Talk:Prenatal hormones and sexual orientation

message: The article mentions a 1993 study demonstrating a fraternal birth order effect.  This should be provided (and added to the fraternal birth order page). Pete.Hurd 03:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 1993 Fraternal birth order reference?

message: As I understand it, the fraternal birth order effect is not thought to be directly hormonal.  I can understand that the topic is so closely related to prenatal hormones and sexual orientation that it might belong here, but it makes me wonder why this page isn't part of Biology_and_sexual_orientation.  This page really needs a lot of work (but so does the material covering this topic on Biology_and_sexual_orientation page. Pete.Hurd 04:12, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My feeling is still that this topic is distinct enough that a separate article is warranted, but with appropriately prominent links in both directions to/from Biology and sexual orientation.  Then again, I'm a big fan of relatively small self-contained articles over really long, multi-sectioned and exhaustive treatments of all related facets. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense, the long articles are hard to read.  In a perfect workd I think this one would be called uterine effects on sexual orientation, but the present one might make more sense. Pete.Hurd 05:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fraternal birth order effect not hormonal

message: It is critical to note that these studies still require that homosexuals show a significant heritable component and that this evidence is scarce and difficult to obtain.
Specifically, the production prental hormones is genetically controlled.
Despite this, there is certainly not a preponderance of reliable, statistically significant, and reproducible scientific evidence to support this theory.  At best, there is only enough evidence to suggest that further work is necessary.
:There is no reason why the hypothesis of prenatal hormones affecting/determining sexual orientation would require any heritable component of sexual orientation.  The former hypothesis does not rule out the latter, but they are quite independent.  Yes, I can see that a genetic effect on uterine hormone production could be heritable; but it being so is not a logical necessity, just another potentially testable hypothesis. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 14:52, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Genetic Component 

message: About a year or two before the Berlin Wall came down (1987-1988), I recall seeing a brief report on the television network news about work done by an East German doctor, using rats.  He had been intrigued by the spike in homosexuality among boys born in Germany during World War II, and to test his theory, subjected pregnant rats to stresses, such as keeping them in claustrophobic conditions and forcing them to swim until exhaustion.  His studies supported the idea of hormonal imbalances caused by stress in mothers contributing to homosexual tendencies in their offspring.  A recent Google search turned up nothing.  Does any Wikipedian have a clue where to find information on these studies?  I think it would be worthwhile to include it in this article. --QuicksilverT @ 00:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know anything about these East German studies, but prenatal maternal stress effects on sexual orientation in rats and makes me think of Ingeborg Ward.
* Ward, I. (1972) Prenatal stress feminizes and demasculinizes the behavior of males. "Science" 175:82-84
* Ward et al (2002) Hormonal Mechanisms Underlying Aberrant Sexual Differentiation in Male Rats Prenatally Exposed to Alcohol, Stress, or Both. Archives of Sexual Behavior 31:9-16
* Ward et al (2003) Fetal testosterone surge: specific modulations induced in male rats by maternal stress and/or alcohol consumption. Hormones and Behavior 43:531-539
I also have a vague tingly feeling that Milton Diamond did some rodent work, (1960's?), but I can't find those references just now.  I'm assuming you are aware of Lee Ellis' work, as in
* Ellis, L. et al (1988) Sexual orientation of human offspring may be altered by severe maternal stress during pregnancy. Journal of Sex Research 25:152--157.
* Ellis, L. & Cole-Harding, S. (2001) The effects of prenatal stress, and of prenatal alcohol and nicotine exposure, on human sexual orientation. Physiol. Behav. 74:213--226
The thing with rodents, is that while various things may influence sexual behaviour, it is kind of hard to equate it with sexual orientation without waving the hands a bit... Cheers, Pete.Hurd 07:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  East German research 

message: Is Ewald's hypothesis that a virus causes homosexuality in all the species (or even, say, just all the mammals) which exhibit homosexuality, or only in humans? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Paul W. Ewald|Paul Ewald]] and "gay virus" 

