Gender Handout2

Boy raised as girl discovers happiness as a man

This article is a long-term follow-up to a classic case reported in paediatric, psychiatric, and sexological literature.

The penis of an XY individual was accidentally ablated and he was subsequently raised as a female. Initially this individual was described as developing into a normally functioning female.

The individual, however, was later found to reject this sex of rearing, switched at puberty to living as a male, and has successfully lived as such from that time to the present.

The standard in instances of extensive penile damage to infants is to recommend rearing the male as a female. Subsequent cases should, however, be managed in light of this new evidence.

Diamond_M, Sigmundson_HK

ARCHIVES OF PEDIATRICS & ADOLESCENT MEDICINE, 1997, Vol.151, No.3, pp.298-304

Popular belief & base rate of homosexuality

43% of Americans believe that 'young homosexuals became that way because of older homosexuals'

Bailey interviewed 161 homosexual men and sent questionnaires to relatives. Of the 170 relatives whose sexual orientation could be rated:

  • 52% of the identical twins
  • 22% of the fraternal twins
  • 11% of the adoptive brothers were also homosexual.

Base rate of homosexuality in the population is difficult to estimate but may be 4-10%

In an interview with Science in 1992 Bailey stated:

'No one has ever found a postnatal social environmental influence for homosexual orientation - and they have looked plenty'

Changes in the psychiatric status of homosexuality

  • Until the early 1970's the study of homosexuality remained mostly in the domains of psychiatry. Different theories about the origins of homosexuality were advanced. Most of the theories associated homosexuality with psychopathology, caused by faulty upbringing, which included a domineering mother, a detached father or both. Inaccurate as this assumption was, it was not surprising because psychiatrists obtained their data only from people in therapy who had mental or emotional problems.
  • In 1972 & 73 the American Psychiatric Assoc. deleted homosexuality as a disease from their diagnostic handbooks.
  • The term "sexual preference" was introduced in the 1970's to correct the earlier concept that homosexuality was a disease or deviation.
  • After 1982, as more scientists found evidence that homosexuality & heterosexuality may not be a matter of free choice, the term "sexual orientation" emerged & is commonly used today.

Screening drugs for effects on psychosexual differentiation

A large literature supports the view that exposure to testicular testosterone or its metabolites during a critical perinatal period alters the mammalian brain so that the organism displays the male pattern of sexually dimorphic behaviours in adulthood [9]. Although the bulk of this work has been carried out in rodents there is evidence to suggest that human dimorphic behaviours are influenced by by hormones circulating during prenatal life [6,9].

This work is interesting because drug exposure during development could interfere with psychosexual differentiation by:

1.antagonising the effects of testosterone on target tissues within the central nervous system

2.interfering with neurotransmitters which are thought to mediate organisational effects of hormones on the brain;

3.inducing hepatic enzyme systems in the neonate and thereby reduce androgen levels during the critical period of brain differentiation.

From Kenyon & Malinek, Neurobehavioral Toxicology and Teratology, 6, 1-2, 1984.