Date: Wed, 13 Mar 1996 02:24:10 -0500 (est) From: Sam Damon Subject: Bibliography on nature v. nurture Here are 30 references on this topic. Note that all the citations support a genetic etiology for sexual orientation. My collection is still growing so this list is incomplete. ==================== 1. Bailey JM, Pillard RC, Neale MC, Agyei Y. Heritable factors influence sexual orientation in women. Archives of General Psychiatry 1993;50:217-223. 2. Bailey JM, Pillard RC. A genetic study of male sexual orientation. Archives of General Psychiatry 1991;48:1089-1096. (Concludes "contrary to prior speculation, we found no evidence that homosexuality associated with CGN [Childhood Gender Nonconformity] is more heritable. Homosexuals whe behaved like typical boys during childhood do not appear to have been influenced particularly by external events during and after childhood compared with homosexuals who behaved atypically from an early age. Monozygotic pairs concordant for homosexuality tended to be concordant for the degree of childhood gender nonconformity. This suggests that among homosexuals, individual differences in development are largely determined by genetic and/or shared environmental factors.") 3. Bailey JM, Pillard RC. A genetic study of male sexual orientation. Archives of General Psychiatry 1991;48:1089-1096. (Concludes "contrary to prior speculation, we found no evidence that homosexuality associated with CGN [Childhood Gender Nonconformity] is more heritable. Homosexuals whe behaved like typical boys during childhood do not appear to have been influenced particularly by external events during and after childhood compared with homosexuals who behaved atypically from an early age. Monozygotic pairs concordant for homosexuality tended to be concordant for the degree of childhood gender nonconformity. This suggests that among homosexuals, individual differences in development are largely determined by genetic and/or shared environmental factors.") 4. Baron M. Genetics and human sexual orientation [Editorial]. Biological Psychiatry 1993;33:759-761. (Points out the various factors that must be examined in genetic studies, and the potential flaws of such studies) 5. Buhrich N, Bailey JM, Martin NG. Sexual orientation, sexual identity, and sexual dimorphic behavior in male twins. Behavior Genetics 1991;21:75-96. (Australian study with Australian cohort) 6. Burr C. Homosexuality and biology. The Atlantic 1993;271:47-65. (Cover article, 3/93 by Chandler Burr. Great pop overview of all the studies done up to then. Excellent closing paragraph) 7. Byne W, Parsons B. Human sexual orientation: The biologic theories reappraised. Archives of General Psychiatry 1993;50:228-239. (Byne critiques all the biologic theories to date and concludes that there is no solid evidence that homosexual behavior is mainly caused by biology.) 8. Byne W. The biological evidence challenged. Scientific American 1994;May:50-55. (Half of a Scientific American special debate; other half is an article by LeVay S and Hamer D in the same issue that takes the opposing view. There is also an introduction. "Even if genetic and neuroanatomical traits turn out to be correlated with sexual orientation, causation is far from proved." Byne, currently at Mount Sinai Medical School, is an expert in the ways biological and social factors influence behavior. Although he challenges the biological studies to date, Byne is not homophobic as many would assume. i.e. from the introduction: "... The salient question about biology and sexual orientation is not whether biology is involved but how it is involved. All psychological phenomenoa are ultimately biological. ... At the political level, a requirement that an unconventional trait be inborn or immutable is an inhumane criterion for a society to use in deciding which of its nonconformists it will grant tolerance. Even if homosexuality were entirely a matter of choice, attempts to extirpate it by social and criminal sanctions devalue basic human freedoms and diversity." He uses the white crowned sparrow singing to show that something can be immutable yet learned. From the conclusion: "... Perhaps more important, we should also be asking ourselves why we as a society are so emotionally invested in this research. Will it -- or should it -- make any difference in the way we perceive ourselves and others and how we live our lives and allow others to live theirs? Perhaps the answers to the most salient questions in this debate lie not within the biology of human brains but rather in the cultures those brains have created.") 9. Diamond M. Sexual identity, monozygotic twins reared in discordant sex roles and a BBC follow-up [Brief communication]. Archives of Sexual Behavior 1982;11:181-186. (Not gay-specific but fascinating nevertheless. Concerns a pair of twins where one boy had his penis ablated at 7 months so, at 17 months, he was surgically and hormonally changed to female [1972]. Because the outcome was favorable, many [i.e. Time magazine] believed gender roles to be mostly learned. Diamond disagrees, and opines that such patients should still be raised as males.) 10. Diamond R. Genetics and male sexual orientation [Letter]. Science 1993;261:1258-1259. (Ramifications of Dean Hamer's 1993 study as opined by the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals, Inc. ) 11. Ellis L, Ames MA. Neurohormonal functioning and sexual orientation: A theory of homosexuality-heterosexuality. Psychological Bulletin 1987;101:233-258. (Notable for putting all orientations on equal footing: "The causes of sexual inversions are categorized as genetic-hormonal, pharmacological, maternal stress, immunological, and social experiential. From this evidence, we propose a theory of how the entire spectrum of human sexual orientation [vs. simply homosexuality] is determined") 12. Fausto-Sterling A, Balaban E. Genetics and male sexual orientation [Letter]. Science 1993;261:1257. (Critique of Dean Hamer's 1993 study) 13. Friedman RC, Downey JI. Homosexuality [Special Article]. The New England Journal of Medicine 1994;331:923-930. (Excellent review of homosexuality: Definition, Sexual behavior, Homophobia, AIDS, Psychopathologic issues , Normal development in homosexuals, Change in sexual orientation, Psychobiologic aspects . 