Roots of reparative therapy – Philip Wylie and megaloid momworship

For WWII and post war mom blamers such as Edward Strecker and Philip Wylie, moms were not just responsible for individual immaturity in their sons, they were, by extension, the ruination of democracy. Strecker (who referred to this book by Wylie in his book) made that case very directly in his book, Their Mothers’ Sons, which I reviewed briefly Monday and Tuesday.
In his book, Generation of Vipers, Philip Wylie aims his rhetorical gun at just about everyone; mother blaming was not his sole purpose. However, to best understand why mother blaming could take root so deeply in American culture, one needs to review Wylie’s chapter in Generation of Vipers, titled “Common Women.” I will give a few portions here.

Wylie apparently thought Freud cogent on matters of mother blame, writing:

Freud has made a fierce and wondrous catalogue of examples of mother-love-in-action which traces its origin to an incestuous perversion of a normal instinct. That description is, of course, sound. Unfortunately, Americans, who are the most prissy people on earth, have been unable to benefit from Freud’s wisdom because they can prove that they do not, by and large, sleep with their mothers. That is their interpretation of Freud. Moreover, no matter how many times they repeat the Scriptures, they cannot get the true sense of the passage about lusting in one’s heart–especially when they are mothers thinking about their sons, or vice versa. (p. 185)

Wylie thinks mothers and sons are just sickening, creepy close. Americans however, are behaviorally oriented, he says. Since American men are not actually sleeping with their mothers, they can excuse their stifling emotional closeness. Wylie says instead that it is the thought that counts — men are too concerned about their moms, to the point of worship. He continues:

Meanwhile, Megaloid momworship has got completely out of hand. Our land, subjectively mapped, would have more silver cords and apron strings crisscrossing it than railroads and telephone wires. Mom is everywhere and everything and damned near everybody, and from her depends all the rest of the U. S.  Disguised as good old mom, dear old mom, sweet old mom, your loving mom, and so on, she is the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every wedding. Men live for her and die for her, dote upon her and whisper her name as they pass away, and I believe she has now achieved, in the hierarchy of miscellaneous articles, a spot next to the Bible and the Flag, being reckoned part of both in a way. She may therefore soon be granted by the House of Representatives the especial supreme and extraordinary right of sitting on top of both when she chooses, which, God knows, she does. At any rate, if no such bill is under consideration, the presentation of one would cause little debate among the solons. These sages take cracks at their native land and makes jokes about Holy Writ, but nobody among them–no great man or brave–from the first day of the first congressional meeting to the present ever stood in our halls of state and pronounced the one indubitably most-needed American verity: “Gentlemen, mom is a jerk.”

Mom is something new in the world of men. Hitherto, mom has been so busy raising a large family, keeping house, doing the chores, and fabricating everything in every home except the floor and the walls that she was rarely a problem to her family or to her equally busy friends, and never one to herself. Usually, until very recently, mom folded up and died of hard work somewhere in the middle of her life. Old ladies were scarce and those who managed to get old did so by making remarkable inner adjustments and by virtue of a fabulous horniness of body, so that they lent to old age not only dignity but metal. (pp. 185-186)

According to Wylie, moms stifle men and reduce them to compliant boys.

Mom had already shaken him out of that notion of being a surveyor in the Andes which had bloomed in him when he was nine years old, so there was nothing left to do, anyway, but to take a stockroom job in the hairpin factory and try to work up to the vice-presidency. Thus the women of America raped the men, not sexually, unfortunately, but morally, since neuters come hard by morals. I pass over the obvious reference to the deadliness of the female of the species, excepting only to note that perhaps, having a creative physical part in the universe, she falls more easily than man into the contraposite role of spiritual saboteur. (pp. 187-188)

Much of the chapter is a full on attack on what Wylie perceives to be the ways of mom, comparing her at various times to Hitler and Satan, with most societal evils laid to rest at her door. Along the way, Wylie returns to the greatest achievement of mom, emasculating sons.

“Her boy,” having been “protected” by her love, and carefully, even shudderingly, shielded from his logical development through his barbaric period, or childhood (so that he has either to become a barbarian as a man or else to spend most of his energy denying the barbarism that howls in his brain – an autonomous remnant of the youth he was forbidden), is cushioned against any major step in his progress toward maturity. Mom steals from the generation of women behind her (which she has, as a still further defense, also sterilized of integrity and courage) that part of her boy’s personality which should have become the love of a female contemporary. Mom transmutes it into sentimentality for herself. (pp. 195-196)

Wylie goes on to develop the concept of mom as barrier to manhood (I imagine Wylie is god at the Mankind Project). The close-binding-intimate (CBI mother) mom of Irving Bieber, direct influence on Nicolosi and NARTH is a psychiatric incarnation of Wylie’s momistic mom. As an aside, Bieber was described in saintly tones during my brief sojourn in the NARTH wilderness with presentation after presentation blaming smother mothers and inept, cranky dads for the “condition” of homosexuality. Wylie, predating Bieber, ridicules men but blames moms for his plight.

The mealy look of men today is the result of momism and so the pinched and baffled fury in the eyes of womankind…we will first have to make the conquest of momism, which grew up from male default. (p. 197, 203)

In reparative drive theory for male homosexuality, the relationship with the father becomes more of a focus. Cultural and early psychiatric opinion focused on mom the usurper, but reparative therapy extends the fault lines to include the weak or aggressive but surely distant father who allows mom to conquer the triad of mother-son-father, with the son becoming the defensively detached pre-homosexual. The Strecker-Wylie-Nicolosi fix is simple and if you don’t understand why or how it works, trust them, they know.

142 thoughts on “Roots of reparative therapy – Philip Wylie and megaloid momworship”

  1. I agree with what you’ve said, Warren.
    What enrages me is the suggestion that ‘being gay’ is ipso facto anti-social. ‘Anti-sociality’, and indeed morality generally, is principally about attitude and behaviour (and we all know that there are ‘straight’ people who often behave in an anti-social and/or immoral manner, just as here are ‘gay’ people who generally do not). And we all make wrong choices of various kinds, whatever our sexuality or experiences in childhood.
    By the way, some manifestations of heterosexual behaviour arise from ‘social context’ and ‘confusing life experience’, don’t they?

  2. I mostly agree with this: “I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances.” I think there are too many possible variables and we certainly do not have enough evidence at this time to identify that particular set of circumstances. Also, we should recognize that a set of circumstances may lead one person one way and someone else a different way. That concept seems to be forgotten frequently.
    But I remain firmly of the belief that “nurture” plays a larger role than “nature” as related to SSA. And I think it is important and useful to continue trying to understand how SSA develops and also to apply therapy and other approaches to address unwanted SSA (as well as conduct research on the subject).

  3. @ Madison : Your comment has hit on a very important point, viz. many of us here simply do not see sexual orientation as a result primarily of ‘psychological development’. I take the view that two children could have similar experiences of how they are ‘parented’, but this would have no real bearing on their sexual orientation (e.g. one child would be straight and the other gay, strong similarities in childhood experiences notwithstanding).

  4. Madison – You are apparently new around here. There is no way one can say that I have presented this post in isolation. Please put Nicolosi or reparative therapy or NARTH in the search engine for this blog and you will see how much context this post has.
    RE: parenting. I did not say parenting had no impact on the psychological development of offspring. I said there is little evidence that parenting has much to do with the direction of sexual attractions.
    I am an old parent with four children, 3 girls and a boy. I raised the first two on Dobson and in hindsight wish I had been more flexible. I used to be a raving environmentalist (not the green kind) but now I have a great respect for the interaction of genotype, social context, friends, and parents.

  5. Madison – In examining ideas, historical and cultural context is important. Strecker quoted Wylie (which I will add to the post) and the point is that the mother blaming impulse runs deep within the culture. NARTH is an institution that I believe wants to maintain the zeitgeist of the 1940s. Even by your reaction, it seems clear that these ideas are outdated, even for religious folk. Yet, NARTH continues to blame mom and pop for a brain response.

  6. I’m trying to understand what we are to make of a 67 year-old book by a semi-crazed author. Are we to reject the material in its entirety including any more recent thought that is similar? That seems kind of silly. I understand that you are trying to make the case that Nicolosi is a lunatic and anything he says should be ridiculed but this is taking it pretty far.

  7. Madison and Richard – I should add that I think the influence of parents is more at the extremes of behavior. I think parents can create anti-social people and probably have a lot to do with influencing religious views and worldview. Abusive parents bear bitter fruit and the best, most intuitive of parents probably have closer attachments with their children than the broad middle of the bell curve. However, in that broad middle, I don’t see that moms working, not working, dads being silent, or loud or retiring or brash, etc., make much difference on a variety of outcomes. Just to be nuanced about it, I do think some people have engaged in same-sex behavior due to social context and confusing (e.g., abuse) life experience as a form of figuring themselve out. I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances. As much as I wanted to find these from about 1998 – 2005, I never did.

  8. RIchard asked

    By the way, some manifestations of heterosexual behaviour arise from ‘social context’ and ‘confusing life experience’, don’t they?

    Yes, indeed.
    Just to be clear, I was not associating gays with antisocial behavior when I used the construct. My meaning was that some kinds of parenting can influence children of any sexual orientation to do antisocial things.

  9. Warren wrote:

    I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances. As much as I wanted to find these from about 1998 – 2005, I never did.

    John Maynard Keynes said:

    When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

    It’s called intellectual honesty. Even back in 2005, when I first came here, that was what attracted me. Someone who would rather be correct rather than win a debate. Our positions have grown closer – but we both are willing to accept the fact that we might be mistaken, and even enthusiastically hunt for evidence that we are mistaken.

  10. My guess is that he is doing this to show that reparative drive theory is based on some old out-dated ideas that have .. for most people .. long been disqualified of having any academic/scholarly merit.
    Dave

  11. On what do you base your belief?

    1. Common Sense – not scientific but also not completely discountable. I know that common sense is not always correct but disregard it at your peril.
    2. Evolution – I am a firm believer in evolution and believe that it is not controversial that a genes-based theory of SSA is problematic. Once again, that is not to say that it’s not impossible but I believe the evolutionary theory sets the bar relatively high if one wants to prove an incompatibility. Yes, I’ve hears most or all of the theories for how SSA could exist in the face of evolution and I don’t find them particularly compelling. Certainly not as compelling as other theories on the causation of SSA.
    3. Observation – I live in perhaps the most gay city in the world have have thousands or even 10s of thousands of observations to work with including some very close to home. I am also now observing first hand the psychological development of a newborn.
    4. Study – I have read and listened to mountains of evidence, research and opinion.
    I am prepared to be wrong but it would take some very compelling evidence which I have not yet seen.
    Warren, your turn. It’s probably somewhere here on the blog but I’m actually not really sure what you believe these days. Your previous positions made some sense and lined up to some degree with mine. But I haven’t totally figured out your newer perspective beyond the neutral-ish SIF and the seemingly knee-jerk rejection of all things reparative.

  12. It’s called intellectual honesty. Even back in 2005, when I first came here, that was what attracted me. Someone who would rather be correct rather than win a debate. Our positions have grown closer – but we both are willing to accept the fact that we might be mistaken, and even enthusiastically hunt for evidence that we are mistaken.

    This is so important. Being on this Blog has helped me in lots of ways; and, who would have thought the virtual world could do that. I often want to win a debate, prove I’m better, smarter, etc. It’s just so self-defeating, and hurtful to others.
    Perhaps, people don’t realize what good example can do for others. I see how you guys handle yourselves, and I’m trying to model my behavior on your example. I care about the truth, even when I have to admit I’ve been wrong. Painful, at first, but the end result is worth it. But, I learned all that from seeing others do that, even when some responses are less than gracious.

  13. I’ve just remembered a little affaire de coeur from twenty years ago: the object of my affection possessed the melancholic-phlegmatic counterpoint to my own sanguine-choleric temperament!

  14. @Madison who said:

    But I remain firmly of the belief that “nurture” plays a larger role than “nature” as related to SSA

    On what do you base your belief?
    @David – We are too soon old and too late smart.

