Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jacques Balthazart
University of Liège, Groupe Interdisciplinaire de Génoprotéomique Appliquée Neurosciences, Research
Group in Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, B-4000 Liège, Belgium
Many people believe that sexual orientation (homosexuality vs. heterosexuality) is determined by
ost people are sexually attracted to individuals of cause this orientation is less common and thus sometimes
M the opposite sex; they are heterosexual. There is,
however, a significant minority (3–10% according to
considered wrongly as “abnormal.” It must be noted,
however, that trying to understand the origins of homo-
many estimates) of men and women who are exclusively sexuality or heterosexuality essentially represents the
attracted to individuals of their own sex; they are ho- same question.
mosexual. Intermediate forms of attraction also exist, Under the influence of a variety of theories ranging
and as early as in 1948, Kinsey et al. (1) were classifying from Freudian psychoanalysis to social constructivism,
sexual orientation in seven distinct categories ranging sexual orientation has been, and often still is, considered
from completely heterosexual to completely homosex- as being the result of social experiences during early child-
ual. Sexual orientation (heterosexual vs. homosexual) is a hood, in particular improper interaction with one’s par-
behavioral trait that displays one of the largest degrees of ents (dominant or possessive mother, distant or absent
sexual differentiation, given that 90 –97% of individuals father). The newborn baby would in this context be sex-
of one sex display an attraction that is different from that ually neutral; his/her sexual orientation would develop on
of the other sex. a tabula rasa and could go either way as a function of
The mechanisms that determine human sexual orien- postnatal social interactions only. This interpretation ig-
tation have been the subject of heated controversies. These nores, however, a vast corpus of data concerning both
discussions often focused on homosexuality proper, be- animals and humans demonstrating that the prenatal en-
ISSN Print 0013-7227 ISSN Online 1945-7170 Abbreviations: CAH, Congenital adrenal hyperplasia; 2D:4D, ratio of the lengths of the
Printed in U.S.A. second (index) to the fourth (ring) fingers; DES, diethylstilbestrol; FoR, female-oriented ram;
Copyright © 2011 by The Endocrine Society INAH3, interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus number 3; MoR, male-oriented
doi: 10.1210/en.2011-0277 Received March 10, 2011. Accepted May 31, 2011. ram; OAE, oto-acoustic emission; oSDN, sexually dimorphic nucleus of the ovine preoptic
First Published Online June 21, 2011 area; SDN-POA, sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area.
ually differentiated behavioral feature that is most likely FIG. 1. In mammals, early exposure to testosterone produces a male
phenotype: the behavioral characteristics of the male are strengthened
influenced, like other sexually differentiated features, by
(masculinization) and the ability of males to show behavior typical of
the prenatal hormonal environment. I do not mean to say females is reduced or lost (defeminization). The female phenotype
that the postnatal social environment has no influence on develops in the apparent absence of hormone action (or in the
presence of very low estrogen concentrations). These spontaneous
sexual orientation, but based on currently available data,
differentiation processes occurring during early development of
these social influences seem to play only a minor role, animals can be entirely reproduced by experimental manipulations (via
possibly via interaction with prenatal endocrine effects. castration, injections of agonists or antagonists) of steroid
concentrations in embryonic or newborn animals. The figure shows
that after such treatments, neonatally castrated (CX) males behave like
females, whereas females treated early in life with testosterone (T) or
Sexual Differentiation of Sex and its aromatized metabolite estradiol (E2) behave like males. Experimental
animals considered are those shaded in blue (genetic males) or red
Courtship Behaviors in Animals (genetic females). Other subjects represent only the test stimuli.
notype (sexual partner preference) that represents a rea- levels in MoR compared with FoR (19). The features of
sonable (although imperfect) model of human sexual this nucleus therefore correlate with sexual partner pref-
orientation. erence: subjects attracted to males (females and MoR) are
The sexual preference of a male for a female is con- similar and distinguished from subjects attracted to fe-
trolled, like the expression of male-typical sexual behav- males (FoR).
ior, by the medial part of the POA. Experimental lesion of Roselli et al. (20) demonstrated that the volume of the
this brain region causes a reversal of the males’ preference oSDN is already larger in males than in females around the
in rats and ferrets: after surgery, they prefer to spend time end of embryonic life (around d 135) and differentiates
with other males rather than with sexually receptive fe- under the influence of testosterone in males. Embryonic
males (9, 10). treatment of females with testosterone between 30 and
This preference for a partner of the same or the opposite 90 d of gestation results in a masculinized oSDN in females
1) Sex steroids (testosterone, estradiol, progesterone) Many studies have analyzed the potential influence of
are present in the human plasma in concentrations steroids on human sexual orientation. They have clearly
similar to those observed in other mammals. established that sexual orientation is not affected by ac-
2) Receptors for these steroids are present in humans, tivational effects of steroids in adulthood. Gonadectomy
and their brain distribution is similar and even does not influence orientation nor does adult treatment
nearly identical to the general pattern observed in with androgens and estrogens. Furthermore, numerous
vertebrates. studies have clearly established that plasma concentra-
3) Testosterone action during embryonic life clearly tions of sex steroids are perfectly “normal” (typical of the
controls the differentiation of male-typical external gonadal sex) in both gay men and lesbians (27).
