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J U N E 1 9 9 7
CHANDLER Burr, the author of
this month's cover story, "The AIDS Exception: Privacy vs. Public Health," could scarcely have anticipated a decade ago, when he was a graduate student in
international economics, that his journalistic interests would take him in the
direction that they have. His first submission to The Atlantic Monthly
(flagged for attention by James Fallows, then our Washington editor, who had
just returned from Asia) was a long, tortuous, strangely riveting account,
which we were ultimately unable to use, of the obstacles that face a person
trying to buy an American car in Japan. Burr eventually came back to us with a
subject that engaged both his deep personal interest and his indefatigable
curiosity. The article that resulted, "Homosexuality and Biology," looked at
new scientific thinking about the origins of sexual orientation; it was The
Atlantic's cover story in March of 1993. From that article grew Burr's book
A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual
Orientation (1996), whose "plain-spoken and matter-of-fact" reporting was
singled out by the Los Angeles Times as being all the more remarkable in
that the topic is often plagued by hype and controversy.
Chandler Burr, thirty-three, grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, and
received his undergraduate degree from Principia College after academic forays
in China, France, and Italy. In 1990 he received a masters degree in
international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies. Wherever he has found himself, Burr has maintained a parallel life as
a writer. His reporting has been published in many national magazines, and his
play Exquisite, which addresses questions of Japanese and American
cultural and economic identity, was nominated in 1992 for the Helen Hayes Award
for Outstanding New Play.
A "Web page for the biological research of what makes people gay or straight," moderated by Chandler Burr. From the archive:
A report on the scientific study of sexual orientation.
Photograph: Curtis Kelley
Copyright © 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; June 1997; 77 North Washington Street; Volume 279, No. 6; page 6.
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