  15. @ Ann – I think of temperament as mostly nurture.

    Warren, what do you think of the age-old study called “humorism”, which classed people within The 4 Temperaments: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic? I believe it was thought that everyone was born predisposed to a main Temperament, with a sub-temperament … or some variety of that. I think they saw this as nature … sort of like, some persons are naturally extroverted, others introspective, etc.
    The Catholic Church for quite awhile used this classification to help people understand themselves, and to “accentuate the positive, and work towards the diminishing the negative”. Parents were taught to identify a child’s temperament, and assist the child the same way.

  16. Smiling at your parental journey Warren.
    I see things a little differently. Dobson was interesting to me as a fallback position in parenting. But overall, I preferred a strongly relational model keeping Mahler in mind that the developing child is always trying to make sense of this all powerful caretaker.
    Psychology has never been that good at identifying why people who are treated poorly as children, grow up to be loving and responsible adults.
    Blaming mother (ala Freud) is a reasonable explanation for many problems adults manifest that have their roots in childhood, but it is not a fact and it is far from provable.
    Freud attempted to create an all encompassing theory…it became infused in the culture, much to everyone’s regret. We are only recently crawling out of that mess and it’s residue still persists to our detriment.

  17. @Madison – Yes, it is on the blog. The reaction to reparative therapy is hardly knee jerk as I have been writing on the problems with the theory and the damage to families since 2006. You could search for Savic, Wittelson, Alanko, Långström, Jiang, chromosomal skewing to get you started and you can see the Reparative Therapy Information Page. /reparative-therapy-information/

  18. 2. playing “war” and having “battles” is exciting; playing “house” is boring and girly. So really, I played with transformers b/c they were made for battle, b/c I preferred this activity.

    EXACTLY, my very thoughts, Emily.

  19. Throbert McGee# ~ Jun 24, 2011 at 9:18 am

    I imagine they reverse case would be harder to examine since I’m pretty sure that gays, who are gender CONFORMING, are more likely to be closeted and less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation.

    Um, I would never make that assumption. ”
    Really, what class of gay men to you think would have an significantly easier time hiding their orientation: gender conforming or gender non-conforming men? And if it is easier for one class of gay men to be closeted, don’t you think it would be more likely for members of that group to be closeted? Keep in mind, I’m talking about a time frame of about 40 years (since homosexuality was removed as a disorder).
    “Also, people who are very closeted are less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation mainly because they’re less likely to respond to a newspaper ad that says “Gay and bi male volunteers 18-45 sought for daily participation in three-week psychology study, lunches provided plus $100 compensation at end of study.” ”
    Or because they are less likely to even identify as gay (even to themselves “but I’m a cheerleader”) if they are gender conforming.

  20. Throbert, I played “war” with them. This could be for a couple reasons. 1. I took thinks pretty much at face value as a kid. I always saw transformers in battle on TV; therefor they are constructed for battle. 2. playing “war” and having “battles” is exciting; playing “house” is boring and girly. So really, I played with transformers b/c they were made for battle, b/c I preferred this activity.

  21. Zoe,
    I have a question. Of course, you don’t have to answer. But , do you have an adams apple?

  22. Madison wrote:

    after years of study, they found that it’s pointless to assume “environment” might have more than a negligible effect on a child’s gender identity.

    Can you point to even _one_ piece of information that supports that contention? And yet you are saying it is so commonly understood that it doesn’t even merit a reminder?

    Try this one:
    Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth by Reiner and Gearhart, N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.
    RESULTS Eight of the 14 subjects assigned to female sex declared themselves male during the course of this study, whereas the 2 raised as males remained male. Subjects could be grouped according to their stated sexual identity. Five subjects were living as females; three were living with unclear sexual identity, although two of the three had declared themselves male; and eight were living as males, six of whom had reassigned themselves to male sex. All 16 subjects had moderate-to-marked interests and attitudes that were considered typical of males. Follow-up ranged from 34 to 98 months.
    CONCLUSIONS Routine neonatal assignment of genetic males to female sex because of severe phallic inadequacy can result in unpredictable sexual identification. Clinical interventions in such children should be reexamined in the light of these findings.

    Cloacal Extrophy is not the result of anomalous hormones in the womb. There is no greater rate of cross-sexing of foetal neurology than in the general population.
    Therefore, if biological causes are dominant, many, (perhaps even most, if the biological traits are extremely dominant) of those raised female would assert a male gender identity and sexual orientation, despite the social pressures to conform. We would expect all to show male play patterns and interests.
    Conversely, if environment is dominant, we’d expect only 1 in a few thousand to have a male identity, given an entirely female upbringing and female body. 1 in 100,000 according to the APA figures for FtoM Transsexuality. We would expect that they would show female play patterns and interests.
    The evidence is consistent with biology being the dominant cause, possibly overwhelmingly so, and inconsistent with environment having anything more than a relatively minor role to play.
    In other Intersex conditions, where hormonal anomalies have occured in foetu, the situation is not as clear-cut. Where anomalies are extensive, as in medium-grade PAIS, if you assign all to male, 1 in 3 would be mis-assigned. If you assign all to female, 1 in 3 would be mis-assigned too. In many other conditions, by very careful analysis of genes, anatomy, behaviour in the first three months etc you can reduce the rate of “getting it horribly wrong” to about 10% rather than 30%.
    This is not contentious, controversial, or really open to doubt at this point.
    What is contentious is whether blighting the lives of 1 in 10 (or more often, 1 in 3) children is “acceptable” in order to give normal lives in childhood to the rest.
    That (contrary to McHugh et al) chromosomes are not a reliable guide is shown by Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. by Cohen-Ketternis, Arch Sex Behav. 2005 Aug;34(4):399-410.

    Individuals with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17beta-HSD-3) are often raised as girls. Over the past number of years, this policy has been challenged because many individuals with these conditions develop a male gender identity and make a gender role change after puberty. The findings also raised doubts regarding the hypothesis that children are psychosexually neutral at birth and emphasized the potential role of prenatal brain exposure to androgens in gender development. If prenatal exposure to androgens is a major contributor to gender identity development, one would expect that all, or nearly all, affected individuals, even when raised as girls, would develop a male gender identity and make a gender role switch later in life. However, an estimation of the prevalence of gender role changes, based on the current literature, shows that gender role changes occur frequently, but not invariably. Gender role changes were reported in 56-63% of cases with 5alpha-RD-2 and 39-64% of cases with 17beta-HSD-3 who were raised as girls. The changes were usually made in adolescence and early adulthood. In these two syndromes, the degree of external genital masculinization at birth does not seem to be related to gender role changes in a systematic way.

    I disagree with Peggy Cohen-Ketternis’ assertion that ” If prenatal exposure to androgens is a major contributor to gender identity development, one would expect that all, or nearly all, affected individuals, even when raised as girls, would develop a male gender identity and make a gender role switch later in life“. 5ARD effects neurological development in foetu too, so the pre-natal exposure isn’t a given.
    Social pressures to “go with the flow” vary from society to society. Thus, in one extreme, the Sambia tribe in New Guinea, most adopt a male role, the rest die or are killed. In western society, where the pressure is immense, but not as extreme as in the Sambia, it’s more like 50/50.
    An adequate “rule of thumb” is that in such cases, 1 in 3 are male, 1 in 3 female, and 1 in 3 can adapt to a greater or lesser extent to either gender role. Hence only 1 in 3 Intersex children end up with severe problems if arbitrarily surgically assigned a sex, in conditions where foetal hormone levels are unclear.
    I for example endured 47 years of looking male – albeit with increasing dysfunctionality – whicg argues that I’m “bigendered”, as I didn’t actually kill myself. On the other hand, the immense relief, and increase in general health and capability across the board after transition, argues for me to be assigned into the “unalterably female” category. I’m a borderline case, which just goes to show that a trinary approximation, while better than a binary one, is still just an arbitrary imposition of a social construction onto a complex and non-discrete reality.

  23. after years of study, they found that it’s pointless to assume “environment” might have more than a negligible effect on a child’s gender identity.

    Can you point to even _one_ piece of information that supports that contention? And yet you are saying it is so commonly understood that it doesn’t even merit a reminder? I just don’t even know how to respond to statements like this without getting booted off the forums here. It’s just shocking to me.

    Due to different genotypes, hormonal conditions prenatally, etc., they have different brains which process the situation differently. In turn, the mother and father react differently to the different reactions and the temperament provokes a cascade of different experiences for both. It may seem that they have different parenting but they are provoking different parental reactions by their differing temperaments in the context of the same general set of circumstances.

    Warren, I think you are way overstating the pre-natal influence.
    Expanding on that and Teresa’s comments: if a child’s colic-ness (assuming colic determined pre-natally) results in poor parental treatment which results in some notable characteristic in the child, is that nature or nurture?
    Are Eli and Paytom Mannings’ football talent nature or nurture? Undoubtedly their athletic talent and gamesmanship are to some extent innate but is there any doubt that environment played a far larger role? If Eli and Payton were raised from birth in a different environment, I suspect they would have had as much chance becoming stock brokers as Super Bowl quarterbacks. Is that nature or nurture?

    I didn’t learn this behavior from anybody

    Most people can’t remember their first 5-7 years so I’m not sure you can really make that statement accurately (and “learn” is probably not the right word).

  24. Was being gay the cause of my gender nonconformity or was gender nonconformity* the cause of my becoming gay?
    * and/or the response to it

  25. Gender nonconformity is the biggest factor related to sexual orientation outcomes and I can see how some experiences could shape that somewhat.

    Note that the relationship here is one of correlation, but not necessarily causation. The EBE hypothesis does indeed suggest that gender nonconformity (GNC) precedes the SSA and to some degree causes the SSA. And EBE also claims that in the majority of children, gender-conformity (GC) precedes opposite-sex attraction, and to some degree causes the OSA.
    But other theories would say that GNC and SSA are linked, but that GNC doesn’t cause SSA, and neither does SSA cause GNC. Rather, GNC and SSA are two effects of a common cause (such as, perhaps, uterine hormones acting on the fetal brain). And similarly GC and OSA are linked as effects of a common cause (fetal hormones, or whatever), yet GC doesn’t cause OSA, or vice versa.
    P.S. Perhaps it’s even better to use age-delimited abbreviations such as ChGC and TnGNC and AdOSA, etc. — meaning “childhood gender conformity” and “teenage gender nonconformity” and “adult opposite sex attraction” — in order to clarify that sometimes, researchers are talking about gender behavior only within the context of certain “age windows.”

  26. I’ve read the GNC study that many reference (Coolidge 2002) and I’m just mind-boggled. The word “environment” appears once (ONCE!). I don’t understand how otherwise intelligent researchers can fail to even consider an environmental influence. What am I missing here?

    You’re probably missing what they take for granted – that after years of study, they found that it’s pointless to assume “environment” might have more than a negligible effect on a child’s gender identity.
    I’m gay. Growing up I was Gender Non-Conforming. But I didn’t learn this behavior from anybody – I was just expressing how I felt naturally on the inside. And on the inside, I felt like I was “one of the boys.” Oh sure I was definitely a girl biologically, but in terms of gender “norms,” I was on the boy side of things. I hated pink and dresses and loved rough-housing and Transformers toys. I don’t speak for every gay, but I’m explaining how life feels from the point of view of a gender non-conforming person.
    Here’s hoping you don’t end up blaming yourself should a child of yours end up gay.

  27. I hated pink and dresses and loved rough-housing and Transformers toys.

    Out of curiosity, did you typically “play war” with the Transformers, as boys were shown doing in the TV commercials? (Tcshew! Tcshew! I got you with my laser! You’re dead!)
    Or did you “play house” with them and assign different Transformers to father/mother/sister/brother roles and act out domestic dramas with the robots? (“Hi, Mrs. Optimus Prime, can Shockwave and Jetfire come to the movies with me?”)
    Or some combination of these different play styles?
    (When I was a kid, I tended to avoid the “gender extremes” of either playing house or playing war — instead, preferring “Swiss Family Robinson Meets Indiana Jones” scenarios that melded talky domestic drama with death-defying physical action. Of course, maybe this had nothing at all to do with my sexual orientation, but was merely imitative of The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and other ’70s disaster pics that I saw on TV…)

  28. Madison# ~ Jun 24, 2011 at 6:47 pm
    “80,000+ references to the “development of gender identity”. Pick one: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22development+of+gender+identity%22
    I picked several. And while many did say that environment can play a role in gender identity, the also said biology plays a role as well. None, specified the relative significance of the various factors involved.
    So perhaps you should pick a few research papers that support your arguments and demonstrate you actually know how to evaluate research, rather than just put search terms into google and just assume the results support your views.

