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the elusive homosexual
often have soft feminine appearing bodies some
times with breast enlargement at puberty. Perhaps
these differences in body build would result in the
(47.XXY) male being given mixed messages about
being male as he was growing up. Conceivably,
such mixed messages could cause the (47,XXY)
male to regard himself as being “truly" female and
want to alter his body so it would correspond with
his ideal image of himself as a female.
Although the rate at which males are bom
with one or more extra Y chromosomes is un
known, there appears to be a substantial number of
them in prison populations. Among the most
famous of the (47.XYY) prisoners was the mass 1
killer, Richard Speck. Because there has been no
study of the frequency of (47, XYY) males in the
general population, it is difficult to determine if
(47,XYY) men are more likely to end up in prison
than other men. In studying (47,XYY) prisoners, it
is interesting to note that they are not super-males.
Generally, they are described as tall, thin, shy,
impulsive and suffering from severe acne. How
ever, there was a high rate of homosexual behavior
noted in this population. The significance of the
high rate of male to male sexual behavior seen in
the original sample of (47,XYY) prisoners was from
certain. It is well known that male prisoners often
engage in homosexual behavior .in prison, but do
not do so when out of prison. So the high rate of
homosexual behavior noted in(47,XYY) male may
merely reflect the differences between males in
prison and those who are not confined with only
other men for sexual outlets.
In an attempt to determine
the effect of an extra Y chromosome
on sexual orientation a study was
undertaken to compare prisoners
with (47.XXY) chromosome make-
upswithprisonerswhohad (47,XYY)
chromosome patterns. When com
pared with prisoners with
Kleinfeldefssyndrome, the (47,XYY)
males had much higher sex drives,
and engaged in significantly more
kinky sex and bisexual behavior.
One possible explanation for the
higher rate of bisexual behavior and
kinky sex practices was that the sexual
behaviors were reflections of the poor
impulse control seen in other facets
of the (47, XYY) men lives, rather
than reflecting a “true” sexual orien
tation.
Although chromosomal stud
ies have not shown no significant
differences between homosexual and
non homosexual people, there is a body of evi
dence that point to the possibility that homosexu
ality maybe based in genetics. These studies are the
concordance studies of twins and family members.
Cone ordance is the degree to which a characteristic
that is found in one member of a related group will
be found in another member of that same group.
For example, take blond hair in Swedes. Swedes
are have a high concordance of blond hair when
compared with Southern Italians. Establishing dif
ferences in concordance for a particular trait within
particular groups or families is the first step in
establishing whether or not a trait is inherited.
In establishing the genetic basis of many
behavioral characteristics, the study of the concor
dance of that behavior in identical and fraternal
twins is the usual starting place. The first of the
studies of concordance of homosexuality in twins
v/as conducted by
Kallmann in 1952. Kallmann method was fairly
d'.rtct. He first identified one member of a pair of
Ana Mom-Profit Voice of the Gat & Lesbiam Community
twins who was homosexual (5 or 6 on the Kinsey
scale). He then contacted the other twin in order to
ascertain the sexual orientation of the second twin.
Of the 37 pairs of identical twins, the concordance
of homosexuality was 100%. No subsequent re
searcher has found so high a concordance between
identical twins for homosexuality. Kallmann hilrt-
self thought that his finding were too good to be
true and theorized that he had an undetected
sampling bias. The concordance for homosexual
ity between the twenty-six pairs of fraternal twins
in Kallmann’s study was about 11.5% which was
close to the Kinsey norm of 10% for Kinsey 5’s and
6’s in the general population.
Although Kallmann’s finding were on the
surface impressive support for a genetic explana
tion of homosexuality, they did not prove that the
high concordance for homosexuality between the
identical twins and the low concordance for homo
sexuality between the fraternal twins were not the
result of the environment. The problem was that
the identical twins were not reared separately.
Therefore it is likely that because both twins look
alike, it can identical were treated very similarly by
their parent and siblings. Conversely, because
fraternal twins are likely to resemble one another
no more that any other set of brothers, it is likely
that they were not treated identically to one an
other.
Subsequent attempts to replicate Kallmann’s
finding have had. mix results. Most attempts in
volved very small sample sizes. Several have failed
to find any greater concordance for identical twins.
More typically in studies with larger samples,
higher concordances homosexuality are found for
identical twins than for fraternal twins. In fact, one
study contains a set of identical triplets all of whom
are homosexual. More typically theseconcordances
for homosexuality fall between 25-65% for identi
cal twins, 10-30% for fraternal twins, and 8-22%
for non twin, same sex sibling and 8-11% for
adoptive same sex siblings.
In addition to the twin studies, there are now
studies looking at concordance for homosexuality
between non twin siblings. Recent studies indicate
that homosexual males and females tend to cluster
in different families. That is to say, a gay male is
more likely to have a homosexual brother than a
lesbian sister than would be expected by chance
alone. Conversely, a lesbian is more likely to have
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