Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People

In this innovative celebration of diversity and affirmation of individuality in animals and humans, Joan Roughgarden challenges accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation. A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science—and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. This is a witty, playful, and daring book that has revolutionized our understanding of sexuality.

Joan Roughgarden is Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. She is the author of several books, including Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist.

"Evolution's Rainbow is an expansively creative challenge to the modern orthodoxies of sexual selection. Roughgarden's intellectual generosity may jump-start the careers of a new generation of diversity-affirming Darwinian scientists."-Patricia Adair Gowaty, author of Feminism and Evolutionary Biology

"An entrancing tale of sexual ambiguity in animals and people, but also that rarest of literary beasts—a science book written from the heart."-Steve Jones, author of Darwin's Ghost

"A thoughtful and scholarly, yet deeply personal, perspective from a brilliant theoretical biologist. This articulate and provocative disquisition is must reading for anyone fascinated by one of the most important contemporary social challenges."-Simon Levin, author of Fragile Dominion

"This book challenges not only the assumptions about male-female differences in behavior and homosexual-heterosexual differences, but also the very meanings of 'maleness' and 'femaleness' in physical and biological terms. Roughgarden builds a strong case for biological diversity related to what humans call sex, gender, and sexuality."-Bonnie Spanier, author of Im/partial Science: Gender Ideology in Molecular Biology