  29. Oh, if Zoe is reading this: You mentioned, on another thread, your suspicion that the sense of smell had something to do with sexual orientation — i.e., that individuals are “androphilic” (attracted to men) or “gynephilic” (attracted to women) because of olfactory cues that we might not even be consciously aware of.
    This brought back a memory from my teenage years. Both of my parents were avid joggers when I was growing up, and I can vividly remember that in my teens, I often felt rather disgusted and annoyed when my dad would come home from a run dripping sweat all over the floor. But I wasn’t grossed out by my mom’s sweat, nor by the sweat of other guys in gym class. But I thought my father looked particularly “gross” when he was sweaty.
    So it now occurs to me to wonder whether my negative reaction to my dad’s perspiration was, in some way, a result of “olfactory androphilia” duking it out with the incest-avoidance instinct.

  30. Throbert McGee wrote:

    So it now occurs to me to wonder whether my negative reaction to my dad’s perspiration was, in some way, a result of “olfactory androphilia” duking it out with the incest-avoidance instinct.

    Bingo.
    Yes, exactly. An experiment to test this would have been to have examined the effects of brothers’ and cousins’ sweat too. By current theory, the closer you are genetically, the greater the distaste. But it’s statistical. n=1 experiments are acceptable, even the norm, in psychology and psychiatry, but we’re trying to get away from that and have a bit more rigour if this is to be a Science.
    So much we don’t know for sure… it all fits, but it only takes one ugly little fact to slay the most elegant and beautiful of theories. The evidence we have is indicative, suggestive, but not positive proof.

  31. A key observation here is that homosexuality is not an isolated trait; rather, it tends to be associated with other gendervariant cognitive and personality traits, both in childhood and in adult life. This is analogous to what has been observed in rodents and other animals subjected to prenatal manipulations of gonadal steroids, and it suggests that atypical levels of these hormones may affect a constellation of gendered traits, including sexual orientation, because many such traits are mediated by hormone-sensitive brain circuits.
    Still, gay men and lesbians are not transexuals or complete gender ‘inverts’; rather, they seem to be a patchwork of gender-conformist and gender-nonconformist traits—a patchwork that varies to some extent from individual to individual. Underlying this patchwork may be differences in developmental timing between different brain systems, differences in their sensitivity to gonadal steroids, or differences in causal mechanisms (e.g., hormonal versus direct genetic effects).
    It would be unethical to perform in humans the kind of animal experiments that led to the organizational hypothesis and its many subsequent ramifications, but it is possible to approach the same question in less direct ways. One approach is to take advantage of experiments of nature, such as the genetic condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which exposes female fetuses to higher-than-normal levels of androgens. CAH girls do display several gender-atypical childhood traits, as documented by Hines and others, and are more likely than other girls to develop same-sex attraction in adulthood. Still, even among women with the severest form of CAH, about half are exclusively heterosexual and only a few are exclusively homosexual. Thus the CAH research supports a significant role for prenatal androgens but also leaves plenty of room for other potential factors to play a role, possibly including social ones.

    Sexual differentiation of sexual behavior and its orientation
    Charles Rosellia and Jacques Balthazart
    Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, Volume 32, Issue 2, Pages 109-264 (April 2011)
    I don’t think it’s correct to say that GNC causes SSA. I think it is correct to say that the same factors, hormonal environment in foetu as modified by genetically-determined sensitivity, cause both to tend to be congruent.
    In over-simplified terms – if someone’s cognition is “masculine” they’ll also tend to be attracted to women, and vice-versa.
    That only 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 of GNC children turn out to be Transsexual says two things: first,. that Gender Identity is also correlated with sexed behaviour. But also less well correlated than with sexual orientation.
    Different parts of the brain can be affected by foetal/genetic/hormonal environments to different extents.
    Thus, most people are straight. Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Juvenile Play Pattern, Body Image, all the sexually-dimorphic areas of the brain tend to follow either a masculine or feminine stereotype. When an anomaly occurs, sexual orientation appears to be the most sensitive, then juvenile play pattern, then gender identity, and only in extreme cases, body image. But sometimes on;y body-image is affected, it’s not as clear-cut as we’d hope, timing factors may be involved.
    Taking myself as an example:
    Sexual Orientation – developed late triggered by post-natal hormones, as usually happens – female
    Juvenile Play Pattern – male.
    Gender Identity – female
    Body Image – female.
    Remember though that I’m imposing an arbitrary binary here: by “male”, all I mean is “most people we classify as male show this characteristic”. That Lesbians would, under this schema, have a “male” sexual orientation doesn’t imply they are wannabe-men; it just shows the limitations and inherent inaccuracy of the lenguage I’m using.
    That description is that of a typical Tomboy. If I hadn’t had a male-looking body, that would be utterly unremarkable.
    Digression:
    Similarly, though my medical diagnosis is “severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman”, not too much store should be set by this. I’m Intersexed, severely so, so while due to my female Gender Identity I’d like to be considered 100% female, biologically, I’m not. My instincts tell me I should have given birth and suckled my children, many children, not fathered just one, with 13 miscarriages before then. It’s the only remnant of “gender dysphoria” I still have left, and only due to a hypertrophied maternal instinct that is atypical amongst women of any kind.
    No regrets though. Had I been biologically usual, I’d probably have been the traditional pregnant teen, wrecking my life. Certainly wouldn’t have been a Rocket Scientist, maybe 200 more people would have died in Gulf War I, 100,000 more in the Indian Tsunami, the MESSENGER spacecraft would have missed its launch window and either be still on its way to Mercury or even been cancelled… and while I would have had more children, my son would not exist. I’d rather die than have that happen.
    No back pain, swollen ankles, stretch marks, or the ordeal of childbirth either. So I tell my Instincts to go jump in the lake.
    From one of my favourite poets, Dorothy Parker:

    Here in my heart I am Helen;
    I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least.
    I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
    I’m Salome, moon of the East.
    Here in my soul I am Sappho;
    Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
    In me Recamier vies with Kitty O’Shea,
    With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
    I’m of the glamorous ladies
    At whose beckoning history shook.
    But you are a man, and see only my pan,
    So I stay at home with a book.

  32. But I remain firmly of the belief that “nurture” plays a larger role than “nature” as related to SSA.

    What’s your take on “nurture” vs. “nature” as relates to Opposite-Sex Attraction?
    If you argue that people are born “tabula rasa” as far as sexual orientation goes, and that both OSA and SSA are primarily the products of early childhood environment and “nurture”, then at least you’re being consistent. On the other hand, if you accept that OSA can be “neurologically hard-wired” by nature, then you need to justify your position that SSA cannot be similarly “hard wired” in exceptional cases.
    (One thing to be clear on is that “hard wired from birth” doesn’t necessarily require heritable genetic causes that would be disfavored by natural selection. Abnormal hormone levels in the uterus, for example, could cause changes in brain development that are irreversible and thus “hard wired”. But the abnormal hormones may occur spontaneously in a given pregnancy, rather than being something that the pregnant woman is genetically predisposed to. And if SSA-causing hormonal abnormalities are a “spontaneous mishap”, and not the result of a gene the woman carries, then natural selection can’t act against it.)

  33. There could be some innate attributes that support a disposition towards SSA but I think nurture takes over.

    As I observed in the Sandor Rado thread, when we’re talking about sexual orientation in males, what that Victorian phraseology “disposition towards SSA” actually means in practice is that most trouser snakes will stand up to salute the cheerleader’s perky breasts but yawn indifferently at the quarterback’s broad shoulders, while a few trouser snakes consistently show the exact opposite behavior. (Which is to say: I’m not homosexual, but my penis is.)
    So a “nurture” theory for male homosexuality needs to provide mechanisms by which a guy’s junk (and/or the region of his brain that mediates the erectile response) is somehow conditioned by life experiences or environment to respond to male imagery (while remaining unresponsive to female imagery).
    Obviously, pleasurable childhood genital play with a member of the same sex could be one such mechanism, but (a) not all homosexual men had such experiences in their childhood, and (b) a conditioned positive reaction to same-sex stimuli wouldn’t necessarily account for the SHUTDOWN of opposite-sex responsiveness. (Which is to say that a robust theory of homosexuality also needs to explain the absence of OSA, and not only the presence of SSA.)

  34. Following up on my previous comment/question to Madison, it seems like a perfectly reasonable option to believe that in some cases, SSA is hardwired-from-birth (as a result of something going awry in the fetal developmental process that normally results in hardwired OSA), while other cases of SSA are entirely the result of “nurture” factors in early childhood. There may, in other words, be “homosexualities” rather than a single phenomenon called “homosexuality” that has a single etiology.
    By the way, I find it very implausible for evolutionary reasons that Opposite-Sex Attraction could be purely a matter of “nurture”; and since I suspect there has a strong “nature” component to OSA, I think it’s logically inevitable that at least some cases of SSA must also be strongly “nature,” as I argued above. (Any biological process that’s capable of producing “hardwired OSA” must, in principle, be able to occasionally go awry and produce a “miswiring.”)

  35. since I suspect there has a strong “nature” component to OSA

    Aargh. Make that:since I suspect that there has to be a strong “nature” component to OSA.

  36. Madison# ~ Jun 24, 2011 at 5:17 pm
    “Can you point to even _one_ piece of information that supports that contention?”
    Cases of children (usually boys) who where born hermaphroditic (or with some sort of genital deformity) and at birth (or shortly thereafter) were surgically assigned a gender (again generally female) and raised in that gender. Only to identify with the opposite gender when they matured. These where children whose environment was specifically geared to raise them in the gender they were assigned at birth, and yet they identified with the opposite gender.
    There is your one piece. I’m sure Zoe would be happy to provide you with a host of others, but I’m trying to be brief :). That said, this doesn’t mean environment doesn’t play any role in gender identity, just that in most cases it isn’t a significant one.
    Do you have some scientific evidence to the contrary?

  37. Mary asked:

    I have a question. Of course, you don’t have to answer. But , do you have an adams apple?

    Not visibly – less than some other women, probably slightly more than average. My male puberty was incomplete, that was just one minor sign amongst many other, more obvious ones.

    The voiced speech of a typical adult male will have a fundamental frequency from 85 to 180 Hz, and that of a typical adult female from 165 to 255 Hz

    Mine’s 175Hz according to a speech pathologist’s exam, early in my transition. An “after” rather than a “before”, so I didn’t need training. Anything below 140Hz is recognised as “unambiguously male”, anything above 180Hz as “unambiguously female”.
    Basically I have 17mm vocal cords anatomically closer to an adult female norm (12.5mm-17.5mm) rather than an adult male norm(17mm-25mm). I had to consciously lower my voice when I looked male. Now I don’t.

  38. I don’t think it’s the greatest analogy but I also don’t think it’s not without merit. Remember, I don’t think SSA is fixed at birth and unchanging. And I wasn’t really trying to make a comparison to SSA as much as how are we to think about nature and nurture.
    Your second point helps to demonstrate the same or similar environment leading to different results.

  39. Throbert, I think I agree to some extent. My sense is that “hardwired” is too strong a word. I suspect that there is at least some sort of disposition towards OSA since that is useful for reproduction. So I’d be very surprised if it was completely neutral and then relies completely on socialization. That’s where I think the idea of “hardwired SSA” breaks down. There could be some innate attributes that support a disposition towards SSA but I think nurture takes over.

