Did Your
BRAIN Make
You GAY?
An Argument for the Validity and
Importance of Biological Correlates of
Sexual Orientation
Since modern homosexual
behavior came under attack as a deviant
lifestyle in the 1860s, people have oered
a range of theories to explain attraction
to the same-sex13. Theories ranged from
poor parenting, early sexual abuse,
single-parent families, allowing boys to
play with dolls, and a host of other even
less plausible explanations. For a time,
doctors even advised against women
riding astride a horse (meaning that they
had to ride sidesaddle) because they
thought the movement of the horse
would sexually stimulate the woman and
make them so excited they would have
sex with other women in the absence of a
man 29 . Today, these theories sound
ridiculous, but it has only been relatively
recently that researchers have explored
by Madeline Thompson
biological causes of sexual orientation.
The question still remains: what makes
someone attracted to a person of the
same sex? Is it a conscious choice? An
unconscious result of a trauma during
childhood? Or is it genetically
determined before we are even born?
While there have been studies that
present research in favor of other
explanations, the biological argument is
most convincing. Research since the
1980s has shown that birth order, genes,
hormone levels, and more all correlate
with sexual orientation. Although
correlation is not causation, the many
overlapping findings and replications
make biological predispositions the most
convincing argument for the origin of
homosexuality.
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
Studies of twins show that if one
monozygotic (identical) twin is gay, then
the other twin has a 52% chance of also
being gay (as opposed to the 5-10%
chance in the general population)3. If the
twin is fraternal, meaning that they are
no more related than a normal sibling yet
shared the same in utero environment,
the chance of the other twin being gay is
26%2. This is seen even when the twins
No Relation Fraternal Twins
5%-10% 27%
Figure 1: The chance that a person is gay based on their
biological relationship to a gay person.
are raised apart, such as in adoption, so
it cannot be explained by the parenting
style or childhood environment. So
genetics are definitely at play, but what is
it about your biology that might
determine your sexual orientation?
Researchers have found that gay men
have significantly fewer maternal uncles
than would be expected by chance and
are more likely to have family members
who have experienced multiple stillbirths
or miscarriages 27 . Male semilethal
conditions, which are conditions that
aect males and sometimes result in
death, may be the culprit. Quite a few of
these male semilethal conditions are
located in region Xq28 on the X
chromosome and anomalies here are also
2
seen in gay men27. These disorders
account for the increased number of
stillbirths and miscarriages, particularly
of male children, which explains the lack
of maternal uncles (since the gene is
carried on the X chromosome, inherited
from the mother). In fact, the number of
male babies in these families is low
enough to suggest that 50% of the males
conceived died27. Because these disorders
and lack of uncles are seen in
Identical Twins families of gay individuals, then
52% perhaps it is these variations of
the Xq28 region that also
influence same-sex attraction.
H o w e v e r, t h i s i s a b r o a d
conclusion to make from just a
few correlations, so lets take a
look at a stronger relationship
b e t w e e n h o m o s ex u a l i t y a n d
genetics.
The human body produces
antibodies in response to foreign
molecules, such as germs. These
antibodies stay in your body long after
the sickness is gone, which is why you
usually dont get the same illness twice.
If a woman has a male child, the
t e s t o s t e r o n e a n d o t h e r y - l i n ke d
molecules present in her womb may be
seen as a foreign product that the body
needs to protect against7,9. The maternal
immunization eect says that the
mothers body produces anti-
testosterone antibodies, but not enough
to aect the first baby. However,
researchers have documented that the
more older biological brothers a male
has, the more likely he is to be gay
now referred to as the FBOE, or the
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
Fraternal Birth Order Eect7,9. For each
successive boy born the odds of being
gay increase by 33% and the maternal
immunization theor y provides an
explanation 5 . Because antibodies
Table 1: The chance that a man is gay based on
the number of older brothers he has5.
continue to be present in the mothers
body long after the object of attack (in
this case a male fetus) is gone, the more
y-linked proteins the mother has been
exposed to via previous male
pregnancies, the better the mothers
body is at attacking testosterone. This
attack on testosterone might result in
a male child lacking in testosterone,
w h i c h m a y i n fl u e n c e s e x u a l
attraction4. When these findings first
came out, some argued that the
younger sons might be more likely to
be gay not because of biological
factors, but because parents baby the
youngest child. However, the FBOE is
not seen in families with stepchildren
who did not share their mothers
womb, and is seen even in men whose
older biological brothers had been
stillborn or were raised apart from them
3
through adoption, so the babying the
youngest theory is very unlikely9.
