Sexuality, Culture, & Androgens
Feb. 7th, 2004 09:28 amSo I just learned something today.
I learned-- from someone in the know-- that there've been some really nice studies out in the last few years (that I'll have to look up).
Specifically, these studies seem to indicate that the cultural component of sexual orientation is minimal. They seem to implicate a type of hormone called 'androgens', and in utero exposure to that class of hormone, in development of sexual orientation and behavioral/brain development.
It's been a long-held truth in the medical community that 'boy brains and girl brains' develop differently. All you have to do is watch two toddlers to SEE that this is the truth: the boy toddler takes the block and goes 'brrrrrrrm! brrrrm!' and plays truck with it. The girl toddler takes the block and goes 'awww! baby! baby!' and cuddles it.
Oversimplification, I know, but PET scanning (a kind of nuclear medicine study) has shown that different areas of the brain light up and develop at different times/ages in boys than they do in girls.
So our 'default' or 'normal' settings: boy babies are exposed to androgens in-utero. Girl babies are not.
Now, let's take a look at the class of kids who have 'androgen insensitivity'-- that means that although he is genetically male (with 46, XY karyotyping), his brain was not exposed to androgens in utero.
These kids have a MUCH LOWER rate of homosexuality than the general population ('homosexuality' in this case meaning 'being attracted sexually to other women'). Despite XY chromosomes, despite some cases where they've been raised to think they're females, they *are attracted to males*. They're sort of our.. um... uberfeminine types. Pretty Princess Barbie. Jaime Lee Curtis. So on and so forth.
And when you look at the class of kids who have 'inappropriate androgen secretion'-- genetic females (46, XX karyotype) who ARE exposed to androgens in utero. Much more heterogeneous in presentation, but it's statistically significant that approximately 40-50% (depending on what study you look at) of women in this population are homosexual (defined as being attracted to women sexually).
I don't know if this will fall into the realm of 'established medical lore' in a few more years, or if this will all be disproven and fall by the wayside.
I do know that it's interesting, and I'll be looking up the references that I was given by this endocrinologist.
Thoughts? What do you think?
I learned-- from someone in the know-- that there've been some really nice studies out in the last few years (that I'll have to look up).
Specifically, these studies seem to indicate that the cultural component of sexual orientation is minimal. They seem to implicate a type of hormone called 'androgens', and in utero exposure to that class of hormone, in development of sexual orientation and behavioral/brain development.
It's been a long-held truth in the medical community that 'boy brains and girl brains' develop differently. All you have to do is watch two toddlers to SEE that this is the truth: the boy toddler takes the block and goes 'brrrrrrrm! brrrrm!' and plays truck with it. The girl toddler takes the block and goes 'awww! baby! baby!' and cuddles it.
Oversimplification, I know, but PET scanning (a kind of nuclear medicine study) has shown that different areas of the brain light up and develop at different times/ages in boys than they do in girls.
So our 'default' or 'normal' settings: boy babies are exposed to androgens in-utero. Girl babies are not.
Now, let's take a look at the class of kids who have 'androgen insensitivity'-- that means that although he is genetically male (with 46, XY karyotyping), his brain was not exposed to androgens in utero.
These kids have a MUCH LOWER rate of homosexuality than the general population ('homosexuality' in this case meaning 'being attracted sexually to other women'). Despite XY chromosomes, despite some cases where they've been raised to think they're females, they *are attracted to males*. They're sort of our.. um... uberfeminine types. Pretty Princess Barbie. Jaime Lee Curtis. So on and so forth.
And when you look at the class of kids who have 'inappropriate androgen secretion'-- genetic females (46, XX karyotype) who ARE exposed to androgens in utero. Much more heterogeneous in presentation, but it's statistically significant that approximately 40-50% (depending on what study you look at) of women in this population are homosexual (defined as being attracted to women sexually).
I don't know if this will fall into the realm of 'established medical lore' in a few more years, or if this will all be disproven and fall by the wayside.
I do know that it's interesting, and I'll be looking up the references that I was given by this endocrinologist.
Thoughts? What do you think?