  40. Ann wrote:

    For example, two sisters grow up in a home with their mother after the father leaves. The father does not pay any child support and cannot be located. Both girls grow up exceedingly smart and outgoing, all the while under austere conditions and watching their mother struggle monetarily. The mother is loving and fair to both of her daughters. One girl perceives this experience as a force that drives her to excel and not depend on anyone – she has inner strength and is very resourceful and self reliant. Her sister sees this experience differently – she perceives that life has been unfair to her and sister and mother. She holds onto the inequity of her father leaving and eventually writes a book about the effects of fathers leaving and not paying child support and the horrible and enduring scars that can leave on a family. Same set of circumstances for both and yet perceived in such different ways. Both sisters basically have the level of intelligence and drive and yet their temperment perceived their circumstances differently and molded the direction of their lives.

    Good example. Due to different genotypes, hormonal conditions prenatally, etc., they have different brains which process the situation differently. In turn, the mother and father react differently to the different reactions and the temperament provokes a cascade of different experiences for both. It may seem that they have different parenting but they are provoking different parental reactions by their differing temperaments in the context of the same general set of circumstances.
    If research is any guide, these girls will both be straight. However, if one becomes a lesbian, and she attends church in an evangelical or Catholic church or attends a Love Won Out conference, she may very well blame the divorce for her SSA, failing to question why her sister was straight.

  41. Bizarre that that even needs to be pointed out but there you have it

    However, I am NOT saying that parents are to blame for the sexual interests alone for their children. There is so much that we do not know that it would be impertinent to insist that that is the major and only reason for sexual development.

  42. Ann, Madison:
    I’m in ‘reading mode’ rather than commenting but am appreciating that the two of you are actually communicating…fleshing out ideas rather than picking a sentence to stomp on.
    Ann, I’m with Madison on the notion that even in the same house with the same parents the life experiences can be different. I grew up in (and have returned to) a set of row home (duplexes). I wake up every morning, regardless of when I went to bed, to the sun streaming in my window. My neighbors, in the other half of our duplex, don’t get the sun until sometime after noon. I doubt that those differences impact sexual orientation but rather it goes to the notion ‘but you lived in the exact same neighborhood…you couldn’t have lived any closer’ but yet the life experience was markedly different. LOL. Am I a ‘morning person’ because I grew up in the sunny side of the duplex? Has my neighbor gravitated towards third shift work because he lives on the side the sun doesn’t reach til mid-afternoon? It’s a study that’s not needed or wanted so we’ll likely never know.
    No point to all of that other than ‘exactly the same’ is seldom, if ever, ‘exactly the same’.
    Dang. For ‘read only and not commenting’, I think I just failed. 🙂

  43. Charlie: And I don’t think we need to avoid implicating parents (or any other factor) if indeed that’s the truth.

    If indeed that’s the truth – which indeed has yet to be demonstrated.

  44. There are soooooo many variations that it must be both biological and environmental. In addition – not everyone eats the same food even if they do grow up in the same house.

  45. I’m not convinced that biology plays more than a minor role.
    And I don’t think we need to avoid implicating parents (or any other factor) if indeed that’s the truth.

  46. Diamond’s study of twins where one is TS, the other not, is illuminating.
    Two people, identical genetically, pretty close environmentally, the only unshackled variable the hormonal environment in the womb – and that pretty similar – yet very different neurologically and behaviourally since birth.
    I met such a pair in Montreal. He’d just had bottom surgery, his identical twin sister there to give support. Male and Female versions of the same basic personality.
    I’d like to do a complete gene analysis on them both, see if they really *were* genetically identical. Sure, they came from the same fertilised egg, a clone, but mutations can happen in cell division.

  47. The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation.

    I really wish every parent could read these words.

  48. Richard Willmer,
    Isn’t it also possible that most people are afraid of what they do not know, especially if they find it threatening? The threat creates a desperation and desperate people do desperate things – like believing theories that sound good but not be completely factually based.
    Temperment to me is very important to understand how we respond to the things we do. One son can absorb everything bad about familial dynamics and let it effect him profoundly because he has a sensitive temperment while his brother can experience the same set of dynamics and be able to look beyond it and not attach himself to it as he has a resilient temperment. I am not sure if this or any part of it has anything to do with the direction of who we are eventually attracted to.

  49. Throbert McGee wrote:

    So it now occurs to me to wonder whether my negative reaction to my dad’s perspiration was, in some way, a result of “olfactory androphilia” duking it out with the incest-avoidance instinct.

    Bingo.
    Yes, exactly. An experiment to test this would have been to have examined the effects of brothers’ and cousins’ sweat too. By current theory, the closer you are genetically, the greater the distaste. But it’s statistical. n=1 experiments are acceptable, even the norm, in psychology and psychiatry, but we’re trying to get away from that and have a bit more rigour if this is to be a Science.
    So much we don’t know for sure… it all fits, but it only takes one ugly little fact to slay the most elegant and beautiful of theories. The evidence we have is indicative, suggestive, but not positive proof.

  50. Madison wrote:

    after years of study, they found that it’s pointless to assume “environment” might have more than a negligible effect on a child’s gender identity.

    Can you point to even _one_ piece of information that supports that contention? And yet you are saying it is so commonly understood that it doesn’t even merit a reminder?

    Try this one:
    Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth by Reiner and Gearhart, N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.
    RESULTS Eight of the 14 subjects assigned to female sex declared themselves male during the course of this study, whereas the 2 raised as males remained male. Subjects could be grouped according to their stated sexual identity. Five subjects were living as females; three were living with unclear sexual identity, although two of the three had declared themselves male; and eight were living as males, six of whom had reassigned themselves to male sex. All 16 subjects had moderate-to-marked interests and attitudes that were considered typical of males. Follow-up ranged from 34 to 98 months.
    CONCLUSIONS Routine neonatal assignment of genetic males to female sex because of severe phallic inadequacy can result in unpredictable sexual identification. Clinical interventions in such children should be reexamined in the light of these findings.

    Cloacal Extrophy is not the result of anomalous hormones in the womb. There is no greater rate of cross-sexing of foetal neurology than in the general population.
    Therefore, if biological causes are dominant, many, (perhaps even most, if the biological traits are extremely dominant) of those raised female would assert a male gender identity and sexual orientation, despite the social pressures to conform. We would expect all to show male play patterns and interests.
    Conversely, if environment is dominant, we’d expect only 1 in a few thousand to have a male identity, given an entirely female upbringing and female body. 1 in 100,000 according to the APA figures for FtoM Transsexuality. We would expect that they would show female play patterns and interests.
    The evidence is consistent with biology being the dominant cause, possibly overwhelmingly so, and inconsistent with environment having anything more than a relatively minor role to play.
    In other Intersex conditions, where hormonal anomalies have occured in foetu, the situation is not as clear-cut. Where anomalies are extensive, as in medium-grade PAIS, if you assign all to male, 1 in 3 would be mis-assigned. If you assign all to female, 1 in 3 would be mis-assigned too. In many other conditions, by very careful analysis of genes, anatomy, behaviour in the first three months etc you can reduce the rate of “getting it horribly wrong” to about 10% rather than 30%.
    This is not contentious, controversial, or really open to doubt at this point.
    What is contentious is whether blighting the lives of 1 in 10 (or more often, 1 in 3) children is “acceptable” in order to give normal lives in childhood to the rest.
    That (contrary to McHugh et al) chromosomes are not a reliable guide is shown by Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. by Cohen-Ketternis, Arch Sex Behav. 2005 Aug;34(4):399-410.

    Individuals with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17beta-HSD-3) are often raised as girls. Over the past number of years, this policy has been challenged because many individuals with these conditions develop a male gender identity and make a gender role change after puberty. The findings also raised doubts regarding the hypothesis that children are psychosexually neutral at birth and emphasized the potential role of prenatal brain exposure to androgens in gender development. If prenatal exposure to androgens is a major contributor to gender identity development, one would expect that all, or nearly all, affected individuals, even when raised as girls, would develop a male gender identity and make a gender role switch later in life. However, an estimation of the prevalence of gender role changes, based on the current literature, shows that gender role changes occur frequently, but not invariably. Gender role changes were reported in 56-63% of cases with 5alpha-RD-2 and 39-64% of cases with 17beta-HSD-3 who were raised as girls. The changes were usually made in adolescence and early adulthood. In these two syndromes, the degree of external genital masculinization at birth does not seem to be related to gender role changes in a systematic way.

    I disagree with Peggy Cohen-Ketternis’ assertion that ” If prenatal exposure to androgens is a major contributor to gender identity development, one would expect that all, or nearly all, affected individuals, even when raised as girls, would develop a male gender identity and make a gender role switch later in life“. 5ARD effects neurological development in foetu too, so the pre-natal exposure isn’t a given.
    Social pressures to “go with the flow” vary from society to society. Thus, in one extreme, the Sambia tribe in New Guinea, most adopt a male role, the rest die or are killed. In western society, where the pressure is immense, but not as extreme as in the Sambia, it’s more like 50/50.
    An adequate “rule of thumb” is that in such cases, 1 in 3 are male, 1 in 3 female, and 1 in 3 can adapt to a greater or lesser extent to either gender role. Hence only 1 in 3 Intersex children end up with severe problems if arbitrarily surgically assigned a sex, in conditions where foetal hormone levels are unclear.
    I for example endured 47 years of looking male – albeit with increasing dysfunctionality – whicg argues that I’m “bigendered”, as I didn’t actually kill myself. On the other hand, the immense relief, and increase in general health and capability across the board after transition, argues for me to be assigned into the “unalterably female” category. I’m a borderline case, which just goes to show that a trinary approximation, while better than a binary one, is still just an arbitrary imposition of a social construction onto a complex and non-discrete reality.

  51. Oh, if Zoe is reading this: You mentioned, on another thread, your suspicion that the sense of smell had something to do with sexual orientation — i.e., that individuals are “androphilic” (attracted to men) or “gynephilic” (attracted to women) because of olfactory cues that we might not even be consciously aware of.
    This brought back a memory from my teenage years. Both of my parents were avid joggers when I was growing up, and I can vividly remember that in my teens, I often felt rather disgusted and annoyed when my dad would come home from a run dripping sweat all over the floor. But I wasn’t grossed out by my mom’s sweat, nor by the sweat of other guys in gym class. But I thought my father looked particularly “gross” when he was sweaty.
    So it now occurs to me to wonder whether my negative reaction to my dad’s perspiration was, in some way, a result of “olfactory androphilia” duking it out with the incest-avoidance instinct.

  52. Hmmm, I was Googling for more info on Philip Wylie (who I’d never heard of previously) and found this:

    The Disappearance (1951) – An unexplained cosmic “blink” splits humanity along gender lines into two divergent timelines: from the men’s perspective, all the women disappear and from the women’s, all men vanish. The novel explores issues of gender role and sexual identity. It depicts an empowered condition for liberated women and a dystopia of an all male world. Wylie’s setting allows him to investigate the role of homosexuality in situations where no gender alternative exists.

    He was also the author of When Worlds Collide (1933), which inspired the “terribly thrilling” movie of the same name.

  53. Mary asked:

    I have a question. Of course, you don’t have to answer. But , do you have an adams apple?

    Not visibly – less than some other women, probably slightly more than average. My male puberty was incomplete, that was just one minor sign amongst many other, more obvious ones.

    The voiced speech of a typical adult male will have a fundamental frequency from 85 to 180 Hz, and that of a typical adult female from 165 to 255 Hz

    Mine’s 175Hz according to a speech pathologist’s exam, early in my transition. An “after” rather than a “before”, so I didn’t need training. Anything below 140Hz is recognised as “unambiguously male”, anything above 180Hz as “unambiguously female”.
    Basically I have 17mm vocal cords anatomically closer to an adult female norm (12.5mm-17.5mm) rather than an adult male norm(17mm-25mm). I had to consciously lower my voice when I looked male. Now I don’t.