message: I'm rewriting the section pertaining to prenatal hormones in summary style. The following info was in the section before I hacked away at it, so it could be useful here:
:Some have theorized that events in the womb may contribute to some subset of homosexual behavior (though certain individuals may be genetically predisposed to be vulnerable to such events, and the conditions inside the mother's reproductive system are of course influenced by her genetics).
:A current hypothesis in this vein is that the developing brains of homosexual men are not as masculinized- or defeminized- as heterosexual men, and that homosexual females are "masculinized" in some way.
:Supporting evidence for this hypothesis includes:
:* Observed differences in three areas of the brain in homosexual vs. heterosexual men (the anterior commisure, the supra-chiasmatic nucleus and the interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus, showing sexual diphormism, although their relation with homosexuality is not clear yet).
:* Observed differences in cognitive testing showing results for homosexual men typical of heterosexual women and results for homosexual women typical of heterosexual men. 
:* Observed differences in the preferences that homosexual men, heterosexual men, and heterosexual women have for the age of their sexual partners.
:It is unclear whether the observed anatomical and cognitive differences are signs of a (possibly genetic) mechanism that determines sexual orientation, or symptoms of the formation of an atypical sexual orientation during childhood.
:One possible mechanism is differential fetal hormone exposure, especially to testosterone (and a compound it is transformed into, estradiol) and luteinizing hormone (LH) is proposed as the mechanism. The concentrations of these chemicals is thought to be influenced by fetal and maternal immune systems, maternal consumption of certain drugs, maternal stress, and direct injection.
:Hormone levels may of course vary over time. Given the semi-sequential nature of fetal development, and because multiple hormones are involved, it is possible for the hypothesized "masculinization" or "feminization" process to affect only some body or brain systems. (This is necessary to explain why someone might be say, born with a male body but with a "feminized" sexual attraction.)
:Prenatal hormones have been indicated both in Simon LeVay's study of the anterior hypothalamus in cadavers with homosexual contraction of AIDS as cause of death and Marc Breedlove's study of birth order and ring-finger length ratios in living individuals. LeVay's study suggests that homosexual men are "feminized", Breedlove's study suggests that both heterosexual men and homosexual women are "masculinized". Breedlove's study also suggests that homosexual men are "super-males", as their ring-finger lengths were the longest among the four sexual orientations studied.
:Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, lead by Dennis McFadden, found the response of the inner ear to soft sounds tended to be weaker in homosexual women than in heterosexual women. The response among men tended to be weaker than either female group. Fetal exposure to androgens is hypothesized to affect this attribute, suggesting that fetal exposure to the same chemicals may also predispose a daughter to a lesbian orientation. However, lifestyle differences between the two female groups may lead to different sound exposures, and this could also explain the correlation.
::References
::* 
::* 
::* D. McFadden and E. G. Pasanen. Comparison of the auditory systems of heterosexuals and homosexuals: Click-evoked otoacoustic emissions. PNAS, March 3, 1998; 95(5): 2709 - 2713. 
:Researchers in the Breedlove study found evidence correlating prenatal hormones to male homosexuality. Males exposed to high levels of androgens (sexual hormones) as fetuses are predominantly homosexual.
:Certain observations involving "environmental" factors in the womb have been proposed to explain some instances of homosexual orientation; see Genetics and sexual orientation, prenatal hormones and sexual orientation and fraternal birth order for explanations.
Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 18:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section moved over from [[Biology and sexual orientation]] 

message: I've read that some researchers had made ties between prenatal hormones and contraception, suggesting that things like the birth control pill could have an impact on male sexual orientation. ADM (talk) 02:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Contraception

message: Really don't think this article qualifies for B-class quality rating. Sxologist (talk) 23:21, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article rating 

message: Hello, not sure about this edit which replaced transsexualism with transgenderism. I'm assuming they should match the sources, so I'm not sure which would take precedence since transgenderism involves a broad definition of gender identity, whereas transsexualism implies the subset who change sex? Sxologist (talk) 11:11, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Reverted that IP for reasons I stated in that edit summary. Simply revert something like that in the future. Don't know what the IP was going on about. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:23, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup. It's a case of someone changing wording for WP:RGW reasons rather than following WP:V and WP:NOR. Crossroads -talk- 23:34, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transsexualism versus transgenderism 

message: If the subject of this article is "prenatal hormones and sexual orientation", then why is there an entire section on "gender dysphoria" and a subsection on "transsexualism"? According to mainstream sources, gender is different from sexual orientation. And the term "transsexualism" is decades out-of-date. I believe that was the old term used in the DSM-III (1980), which was replaced by gender identity disorder (GID) in the DSM-IV (1994), and then gender dysphoria in the DSM-5 (2013). Information in the section on gender dysphoria is just a small amount of information on the matter and is unrepresentative. Causes of gender incongruence is the appropriate article for this type of material. Hist9600 (talk) 19:17, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender dysphoria not included in sexual orientation