Why Are People Gay?

About the Project

This project is the brainchild of Dr Belinda M. Edwards and a loose
network of academics and PhD students based at the Australian National
University.

The aim of the project is give same-sex attracted people new ways of
understanding same-sex attraction.

This research project began in 2001and the bulk of the research has
been completed. It has explored whether this new theory can explain a lot
of the already published research on gay experience.

The purpose of the website is

1. To test the ideas, to see if they resonate, and if there are major issues
we have overlooked
2. To collect fresh examples and illustrations of the issues being
researched as they are experienced by everyday gay people
3. To engage a wide range of people in the project who would not read
academic journals

The research will be published in academic journals, and made available
to a wide audience through the internet and a general trade book. It is a
driving ambition of the project to get these ideas out to the gay person
on the street.

The project is independent, unfunded, and has been conducted on a
volunteer basis

About the Team

The project is headed up by Dr Belinda M. Edwards a social scientist
from Canberra, Australia. Dr Edwards is a prize winning scholar, best
selling author and regular public speaker. She is currently a Visiting
Fellow at the Australian National University. She has been pursuing this
project outside her University obligations since 2001.

Dr Edwards specializes in the power of ideas, or what this website
describes as the cultural lens. She has applied these methods to a wide
range of areas of research in the past. In 2001 some of her observations
around gender and sexuality (while reading Cosmopolitan Magazine)
lead her question some of the commonly held assumptions about how
the lens worked. The observations kick started this research project.

There has been a number of volunteers who have put in enormous
amounts of time and effort reading drafts, debating ideas, and helping
build the website to help make this project a reality. They have included
Joo-Inn, Darren, Helen, Jen, Kate, Anna, Kelly, Matt, Stephen, Barry,
Llewellyn, Jane and David.

The project has also benefited enormously from the support of the
Australian Lesbian Medical Association (ALMA). The early ideas of the
project were first presented an National ALMA conference in 2003. Dr
Edwards has returned each year to update the lesdocs on the progress.
The project has been enriched from the opportunity to road test and
refine its ideas by work shopping them with such a talented group of
women.

To contact the project email admin@whyarepeoplegay.com