  54. There could be some innate attributes that support a disposition towards SSA but I think nurture takes over.

    As I observed in the Sandor Rado thread, when we’re talking about sexual orientation in males, what that Victorian phraseology “disposition towards SSA” actually means in practice is that most trouser snakes will stand up to salute the cheerleader’s perky breasts but yawn indifferently at the quarterback’s broad shoulders, while a few trouser snakes consistently show the exact opposite behavior. (Which is to say: I’m not homosexual, but my penis is.)
    So a “nurture” theory for male homosexuality needs to provide mechanisms by which a guy’s junk (and/or the region of his brain that mediates the erectile response) is somehow conditioned by life experiences or environment to respond to male imagery (while remaining unresponsive to female imagery).
    Obviously, pleasurable childhood genital play with a member of the same sex could be one such mechanism, but (a) not all homosexual men had such experiences in their childhood, and (b) a conditioned positive reaction to same-sex stimuli wouldn’t necessarily account for the SHUTDOWN of opposite-sex responsiveness. (Which is to say that a robust theory of homosexuality also needs to explain the absence of OSA, and not only the presence of SSA.)

  55. Hmmm, I was Googling for more info on Philip Wylie (who I’d never heard of previously) and found this:

    The Disappearance (1951) – An unexplained cosmic “blink” splits humanity along gender lines into two divergent timelines: from the men’s perspective, all the women disappear and from the women’s, all men vanish. The novel explores issues of gender role and sexual identity. It depicts an empowered condition for liberated women and a dystopia of an all male world. Wylie’s setting allows him to investigate the role of homosexuality in situations where no gender alternative exists.

    He was also the author of When Worlds Collide (1933), which inspired the “terribly thrilling” movie of the same name.

  56. Throbert, I think I agree to some extent. My sense is that “hardwired” is too strong a word. I suspect that there is at least some sort of disposition towards OSA since that is useful for reproduction. So I’d be very surprised if it was completely neutral and then relies completely on socialization. That’s where I think the idea of “hardwired SSA” breaks down. There could be some innate attributes that support a disposition towards SSA but I think nurture takes over.

  57. since I suspect there has a strong “nature” component to OSA

    Aargh. Make that:since I suspect that there has to be a strong “nature” component to OSA.

  58. Following up on my previous comment/question to Madison, it seems like a perfectly reasonable option to believe that in some cases, SSA is hardwired-from-birth (as a result of something going awry in the fetal developmental process that normally results in hardwired OSA), while other cases of SSA are entirely the result of “nurture” factors in early childhood. There may, in other words, be “homosexualities” rather than a single phenomenon called “homosexuality” that has a single etiology.
    By the way, I find it very implausible for evolutionary reasons that Opposite-Sex Attraction could be purely a matter of “nurture”; and since I suspect there has a strong “nature” component to OSA, I think it’s logically inevitable that at least some cases of SSA must also be strongly “nature,” as I argued above. (Any biological process that’s capable of producing “hardwired OSA” must, in principle, be able to occasionally go awry and produce a “miswiring.”)

  59. Madison# ~ Jun 24, 2011 at 6:47 pm
    “80,000+ references to the “development of gender identity”. Pick one: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22development+of+gender+identity%22
    I picked several. And while many did say that environment can play a role in gender identity, the also said biology plays a role as well. None, specified the relative significance of the various factors involved.
    So perhaps you should pick a few research papers that support your arguments and demonstrate you actually know how to evaluate research, rather than just put search terms into google and just assume the results support your views.

  60. But I remain firmly of the belief that “nurture” plays a larger role than “nature” as related to SSA.

    What’s your take on “nurture” vs. “nature” as relates to Opposite-Sex Attraction?
    If you argue that people are born “tabula rasa” as far as sexual orientation goes, and that both OSA and SSA are primarily the products of early childhood environment and “nurture”, then at least you’re being consistent. On the other hand, if you accept that OSA can be “neurologically hard-wired” by nature, then you need to justify your position that SSA cannot be similarly “hard wired” in exceptional cases.
    (One thing to be clear on is that “hard wired from birth” doesn’t necessarily require heritable genetic causes that would be disfavored by natural selection. Abnormal hormone levels in the uterus, for example, could cause changes in brain development that are irreversible and thus “hard wired”. But the abnormal hormones may occur spontaneously in a given pregnancy, rather than being something that the pregnant woman is genetically predisposed to. And if SSA-causing hormonal abnormalities are a “spontaneous mishap”, and not the result of a gene the woman carries, then natural selection can’t act against it.)

  61. Madison# ~ Jun 24, 2011 at 5:17 pm
    “Can you point to even _one_ piece of information that supports that contention?”
    Cases of children (usually boys) who where born hermaphroditic (or with some sort of genital deformity) and at birth (or shortly thereafter) were surgically assigned a gender (again generally female) and raised in that gender. Only to identify with the opposite gender when they matured. These where children whose environment was specifically geared to raise them in the gender they were assigned at birth, and yet they identified with the opposite gender.
    There is your one piece. I’m sure Zoe would be happy to provide you with a host of others, but I’m trying to be brief :). That said, this doesn’t mean environment doesn’t play any role in gender identity, just that in most cases it isn’t a significant one.
    Do you have some scientific evidence to the contrary?

  62. I don’t think it’s the greatest analogy but I also don’t think it’s not without merit. Remember, I don’t think SSA is fixed at birth and unchanging. And I wasn’t really trying to make a comparison to SSA as much as how are we to think about nature and nurture.
    Your second point helps to demonstrate the same or similar environment leading to different results.

  63. Was being gay the cause of my gender nonconformity or was gender nonconformity* the cause of my becoming gay?
    * and/or the response to it

  64. Madison wrote:

    Are Eli and Paytom Mannings’ football talent nature or nurture? Undoubtedly their athletic talent and gamesmanship are to some extent innate but is there any doubt that environment played a far larger role?

    Two reactions. 1. comparing sports success with sexual orientation is apples and oranges and 2. Having raised 4 kids and knowing the research, I don’t see the basis for your confidence. There are many kids who grow up with great dads who worked hard to help them succeed in sports and they simply don’t.

  65. after years of study, they found that it’s pointless to assume “environment” might have more than a negligible effect on a child’s gender identity.

    Can you point to even _one_ piece of information that supports that contention? And yet you are saying it is so commonly understood that it doesn’t even merit a reminder? I just don’t even know how to respond to statements like this without getting booted off the forums here. It’s just shocking to me.

    Due to different genotypes, hormonal conditions prenatally, etc., they have different brains which process the situation differently. In turn, the mother and father react differently to the different reactions and the temperament provokes a cascade of different experiences for both. It may seem that they have different parenting but they are provoking different parental reactions by their differing temperaments in the context of the same general set of circumstances.

    Warren, I think you are way overstating the pre-natal influence.
    Expanding on that and Teresa’s comments: if a child’s colic-ness (assuming colic determined pre-natally) results in poor parental treatment which results in some notable characteristic in the child, is that nature or nurture?
    Are Eli and Paytom Mannings’ football talent nature or nurture? Undoubtedly their athletic talent and gamesmanship are to some extent innate but is there any doubt that environment played a far larger role? If Eli and Payton were raised from birth in a different environment, I suspect they would have had as much chance becoming stock brokers as Super Bowl quarterbacks. Is that nature or nurture?

    I didn’t learn this behavior from anybody

    Most people can’t remember their first 5-7 years so I’m not sure you can really make that statement accurately (and “learn” is probably not the right word).

  66. 2. playing “war” and having “battles” is exciting; playing “house” is boring and girly. So really, I played with transformers b/c they were made for battle, b/c I preferred this activity.

    EXACTLY, my very thoughts, Emily.

  67. Throbert, I played “war” with them. This could be for a couple reasons. 1. I took thinks pretty much at face value as a kid. I always saw transformers in battle on TV; therefor they are constructed for battle. 2. playing “war” and having “battles” is exciting; playing “house” is boring and girly. So really, I played with transformers b/c they were made for battle, b/c I preferred this activity.

  68. Madison wrote:

    Are Eli and Paytom Mannings’ football talent nature or nurture? Undoubtedly their athletic talent and gamesmanship are to some extent innate but is there any doubt that environment played a far larger role?

    Two reactions. 1. comparing sports success with sexual orientation is apples and oranges and 2. Having raised 4 kids and knowing the research, I don’t see the basis for your confidence. There are many kids who grow up with great dads who worked hard to help them succeed in sports and they simply don’t.

  69. Zoe,
    I have a question. Of course, you don’t have to answer. But , do you have an adams apple?

  70. Warren you said, “I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances. As much as I wanted to find these from about 1998 – 2005, I never did.”
    Well at least you are honest about it…

  71. A key observation here is that homosexuality is not an isolated trait; rather, it tends to be associated with other gendervariant cognitive and personality traits, both in childhood and in adult life. This is analogous to what has been observed in rodents and other animals subjected to prenatal manipulations of gonadal steroids, and it suggests that atypical levels of these hormones may affect a constellation of gendered traits, including sexual orientation, because many such traits are mediated by hormone-sensitive brain circuits.
    Still, gay men and lesbians are not transexuals or complete gender ‘inverts’; rather, they seem to be a patchwork of gender-conformist and gender-nonconformist traits—a patchwork that varies to some extent from individual to individual. Underlying this patchwork may be differences in developmental timing between different brain systems, differences in their sensitivity to gonadal steroids, or differences in causal mechanisms (e.g., hormonal versus direct genetic effects).
    It would be unethical to perform in humans the kind of animal experiments that led to the organizational hypothesis and its many subsequent ramifications, but it is possible to approach the same question in less direct ways. One approach is to take advantage of experiments of nature, such as the genetic condition congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which exposes female fetuses to higher-than-normal levels of androgens. CAH girls do display several gender-atypical childhood traits, as documented by Hines and others, and are more likely than other girls to develop same-sex attraction in adulthood. Still, even among women with the severest form of CAH, about half are exclusively heterosexual and only a few are exclusively homosexual. Thus the CAH research supports a significant role for prenatal androgens but also leaves plenty of room for other potential factors to play a role, possibly including social ones.

    Sexual differentiation of sexual behavior and its orientation
    Charles Rosellia and Jacques Balthazart
    Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, Volume 32, Issue 2, Pages 109-264 (April 2011)
    I don’t think it’s correct to say that GNC causes SSA. I think it is correct to say that the same factors, hormonal environment in foetu as modified by genetically-determined sensitivity, cause both to tend to be congruent.
    In over-simplified terms – if someone’s cognition is “masculine” they’ll also tend to be attracted to women, and vice-versa.
    That only 1 in 3 or 1 in 4 of GNC children turn out to be Transsexual says two things: first,. that Gender Identity is also correlated with sexed behaviour. But also less well correlated than with sexual orientation.
    Different parts of the brain can be affected by foetal/genetic/hormonal environments to different extents.
    Thus, most people are straight. Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Juvenile Play Pattern, Body Image, all the sexually-dimorphic areas of the brain tend to follow either a masculine or feminine stereotype. When an anomaly occurs, sexual orientation appears to be the most sensitive, then juvenile play pattern, then gender identity, and only in extreme cases, body image. But sometimes on;y body-image is affected, it’s not as clear-cut as we’d hope, timing factors may be involved.
    Taking myself as an example:
    Sexual Orientation – developed late triggered by post-natal hormones, as usually happens – female
    Juvenile Play Pattern – male.
    Gender Identity – female
    Body Image – female.
    Remember though that I’m imposing an arbitrary binary here: by “male”, all I mean is “most people we classify as male show this characteristic”. That Lesbians would, under this schema, have a “male” sexual orientation doesn’t imply they are wannabe-men; it just shows the limitations and inherent inaccuracy of the lenguage I’m using.
    That description is that of a typical Tomboy. If I hadn’t had a male-looking body, that would be utterly unremarkable.
    Digression:
    Similarly, though my medical diagnosis is “severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman”, not too much store should be set by this. I’m Intersexed, severely so, so while due to my female Gender Identity I’d like to be considered 100% female, biologically, I’m not. My instincts tell me I should have given birth and suckled my children, many children, not fathered just one, with 13 miscarriages before then. It’s the only remnant of “gender dysphoria” I still have left, and only due to a hypertrophied maternal instinct that is atypical amongst women of any kind.
    No regrets though. Had I been biologically usual, I’d probably have been the traditional pregnant teen, wrecking my life. Certainly wouldn’t have been a Rocket Scientist, maybe 200 more people would have died in Gulf War I, 100,000 more in the Indian Tsunami, the MESSENGER spacecraft would have missed its launch window and either be still on its way to Mercury or even been cancelled… and while I would have had more children, my son would not exist. I’d rather die than have that happen.
    No back pain, swollen ankles, stretch marks, or the ordeal of childbirth either. So I tell my Instincts to go jump in the lake.
    From one of my favourite poets, Dorothy Parker:

    Here in my heart I am Helen;
    I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least.
    I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
    I’m Salome, moon of the East.
    Here in my soul I am Sappho;
    Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
    In me Recamier vies with Kitty O’Shea,
    With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
    I’m of the glamorous ladies
    At whose beckoning history shook.
    But you are a man, and see only my pan,
    So I stay at home with a book.