and internal genital structures. Organizational effects of steroids are by contrast more
4) Sex differences in brain structures have been identi- likely to be implicated. Sexual orientation is a sexually dif-
whereas males and lesbians share an attraction for during his/her embryonic life. We must therefore rely on
women. indirect evidence. A number of sexually differentiated
It has been argued that such a theory is impossible, morphological, physiological, and behavioral character-
because it would imply that homosexual men have femi- istics seem to be irreversibly influenced by embryonic hor-
nized (or at least less masculine) genital structures whereas mones in humans like in animals. Many studies have quan-
lesbians should have experienced some masculinization of tified these features comparatively in homosexual and
genital structures similar to what is observed for example heterosexual populations to research whether homosex-
in CAH girls. Although detailed attention has been given ual subjects had been exposed to atypical hormonal con-
to this possibility, no data supporting this idea have been ditions during their development. Positive results were ob-
collected, and if anything, penises of gay men are possibly tained in a number of these studies.
larger than in heterosexual men, suggesting that, contrary The sexually differentiated characteristics that have
ized) 2D:4D ratio in some gay men (39). A modification of covered in the human POA a nucleus they called interstitial
the length of long bones (arms and legs), a feature also nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus number 3 (INAH3)
supposed to be influenced by early exposure to sex ste- (a member of four cellular condensations of the POA) that
roids, has been reported in gay men (40). was significantly larger in men than in women (44). Sub-
sequent studies showed that INAH3 is significantly
Oto-acoustic emissions smaller in homosexual men than heterosexual men, so that
One set of studies also investigated the physiology of its size is essentially equal to what is observed in women
the inner ear and more specifically the small noises pro- (45). An independent study based on different brains con-
duced in the cochlea (presumably) by movements of the firmed the reduced size of INAH3 in male homosexuals
tympanic membrane, the so-called oto-acoustic emissions compared with heterosexuals, although the magnitude of
(OAE). OAE are produced either spontaneously or in re- the difference observed in this replication was lower than
postnatal environment, because both concur to produce a more specifically of heterosexual activity. Although gen-
female-typical orientation. italia are surgically feminized at birth, they still do not
The same confusion is potentially associated with the have an ideal structure in some women and therefore allow
5␣-reductase deficiency affecting XY men who are born little or no penetrative heterosexual relationships. These
with genital structures that are not masculinized and are modified genitalia could also induce a general aversion
often raised as daughters. The rise in plasma testosterone toward sexual activity (see Ref. 26 for a more detailed
associated with puberty later masculinizes (at least in part) discussion of this issue).
the genital structures, and these individuals usually con-
form to a male gender and male-typical sexual orientation. Treatment of pregnant mothers with
It has been argued that the relative ease with which these diethylstilbestrol (DES)
subjects apparently change gender and (presumably) sex- Between 1939 and 1960, about 2 million pregnant
sult of embryonic endocrine disruption always only con- Although this genetic contribution was identified many
cern a fraction of affected individuals (usually a maximum years ago, the responsible gene(s) remain(s) unknown.
of 30 – 40%), so that at least 60 –70% of subjects in these Sexual orientation in men tends to be transmitted through
conditions retain the heterosexual orientation consistent the matriarchal lineage: a gay man has a higher probability
with their gender assignment at birth. of having gay men among his ancestors on the maternal
side (uncles, cousins), than on the paternal side. This was
originally interpreted as a sign of inheritance through
Genetic and Immunological Factors? gene(s) located on the X chromosome, and one study iden-
tified a linkage with markers located in the subtelomeric
If embryonic hormones affect adult sexual orientation, region of the long arm of the X chromosome, a region
then what is the cause of the endocrine changes that result called Xq28 (67). This association with Xq28 was repli-
before birth by a set of biological mechanisms. These several of these predisposing factors are combined that an
mechanisms include genes that affect sexual orientation by homosexual orientation is observed.
currently unidentified mechanisms and hormonal actions Or finally, all biological factors that have been as-
classically mediating sexual differentiation. Our current sociated with homosexuality only become effective in
understanding of these prenatal factors admittedly suffers conjunction with exposure to a given (as yet unspeci-
many limitations. For example, all embryonic endocrine fied) psychosocial postnatal environment. The postna-
disorders that have been associated with an increased in- tal environment would in this scenario play an impor-
cidence of homosexuality have a limited effect size and tant permissive role, but it is then surprising that no
never affect more than 30 – 40% of subjects. Furthermore, quantitative study has been able so far to formally iden-
all identified correlates of homosexuality that suggest ex- tify aspects of this environment that play this limiting
posure to an atypical endocrine environment during on- role in the control of sexual orientation. It has, however,
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