138 references. Pro-gay conclusion: "Enough data have been accumulated to warrant the dismissal of incorrect ideas once widely acccepted about homosexual people. ... There are no data from scientific studies to justify the unequal treatment of homosexual people or their exclusion from any group." Also points out that on average, American medical schools only devote 3.5 hours to the topic in 4 years.) 14. Hamer D, Hu S, Magnuson V, Hu N, Pattatucci A. Genetics and male sexual orientation [Letter]. Science 1993;261:1259. (Dean Hamer et al. reply to letters from Anne Fausto-Sterling and Rochell Diamond in the same issue) 15. Hamer D, Hu S, Magnuson V, Hu N, Pattatucci A. Male sexual orientation and genetic evidence [Letter]. Science 1993;262:2065. (Dean Hamer et al. reply to the technical critique by Risch et al in the same issue) 16. Hamer D. Sexual orientation [Letter]. Nature 1993;365:702. (Dean Hamer responds to criticism of his genetic study from J Maddox [Nature 1993;364:281]. Maddox replies to Hamer's response on the same page.) 17. Hamer DH, Hu S, Magnuson VL, Hu N, Pattatucci AML. A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. Science 1993;261:321-327. ("The linkage markers on Xq28, the subtelomeric region of the long arm of the sex chromosome, had a multipoint lod score of 4.0 [p=10^-5], indicating a statistical confidence level of more than 99 percent that at least one subtype of male sexual orientation is genetically influenced.") 18. Heston LL, Shields J. Homosexuality in twins: A family study and a registry study. Archives of General Psychiatry 1968;18:149-160. (The subjects were British twins in which at least one was "attending a psychiatric clinic." [!] Pre-DSMIII, homosexuality was still listed under "psychiatric disorders" in a table, along with depression and alcoholism. Concludes, "there is no evidence that monozygotic twins per se are particularly prone to homosexuality. The tendency is for concordance to be incomplete in series of MZ twins but to be higher in corresponding DZ pairs, a finding which points to be the importance of both genetic an environmental causes.") 19. Hooper C. Biology, brain architecture, and human sexuality. The Journal of NIH Research 1992;4:53-59. (Summarizes the anterior commissure study by Laura Allen and Roger Gorski; offers a good non-technical overview of all recent research. Good sidebar on 'The Genetics of Homosexuality' summarizing the studies by Bailey/Pillard and Hamer et al, and includes photographs of 'fruitless flies' engaged in daisy-chained ororectal contact.) 20. Hu S, Pattatucci AML, Patterson C, Li L, Fulker DW, Cherny SS, Kruglyak L, Hamer DH. Linkage between sexual orientation and chromosome Xq28 in males but not in females. Nature Genetics 1995;11:248-256. (Follow-up study confirming their 1993 results that there is a locus on the X chromosome for male homosexuality. No such link was found for lesbianism. A good summary by J Travis is in Science News [148:295]) 21. Kruglyak L. Sexual orientation [Letter]. Nature 1993;365:702. (A defense of Hamer's original interpretation of his genetic study, refuting J Maddox's criticism [Nature 1993;364:281]. Letters by Hamer and Maddox are on the same page.) 22. LeVay S, Hamer D. Scientific American 1994;May:45-50. (Half of a Scientific American special debate; other half is an article by Byne W. in the same issue that takes the opposing view.) 23. LeVay S. Sex, genes and stereotype [Book review by Steven Rose of Simon LeVay's The Sexual Brain]. Nature 1993;363:505. 24. Macke JP, Hu N, Hu S, Bailey M, King VL, Brown T, Hamer D, Nathans J. Sequence variation in the androgen receptor gene is not a common determinant of male sexual orientation. American Journal of Human Genetics 1993;53:844-852. 25. Maddox J. Sexual orientation [Letter]. Nature 1993;365:702. (J Maddox responds to Dean Hamer's reply of his original criticism [Nature 1993;364:281] of Hamer's genetic study.) 26. Pillard RC, Weinrich JD. Evidence of familial nature of male homosexuality. Archives of General Psychiatry 1986;43:808-812. 27. Pool R. Evidence for homosexuality gene [Research news]. Science 1993;261:291-292. (A summary of Dean Hamer et al's genetic research appearing in the same issue) 28. Risch N, Squires-Wheeler E, Keats BJB. Male sexual orientation and genetic evidence [Letter]. Science 1993;262:2063-2064. (Highly technical and mathematical critique of Dean Hamer's 1993 study, suggesting that Hamer's conclusions were not objective because of inconsistencies. It concluded, "There is little disagreement that male homosexual orientation is not a Mendelian trait. In fact, a priori, one would expect the role of a major gene in male orientation to be limited because of the strong selective pressures against such a gene. It is unlikely that a major gene underlying such a common trait could persist over time without an extraordinary counterbalancing mechanism." 29. Travis J. X chromosome again linked to homosexuality. Science News 1995;148:295. (A summary of Hu, Hamer et al's genetic study [Nature Genetics 1995;11:248-256]. Points out that George Ebers' study did not find any gay genes on the X chromosome.) 30. Turner WJ. Comments on discordant monozygotic twinning in homosexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior 1994;115-119.