  72. Throbert McGee# ~ Jun 24, 2011 at 9:18 am

    I imagine they reverse case would be harder to examine since I’m pretty sure that gays, who are gender CONFORMING, are more likely to be closeted and less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation.

    Um, I would never make that assumption. ”
    Really, what class of gay men to you think would have an significantly easier time hiding their orientation: gender conforming or gender non-conforming men? And if it is easier for one class of gay men to be closeted, don’t you think it would be more likely for members of that group to be closeted? Keep in mind, I’m talking about a time frame of about 40 years (since homosexuality was removed as a disorder).
    “Also, people who are very closeted are less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation mainly because they’re less likely to respond to a newspaper ad that says “Gay and bi male volunteers 18-45 sought for daily participation in three-week psychology study, lunches provided plus $100 compensation at end of study.” ”
    Or because they are less likely to even identify as gay (even to themselves “but I’m a cheerleader”) if they are gender conforming.

  73. I hated pink and dresses and loved rough-housing and Transformers toys.

    Out of curiosity, did you typically “play war” with the Transformers, as boys were shown doing in the TV commercials? (Tcshew! Tcshew! I got you with my laser! You’re dead!)
    Or did you “play house” with them and assign different Transformers to father/mother/sister/brother roles and act out domestic dramas with the robots? (“Hi, Mrs. Optimus Prime, can Shockwave and Jetfire come to the movies with me?”)
    Or some combination of these different play styles?
    (When I was a kid, I tended to avoid the “gender extremes” of either playing house or playing war — instead, preferring “Swiss Family Robinson Meets Indiana Jones” scenarios that melded talky domestic drama with death-defying physical action. Of course, maybe this had nothing at all to do with my sexual orientation, but was merely imitative of The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and other ’70s disaster pics that I saw on TV…)

  74. Gender nonconformity is the biggest factor related to sexual orientation outcomes and I can see how some experiences could shape that somewhat.

    Note that the relationship here is one of correlation, but not necessarily causation. The EBE hypothesis does indeed suggest that gender nonconformity (GNC) precedes the SSA and to some degree causes the SSA. And EBE also claims that in the majority of children, gender-conformity (GC) precedes opposite-sex attraction, and to some degree causes the OSA.
    But other theories would say that GNC and SSA are linked, but that GNC doesn’t cause SSA, and neither does SSA cause GNC. Rather, GNC and SSA are two effects of a common cause (such as, perhaps, uterine hormones acting on the fetal brain). And similarly GC and OSA are linked as effects of a common cause (fetal hormones, or whatever), yet GC doesn’t cause OSA, or vice versa.
    P.S. Perhaps it’s even better to use age-delimited abbreviations such as ChGC and TnGNC and AdOSA, etc. — meaning “childhood gender conformity” and “teenage gender nonconformity” and “adult opposite sex attraction” — in order to clarify that sometimes, researchers are talking about gender behavior only within the context of certain “age windows.”

  75. I’ve read the GNC study that many reference (Coolidge 2002) and I’m just mind-boggled. The word “environment” appears once (ONCE!). I don’t understand how otherwise intelligent researchers can fail to even consider an environmental influence. What am I missing here?

    You’re probably missing what they take for granted – that after years of study, they found that it’s pointless to assume “environment” might have more than a negligible effect on a child’s gender identity.
    I’m gay. Growing up I was Gender Non-Conforming. But I didn’t learn this behavior from anybody – I was just expressing how I felt naturally on the inside. And on the inside, I felt like I was “one of the boys.” Oh sure I was definitely a girl biologically, but in terms of gender “norms,” I was on the boy side of things. I hated pink and dresses and loved rough-housing and Transformers toys. I don’t speak for every gay, but I’m explaining how life feels from the point of view of a gender non-conforming person.
    Here’s hoping you don’t end up blaming yourself should a child of yours end up gay.

  76. I imagine they reverse case would be harder to examine since I’m pretty sure that gays, who are gender CONFORMING, are more likely to be closeted and less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation.

    Um, I would never make that assumption.
    But I think the converse may be true to some extent: that gays who are deeply closeted are more likely to be “gender conforming” — because they are often self-conscious about deliberately avoiding “non-conforming” behaviors that might make other people SUSPECT their hideous secret.
    Also, people who are very closeted are less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation mainly because they’re less likely to respond to a newspaper ad that says “Gay and bi male volunteers 18-45 sought for daily participation in three-week psychology study, lunches provided plus $100 compensation at end of study.”
    But “gender (non-)conformity” doesn’t have much to do with it, because generally speaking, volunteers for such studies aren’t recruited by grad students walking up to passersby on the street and saying, “Hey, sir, you’ve got a mighty swishy walk for a guy — peradventure, are you a sausage-smoker, and would you like to participate in our sexual-orientation study?”

  77. Charlie: And I don’t think we need to avoid implicating parents (or any other factor) if indeed that’s the truth.

    If indeed that’s the truth – which indeed has yet to be demonstrated.

  78. Warren you said, “I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances. As much as I wanted to find these from about 1998 – 2005, I never did.”
    Well at least you are honest about it…

  79. I imagine they reverse case would be harder to examine since I’m pretty sure that gays, who are gender CONFORMING, are more likely to be closeted and less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation.

    Um, I would never make that assumption.
    But I think the converse may be true to some extent: that gays who are deeply closeted are more likely to be “gender conforming” — because they are often self-conscious about deliberately avoiding “non-conforming” behaviors that might make other people SUSPECT their hideous secret.
    Also, people who are very closeted are less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation mainly because they’re less likely to respond to a newspaper ad that says “Gay and bi male volunteers 18-45 sought for daily participation in three-week psychology study, lunches provided plus $100 compensation at end of study.”
    But “gender (non-)conformity” doesn’t have much to do with it, because generally speaking, volunteers for such studies aren’t recruited by grad students walking up to passersby on the street and saying, “Hey, sir, you’ve got a mighty swishy walk for a guy — peradventure, are you a sausage-smoker, and would you like to participate in our sexual-orientation study?”

  80. Zoe, Warren:
    First, a bit of explanation. I know this may sound off-the-wall; however, I want to pursue this bit about nature fostering temperament/disposition. The analogy I want to use is Dog Breeds. Dogs have been bred for thousands of years as companions to man, most often that relationship involving using the dogs to help in some fashion of work. Breeds are notorious for their temperaments … they’ve been bred for that. People purchasing pure-breds look for those characteristics they want, and buy the breed of dog with that temperament.
    If you want a gentle, loving, fairly smart dog; you’ll choose a Lab or Golden Retriever. If you want a feisty, frolicky, mind-of-its-own dog; you may choose a Terrier Breed. If you want a guard dog, you’re apt to look for a Doberman, Rottweiler, German Shepherd, etc. You’d never choose a Lab to guard your house, as much as you’d train for that purpose, your efforts will probably not amount to much. They’d end up wanting to play around with the burglar. If you want the dumb blonde of dogs, flashy but kinda stupid, you may choose an Afghan.
    Question: where does this dog temperament or disposition come from? Isn’t this gene expression of some sort? Admittedly, this breeding is all about eugenics; but, it’s done because of genetics, right? Well, don’t humans enter the world with predetermined genetic expression of personality or temperament or disposition; whatever, we want to call it.
    Back to the initial proposition by you, Zoe. Do twins have identical personalities, temperaments? Same IQ? If two, married persons with sunny dispositions and high IQ have children; what would be the odds that a high percentage of their children would be high IQ with sunny dispositions?
    The whole field of eugenics was/is based on the nature concept, isn’t it? Breed people, like you breed dogs. Weed out undesirable characteristics, while enhancing others. Isn’t a real fear of eugenics the fact that it’s “too true” (amongst a host of other ethical/moral considerations)?
    I’m not disregarding nurture; but, I can’t see how we can dismiss a huge body of evidence already available that indicates, at least to me, that genetics, along with intrauterine development using that gene expression, play a significant part in the complex development of an individual.

  81. Interesting discussion. I have a pet theory that I’ve been tossing around; and, it is somewhat similar to what Ann, Zoe, Warren, et. al., have been talking about.
    I think nature/genetics is pretty well the foundation for ‘intelligence’. I, also, think the child’s inborn disposition, temperament, whatever one wants to call it … we all enter the world with a temperament, I think. How the child responds or acts, elicits a reaction from the parent. If one child is more cholicy, the parents are apt to be more impatient over time. One child is more agreeable, more laid back; that generates a more loving response.
    Overall, I think the intelligence of the child, along with temperament/sensitivity … all nurture characteristics, mainly … determine reactions and those reactions ‘groove’ the neural pathways. This sounds highly eugenic, but I don’t mean it to be; but, a child with a 140 IQ vs. a child with a 90 IQ will process information totally differently. Unbeknownst to the child and to the parent, this processing is going on all the time within each child.
    I’d like to see some research on double blind random samples IQ levels of LGBT individuals vs. of double blind random samples of str8 persons. My bias for this is that LGBT individuals would have an average of 10 points higher IQ than the str8 sample.
    Of course, I know this is only one factor in the whole complex that makes up sexuality; and, there are plenty of high IQ persons that are str8. It’s just one data point that I’d like researched.

  82. Ann wrote:

    For example, two sisters grow up in a home with their mother after the father leaves. The father does not pay any child support and cannot be located. Both girls grow up exceedingly smart and outgoing, all the while under austere conditions and watching their mother struggle monetarily. The mother is loving and fair to both of her daughters. One girl perceives this experience as a force that drives her to excel and not depend on anyone – she has inner strength and is very resourceful and self reliant. Her sister sees this experience differently – she perceives that life has been unfair to her and sister and mother. She holds onto the inequity of her father leaving and eventually writes a book about the effects of fathers leaving and not paying child support and the horrible and enduring scars that can leave on a family. Same set of circumstances for both and yet perceived in such different ways. Both sisters basically have the level of intelligence and drive and yet their temperment perceived their circumstances differently and molded the direction of their lives.

    Good example. Due to different genotypes, hormonal conditions prenatally, etc., they have different brains which process the situation differently. In turn, the mother and father react differently to the different reactions and the temperament provokes a cascade of different experiences for both. It may seem that they have different parenting but they are provoking different parental reactions by their differing temperaments in the context of the same general set of circumstances.
    If research is any guide, these girls will both be straight. However, if one becomes a lesbian, and she attends church in an evangelical or Catholic church or attends a Love Won Out conference, she may very well blame the divorce for her SSA, failing to question why her sister was straight.

  83. Ann, Madison:
    I’m in ‘reading mode’ rather than commenting but am appreciating that the two of you are actually communicating…fleshing out ideas rather than picking a sentence to stomp on.
    Ann, I’m with Madison on the notion that even in the same house with the same parents the life experiences can be different. I grew up in (and have returned to) a set of row home (duplexes). I wake up every morning, regardless of when I went to bed, to the sun streaming in my window. My neighbors, in the other half of our duplex, don’t get the sun until sometime after noon. I doubt that those differences impact sexual orientation but rather it goes to the notion ‘but you lived in the exact same neighborhood…you couldn’t have lived any closer’ but yet the life experience was markedly different. LOL. Am I a ‘morning person’ because I grew up in the sunny side of the duplex? Has my neighbor gravitated towards third shift work because he lives on the side the sun doesn’t reach til mid-afternoon? It’s a study that’s not needed or wanted so we’ll likely never know.
    No point to all of that other than ‘exactly the same’ is seldom, if ever, ‘exactly the same’.
    Dang. For ‘read only and not commenting’, I think I just failed. 🙂

  84. I’m not convinced that biology plays more than a minor role.
    And I don’t think we need to avoid implicating parents (or any other factor) if indeed that’s the truth.

