From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Dec 08 1999 - 09:45:57 MST
The evidence for a genetic basis for male homosexuality seems to
suggest a gene inhereited from the mother. This fits in with the IMHO
best current model, where increased amounts of stress hormones from
the mother during pregnancy causes some of the sex-linked neural
differentiation to change. The gene might simply code for a slightly
deficient placental screen of stress hormones. (Still, even in
monozygotic twins reared apart, if one is homosexual the probability
of the other being it too is just 50% - environmental interactions are
clearly important).
If this holds true, then there might be an evolutionary advantage for
the *mother's* genes in having homosexual male children. They are
perhaps more likely to help offspring of their sisters, hence
perpetuating a female-linked gene. This might also explain why female
homosexuality seems rarer.
BTW, while I'm still at this subject, I read a fun paper yesterday:
"Sex Differences in Cognition: The Role of Testosterone and Sexual
Orientation" by Nick Neave, Meyrav Menaged and David R. Weightman,
Brain and Cognition 41 245-262 (1999).
They tested hetero- and homo-sexual males and females on four
cognitive tasks where there has been evidence for sexual dimorphisms
(males are on average somewhat better at visuo-spatial tasks, while
women at verbal tasks). They found that in the mental rotation task
and verbal association task, homosexual males were closer to female
levels (in verbal association, they were better than females in fact),
while they did as well as males on verbal fluency and the
"water-level" task (draw correct water levels in tilted
glasses). Interestingly, female homosexuals did not differ much from
heterosexuals in any of the tasks. There was also a link between the
testosterone levels and performance on the visual tasks but not on the
verbal ones. The authors suggest that much of the differences on the
visual tasks might be due to different levels of activating
testosterone. In short, it looks like homosexual males and females
are not just of different "brain gender", but that the differences are
more complex.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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