to walk alongside a float created by a transgender support group. As people streamed by her, they seemed to be a piece of biological evidence, proof that diversity was part of nature's plan. Roughgarden, a leading researcher in her field whose controversial new book "Evolution's Rainbow -- Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People" deals with issues that cross the wide divide from science to politics and morality. "All those people being pathologized. From a biological ecologist's point of view that is ridiculous." More than 300 species of vertebrates have sex with the same gender.
SF Gate (photo)
« Read Previous Post | Queer Day Home | Read Next Story »