  85. Warren# ~ Jun 23, 2011 at 3:56 pm
    “Gender nonconformity is the biggest factor related to sexual orientation outcomes and I can see how some experiences could shape that somewhat.”
    Everything I’ve read (admittedly not that much) about gender nonconformity and sexual orientation only seems to indicate a one-way relationship. I.e. if you are gender nonconforming you are more likely to be gay. However, I haven’t seen any studies on the reverse. If you are gay, are you more likely to be gender nonconforming? Do you know of any such studies? I imagine they reverse case would be harder to examine since I’m pretty sure that gays, who are gender CONFORMING, are more likely to be closeted and less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation.

  86. Zoe, Warren:
    First, a bit of explanation. I know this may sound off-the-wall; however, I want to pursue this bit about nature fostering temperament/disposition. The analogy I want to use is Dog Breeds. Dogs have been bred for thousands of years as companions to man, most often that relationship involving using the dogs to help in some fashion of work. Breeds are notorious for their temperaments … they’ve been bred for that. People purchasing pure-breds look for those characteristics they want, and buy the breed of dog with that temperament.
    If you want a gentle, loving, fairly smart dog; you’ll choose a Lab or Golden Retriever. If you want a feisty, frolicky, mind-of-its-own dog; you may choose a Terrier Breed. If you want a guard dog, you’re apt to look for a Doberman, Rottweiler, German Shepherd, etc. You’d never choose a Lab to guard your house, as much as you’d train for that purpose, your efforts will probably not amount to much. They’d end up wanting to play around with the burglar. If you want the dumb blonde of dogs, flashy but kinda stupid, you may choose an Afghan.
    Question: where does this dog temperament or disposition come from? Isn’t this gene expression of some sort? Admittedly, this breeding is all about eugenics; but, it’s done because of genetics, right? Well, don’t humans enter the world with predetermined genetic expression of personality or temperament or disposition; whatever, we want to call it.
    Back to the initial proposition by you, Zoe. Do twins have identical personalities, temperaments? Same IQ? If two, married persons with sunny dispositions and high IQ have children; what would be the odds that a high percentage of their children would be high IQ with sunny dispositions?
    The whole field of eugenics was/is based on the nature concept, isn’t it? Breed people, like you breed dogs. Weed out undesirable characteristics, while enhancing others. Isn’t a real fear of eugenics the fact that it’s “too true” (amongst a host of other ethical/moral considerations)?
    I’m not disregarding nurture; but, I can’t see how we can dismiss a huge body of evidence already available that indicates, at least to me, that genetics, along with intrauterine development using that gene expression, play a significant part in the complex development of an individual.

  87. Bizarre that that even needs to be pointed out but there you have it

    However, I am NOT saying that parents are to blame for the sexual interests alone for their children. There is so much that we do not know that it would be impertinent to insist that that is the major and only reason for sexual development.

  88. There are soooooo many variations that it must be both biological and environmental. In addition – not everyone eats the same food even if they do grow up in the same house.

  89. Mary, thank you. Bizarre that that even needs to be pointed out but there you have it.
    Ann, it’s not even remotely possible for even identical twins to have the exact same environment. One could witness the dog being hit by a car, the other could walk in on mom and dad doing it. That’s just 1 minute out of their whole lives that could have an impact on personality and psyche.

    The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation.

    Nope. First, as Mary and I point out the patently obvious, two childrens’ similar upbringings can be very different. And temperament would contribute to the parting.
    If anything, the nurture theory on SSA is _less_ straightforward than the nature theory so I don’t know what you are getting at. If there were a gene or set of genes would could all go home now. The reasoning in that post was marginal. You’re just making stuff up, right?

  90. Diamond’s study of twins where one is TS, the other not, is illuminating.
    Two people, identical genetically, pretty close environmentally, the only unshackled variable the hormonal environment in the womb – and that pretty similar – yet very different neurologically and behaviourally since birth.
    I met such a pair in Montreal. He’d just had bottom surgery, his identical twin sister there to give support. Male and Female versions of the same basic personality.
    I’d like to do a complete gene analysis on them both, see if they really *were* genetically identical. Sure, they came from the same fertilised egg, a clone, but mutations can happen in cell division.

  91. Interesting discussion. I have a pet theory that I’ve been tossing around; and, it is somewhat similar to what Ann, Zoe, Warren, et. al., have been talking about.
    I think nature/genetics is pretty well the foundation for ‘intelligence’. I, also, think the child’s inborn disposition, temperament, whatever one wants to call it … we all enter the world with a temperament, I think. How the child responds or acts, elicits a reaction from the parent. If one child is more cholicy, the parents are apt to be more impatient over time. One child is more agreeable, more laid back; that generates a more loving response.
    Overall, I think the intelligence of the child, along with temperament/sensitivity … all nurture characteristics, mainly … determine reactions and those reactions ‘groove’ the neural pathways. This sounds highly eugenic, but I don’t mean it to be; but, a child with a 140 IQ vs. a child with a 90 IQ will process information totally differently. Unbeknownst to the child and to the parent, this processing is going on all the time within each child.
    I’d like to see some research on double blind random samples IQ levels of LGBT individuals vs. of double blind random samples of str8 persons. My bias for this is that LGBT individuals would have an average of 10 points higher IQ than the str8 sample.
    Of course, I know this is only one factor in the whole complex that makes up sexuality; and, there are plenty of high IQ persons that are str8. It’s just one data point that I’d like researched.

  92. The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation

    I am apt to think that parenting does change from child to child. And as the children progress through the ages – how the parents treated their first 5 year old is very different from how they treated their second 5 year old. It may look like the same address, same dinner table, same school …. but sooooo many things really are different.

  93. The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation.

    I really wish every parent could read these words.

  94. Richard Willmer,
    Isn’t it also possible that most people are afraid of what they do not know, especially if they find it threatening? The threat creates a desperation and desperate people do desperate things – like believing theories that sound good but not be completely factually based.
    Temperment to me is very important to understand how we respond to the things we do. One son can absorb everything bad about familial dynamics and let it effect him profoundly because he has a sensitive temperment while his brother can experience the same set of dynamics and be able to look beyond it and not attach himself to it as he has a resilient temperment. I am not sure if this or any part of it has anything to do with the direction of who we are eventually attracted to.

  95. The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation.
    I suppose those who like to propose ‘straighforward’ causal relationships between things like parenting and sexual orientation are often wanting simple answers to complex issues. That’s understandable – most of us like clear-cut ‘answers’ to life’s questions; living with questions is often less gratifying in the short term, but can be so much more productive in the great scheme of things.

  96. I would contend that it’s really not possible to have the exact same environment and experiences. They could of course be extremely similar. Thus I think it’s quite easy for such children to have “different perpectives and responses”.

    Madison,
    How can it not really be possible? If two children have the same parents, live in the same home under the same set of circumstances and experience the same familial dynamics, then isn’t that the same environment for both? For example, two sisters grow up in a home with their mother after the father leaves. The father does not pay any child support and cannot be located. Both girls grow up exceedingly smart and outgoing, all the while under austere conditions and watching their mother struggle monetarily. The mother is loving and fair to both of her daughters. One girl perceives this experience as a force that drives her to excel and not depend on anyone – she has inner strength and is very resourceful and self reliant. Her sister sees this experience differently – she perceives that life has been unfair to her and sister and mother. She holds onto the inequity of her father leaving and eventually writes a book about the effects of fathers leaving and not paying child support and the horrible and enduring scars that can leave on a family. Same set of circumstances for both and yet perceived in such different ways. Both sisters basically have the level of intelligence and drive and yet their temperment perceived their circumstances differently and molded the direction of their lives.

  97. Wikipedia seems to suggest that it’s just a definitional thing: temperament is nature and character is nurture. They come together to create “personality”.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperament

    same environment, and exposed to the same experiences

    I would contend that it’s really not possible to have the exact same environment and experiences. They could of course be extremely similar. Thus I think it’s quite easy for such children to have “different perpectives and responses”.

  98. Warren# ~ Jun 23, 2011 at 3:56 pm
    “Gender nonconformity is the biggest factor related to sexual orientation outcomes and I can see how some experiences could shape that somewhat.”
    Everything I’ve read (admittedly not that much) about gender nonconformity and sexual orientation only seems to indicate a one-way relationship. I.e. if you are gender nonconforming you are more likely to be gay. However, I haven’t seen any studies on the reverse. If you are gay, are you more likely to be gender nonconforming? Do you know of any such studies? I imagine they reverse case would be harder to examine since I’m pretty sure that gays, who are gender CONFORMING, are more likely to be closeted and less likely to be in a study on sexual orientation.

  99. @ Ann – I think of temperament as mostly nurture.

    Dr. Throckmorton,
    How can two children coming from the same parents, same environment, and exposed to the same experiences, have different perpectives and respones to those same experiences? Isn’t it the temperment they were born with that determines their response, at least initially until or unless they are nutured in a different direction?

  100. Mary, thank you. Bizarre that that even needs to be pointed out but there you have it.
    Ann, it’s not even remotely possible for even identical twins to have the exact same environment. One could witness the dog being hit by a car, the other could walk in on mom and dad doing it. That’s just 1 minute out of their whole lives that could have an impact on personality and psyche.

    The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation.

    Nope. First, as Mary and I point out the patently obvious, two childrens’ similar upbringings can be very different. And temperament would contribute to the parting.
    If anything, the nurture theory on SSA is _less_ straightforward than the nature theory so I don’t know what you are getting at. If there were a gene or set of genes would could all go home now. The reasoning in that post was marginal. You’re just making stuff up, right?

  101. The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation

    I am apt to think that parenting does change from child to child. And as the children progress through the ages – how the parents treated their first 5 year old is very different from how they treated their second 5 year old. It may look like the same address, same dinner table, same school …. but sooooo many things really are different.

  102. Here’s an idea: anyone who does an SSA/GNC twin study exploring nature vs nurture should be required to spend at least 1/5 of the paper explaining why they are rejecting environment.

  103. I haven’t studied GNC as much but it strikes me that GNC and SSA may be highly related.
    I’ve read the GNC study that many reference (Coolidge 2002) and I’m just mind-boggled. The word “environment” appears once (ONCE!). I don’t understand how otherwise intelligent researchers can fail to even consider an environmental influence. What am I missing here? Is there some secret code that I’m not aware of? They even note that the older cohort demonstrated more heritability. Duh, they’ve been around longer (ie more nurturing)! A 5 year-old could make that connection but, no, not these PhDs! It’s even more aggravating because the tone of the paper is so matter-of-fact. I just don’t get it.

  104. @Madison – I at one time thought that parents might have something to do with it, but I really doubt it now. First, I see no evidence for it, and two, I know many exceptions to the reparative rule first hand.
    Regarding other life experiences, sure, I suspect that some are more potent than others, but the research gives us only a little bit of help there. Gender nonconformity is the biggest factor related to sexual orientation outcomes and I can see how some experiences could shape that somewhat. However, GNC is reasonably heritable and may not have much to do with upbringing on average. I suppose there are critical experiences which could be important for some people but we don’t know what they are and how they would lead to a homosexual outcome. We just don’t know. I am not closed to anything but I am pretty skeptical of the reparative line of thought simply because it doesn’t the available data or my experience.

  105. I know. That’s why I qualified it with “seemingly”.
    But does that mean you don’t think parents could have much of an impact (consciously or not) in this area? How about the rest of the environment?

  106. @Madison – Yes, it is on the blog. The reaction to reparative therapy is hardly knee jerk as I have been writing on the problems with the theory and the damage to families since 2006. You could search for Savic, Wittelson, Alanko, Långström, Jiang, chromosomal skewing to get you started and you can see the Reparative Therapy Information Page. /reparative-therapy-information/

  107. The apparent fact that two children who have very similar experiences can turn out so differently does rather undermine the notion that parenting is responsible for same-sex orientation.
    I suppose those who like to propose ‘straighforward’ causal relationships between things like parenting and sexual orientation are often wanting simple answers to complex issues. That’s understandable – most of us like clear-cut ‘answers’ to life’s questions; living with questions is often less gratifying in the short term, but can be so much more productive in the great scheme of things.

  108. I would contend that it’s really not possible to have the exact same environment and experiences. They could of course be extremely similar. Thus I think it’s quite easy for such children to have “different perpectives and responses”.

    Madison,
    How can it not really be possible? If two children have the same parents, live in the same home under the same set of circumstances and experience the same familial dynamics, then isn’t that the same environment for both? For example, two sisters grow up in a home with their mother after the father leaves. The father does not pay any child support and cannot be located. Both girls grow up exceedingly smart and outgoing, all the while under austere conditions and watching their mother struggle monetarily. The mother is loving and fair to both of her daughters. One girl perceives this experience as a force that drives her to excel and not depend on anyone – she has inner strength and is very resourceful and self reliant. Her sister sees this experience differently – she perceives that life has been unfair to her and sister and mother. She holds onto the inequity of her father leaving and eventually writes a book about the effects of fathers leaving and not paying child support and the horrible and enduring scars that can leave on a family. Same set of circumstances for both and yet perceived in such different ways. Both sisters basically have the level of intelligence and drive and yet their temperment perceived their circumstances differently and molded the direction of their lives.

  109. Wikipedia seems to suggest that it’s just a definitional thing: temperament is nature and character is nurture. They come together to create “personality”.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperament

    same environment, and exposed to the same experiences

    I would contend that it’s really not possible to have the exact same environment and experiences. They could of course be extremely similar. Thus I think it’s quite easy for such children to have “different perpectives and responses”.

  110. @ Ann – I think of temperament as mostly nurture.

    Dr. Throckmorton,
    How can two children coming from the same parents, same environment, and exposed to the same experiences, have different perpectives and respones to those same experiences? Isn’t it the temperment they were born with that determines their response, at least initially until or unless they are nutured in a different direction?

  111. On what do you base your belief?

    1. Common Sense – not scientific but also not completely discountable. I know that common sense is not always correct but disregard it at your peril.
    2. Evolution – I am a firm believer in evolution and believe that it is not controversial that a genes-based theory of SSA is problematic. Once again, that is not to say that it’s not impossible but I believe the evolutionary theory sets the bar relatively high if one wants to prove an incompatibility. Yes, I’ve hears most or all of the theories for how SSA could exist in the face of evolution and I don’t find them particularly compelling. Certainly not as compelling as other theories on the causation of SSA.
    3. Observation – I live in perhaps the most gay city in the world have have thousands or even 10s of thousands of observations to work with including some very close to home. I am also now observing first hand the psychological development of a newborn.
    4. Study – I have read and listened to mountains of evidence, research and opinion.
    I am prepared to be wrong but it would take some very compelling evidence which I have not yet seen.
    Warren, your turn. It’s probably somewhere here on the blog but I’m actually not really sure what you believe these days. Your previous positions made some sense and lined up to some degree with mine. But I haven’t totally figured out your newer perspective beyond the neutral-ish SIF and the seemingly knee-jerk rejection of all things reparative.

  112. Here’s an idea: anyone who does an SSA/GNC twin study exploring nature vs nurture should be required to spend at least 1/5 of the paper explaining why they are rejecting environment.

  113. I haven’t studied GNC as much but it strikes me that GNC and SSA may be highly related.
    I’ve read the GNC study that many reference (Coolidge 2002) and I’m just mind-boggled. The word “environment” appears once (ONCE!). I don’t understand how otherwise intelligent researchers can fail to even consider an environmental influence. What am I missing here? Is there some secret code that I’m not aware of? They even note that the older cohort demonstrated more heritability. Duh, they’ve been around longer (ie more nurturing)! A 5 year-old could make that connection but, no, not these PhDs! It’s even more aggravating because the tone of the paper is so matter-of-fact. I just don’t get it.

  114. @Madison – I at one time thought that parents might have something to do with it, but I really doubt it now. First, I see no evidence for it, and two, I know many exceptions to the reparative rule first hand.
    Regarding other life experiences, sure, I suspect that some are more potent than others, but the research gives us only a little bit of help there. Gender nonconformity is the biggest factor related to sexual orientation outcomes and I can see how some experiences could shape that somewhat. However, GNC is reasonably heritable and may not have much to do with upbringing on average. I suppose there are critical experiences which could be important for some people but we don’t know what they are and how they would lead to a homosexual outcome. We just don’t know. I am not closed to anything but I am pretty skeptical of the reparative line of thought simply because it doesn’t the available data or my experience.

  115. I know. That’s why I qualified it with “seemingly”.
    But does that mean you don’t think parents could have much of an impact (consciously or not) in this area? How about the rest of the environment?

  116. I’ve just remembered a little affaire de coeur from twenty years ago: the object of my affection possessed the melancholic-phlegmatic counterpoint to my own sanguine-choleric temperament!

  117. @ Ann – I think of temperament as mostly nurture.

    Warren, what do you think of the age-old study called “humorism”, which classed people within The 4 Temperaments: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic? I believe it was thought that everyone was born predisposed to a main Temperament, with a sub-temperament … or some variety of that. I think they saw this as nature … sort of like, some persons are naturally extroverted, others introspective, etc.
    The Catholic Church for quite awhile used this classification to help people understand themselves, and to “accentuate the positive, and work towards the diminishing the negative”. Parents were taught to identify a child’s temperament, and assist the child the same way.

  118. It’s called intellectual honesty. Even back in 2005, when I first came here, that was what attracted me. Someone who would rather be correct rather than win a debate. Our positions have grown closer – but we both are willing to accept the fact that we might be mistaken, and even enthusiastically hunt for evidence that we are mistaken.

    This is so important. Being on this Blog has helped me in lots of ways; and, who would have thought the virtual world could do that. I often want to win a debate, prove I’m better, smarter, etc. It’s just so self-defeating, and hurtful to others.
    Perhaps, people don’t realize what good example can do for others. I see how you guys handle yourselves, and I’m trying to model my behavior on your example. I care about the truth, even when I have to admit I’ve been wrong. Painful, at first, but the end result is worth it. But, I learned all that from seeing others do that, even when some responses are less than gracious.

  119. @Madison who said:

    But I remain firmly of the belief that “nurture” plays a larger role than “nature” as related to SSA

    On what do you base your belief?
    @David – We are too soon old and too late smart.

  120. Smiling at your parental journey Warren.
    I see things a little differently. Dobson was interesting to me as a fallback position in parenting. But overall, I preferred a strongly relational model keeping Mahler in mind that the developing child is always trying to make sense of this all powerful caretaker.
    Psychology has never been that good at identifying why people who are treated poorly as children, grow up to be loving and responsible adults.
    Blaming mother (ala Freud) is a reasonable explanation for many problems adults manifest that have their roots in childhood, but it is not a fact and it is far from provable.
    Freud attempted to create an all encompassing theory…it became infused in the culture, much to everyone’s regret. We are only recently crawling out of that mess and it’s residue still persists to our detriment.

  121. I mostly agree with this: “I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances.” I think there are too many possible variables and we certainly do not have enough evidence at this time to identify that particular set of circumstances. Also, we should recognize that a set of circumstances may lead one person one way and someone else a different way. That concept seems to be forgotten frequently.
    But I remain firmly of the belief that “nurture” plays a larger role than “nature” as related to SSA. And I think it is important and useful to continue trying to understand how SSA develops and also to apply therapy and other approaches to address unwanted SSA (as well as conduct research on the subject).

  122. Warren wrote:

    I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances. As much as I wanted to find these from about 1998 – 2005, I never did.

    John Maynard Keynes said:

    When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

    It’s called intellectual honesty. Even back in 2005, when I first came here, that was what attracted me. Someone who would rather be correct rather than win a debate. Our positions have grown closer – but we both are willing to accept the fact that we might be mistaken, and even enthusiastically hunt for evidence that we are mistaken.

  123. RIchard asked

    By the way, some manifestations of heterosexual behaviour arise from ‘social context’ and ‘confusing life experience’, don’t they?

    Yes, indeed.
    Just to be clear, I was not associating gays with antisocial behavior when I used the construct. My meaning was that some kinds of parenting can influence children of any sexual orientation to do antisocial things.

  124. I agree with what you’ve said, Warren.
    What enrages me is the suggestion that ‘being gay’ is ipso facto anti-social. ‘Anti-sociality’, and indeed morality generally, is principally about attitude and behaviour (and we all know that there are ‘straight’ people who often behave in an anti-social and/or immoral manner, just as here are ‘gay’ people who generally do not). And we all make wrong choices of various kinds, whatever our sexuality or experiences in childhood.
    By the way, some manifestations of heterosexual behaviour arise from ‘social context’ and ‘confusing life experience’, don’t they?

  125. Madison and Richard – I should add that I think the influence of parents is more at the extremes of behavior. I think parents can create anti-social people and probably have a lot to do with influencing religious views and worldview. Abusive parents bear bitter fruit and the best, most intuitive of parents probably have closer attachments with their children than the broad middle of the bell curve. However, in that broad middle, I don’t see that moms working, not working, dads being silent, or loud or retiring or brash, etc., make much difference on a variety of outcomes. Just to be nuanced about it, I do think some people have engaged in same-sex behavior due to social context and confusing (e.g., abuse) life experience as a form of figuring themselve out. I do not think one can base a general theory of homosexuality around any particular set of environmental circumstances. As much as I wanted to find these from about 1998 – 2005, I never did.

  126. @ Madison : Your comment has hit on a very important point, viz. many of us here simply do not see sexual orientation as a result primarily of ‘psychological development’. I take the view that two children could have similar experiences of how they are ‘parented’, but this would have no real bearing on their sexual orientation (e.g. one child would be straight and the other gay, strong similarities in childhood experiences notwithstanding).

  127. Madison – You are apparently new around here. There is no way one can say that I have presented this post in isolation. Please put Nicolosi or reparative therapy or NARTH in the search engine for this blog and you will see how much context this post has.
    RE: parenting. I did not say parenting had no impact on the psychological development of offspring. I said there is little evidence that parenting has much to do with the direction of sexual attractions.
    I am an old parent with four children, 3 girls and a boy. I raised the first two on Dobson and in hindsight wish I had been more flexible. I used to be a raving environmentalist (not the green kind) but now I have a great respect for the interaction of genotype, social context, friends, and parents.

  128. I don’t deny that historical context is important but I don’t think it can be used in isolation to discredit newer thinking.
    And as a new parent, I am exceedingly familiar with how much impact parents have on their young both pre-birth and post-birth. I emphatically and wholly reject that mom and pop have only an insignificant impact on the psychological development of offspring.

  129. Madison – In examining ideas, historical and cultural context is important. Strecker quoted Wylie (which I will add to the post) and the point is that the mother blaming impulse runs deep within the culture. NARTH is an institution that I believe wants to maintain the zeitgeist of the 1940s. Even by your reaction, it seems clear that these ideas are outdated, even for religious folk. Yet, NARTH continues to blame mom and pop for a brain response.

  130. My guess is that he is doing this to show that reparative drive theory is based on some old out-dated ideas that have .. for most people .. long been disqualified of having any academic/scholarly merit.
    Dave

  131. I don’t deny that historical context is important but I don’t think it can be used in isolation to discredit newer thinking.
    And as a new parent, I am exceedingly familiar with how much impact parents have on their young both pre-birth and post-birth. I emphatically and wholly reject that mom and pop have only an insignificant impact on the psychological development of offspring.

  132. I’m trying to understand what we are to make of a 67 year-old book by a semi-crazed author. Are we to reject the material in its entirety including any more recent thought that is similar? That seems kind of silly. I understand that you are trying to make the case that Nicolosi is a lunatic and anything he says should be ridiculed but this is taking it pretty far.

Comments are closed.