But why would attacking
testosterone be correlated with more
babies being gay? The theory lies in the
critical developmental period. Critical
developmental periods are times in a
persons life when certain stimuli have
impacts on development that cannot be
easily changed later. That is, if you
miss the critical development, it will
be hard to alter any eects. One of these
critical periods is the period for sexual
dierentiation, or the development of an
embryo into a male or female baby4,31.
This is caused by sex hormones present
in utero. For males, a certain level of
androgens (male sex hormones, which
include testosterone) is required to form
sex organs, a penis, and other secondary
sex characteristics23,31. Researchers now
theorize that these androgens are
important for developing an attraction to
females as well4. This slight reduction in
Figure 2: Illustration of the Maternal Immunization
Hypothesis2.
androgen levels due to the mothers
antibodies attacking testosterone would
explain the increased likelihood of her
son being gay. A persons facial
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
structure, which is also aected by
prenatal hormone levels, is also
correlated with sexual orientation.
Have you ever heard someone say
that they have great gay-dar, or the
ability to tell if someone is gay just by
looking at them? Most people consider it
to be a joke, or at best a guess based on
someones fashion style, but it turns out
that gay men and gay womens faces
actually do dier from straight men and
women. Gay women have more puckered
Figure 3: What does gay look like? This figure shows the probability that FaceGen would classify female
(a) or male (b) face as heterosexual based on the structural characteristics of the face25.
mouths, smaller foreheads, more turned
up noses, and more masculine face
shapes than straight women 25 . The
masculinity or femininity of a face is
determined by a system called FaceGen
through comparisons between hundreds
of three dimensional scans of faces of
men and women 11 . In general, a
masculine face is wider and longer, with
a more rounded jaw and longer nose21.
Gay men, on the other hand, have
shorter noses, foreheads that are more
4
tilted back, and more convex cheeks in
comparison to straight men25. What
makes this finding all the more
compelling is that when FaceGen, which
analyzed the hundreds of faces reported
in the study, was also asked to look at
the faces after the primary facial
structure analysis and guess the
sexuality, FaceGen was correct over 70%
of the time in men and 80% of the time
in women (the reason for the dierence
in accuracy is unknown)25. Because facial
structure is strongly influenced by
pubertal sex hormones, this data
suggests that sexual orientation is
related to sex hormones as well.
However, because the FaceGen system
was not 100% accurate for determining
s ex u a l o r i e n t a t i o n , i t w o u l d b e
interesting to analyze people whose faces
look gay but in fact are straight. This
might help to elucidate dierences
between biological and environmental
eects on sexual orientation. One
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
problem is that these findings come from
a study that used only white participants,
and therefore it has yet to be determined
if this applies to the general population.
The 2D:4D ratio is the the length
of your second finger (your second digit,
or 2D) divided by the length of your
fourth finger (4D). Because prenatal
androgens make the fourth finger grow,
men often have smaller 2D:4D ratios
than women 16 . Therefore, if lower
a n d r o g e n ex p o s u r e i s r e l a t e d t o
homosexuality, we would expect gay
males to have higher 2D:4D ratios than
straight males and gay women to have
lower 2D:4D ratios than straight women.
This is exactly what many researchers
Figure 4: Average 2D:4D ratio in heterosexual and non-
heterosexual men and women16.
have found, but it should be noted that
other factors such as race, nutrition,
measuring techniques have resulted in
some of the reported correlations being
insignificant 16 . However, one study
looking at the ver y homogenous
5
population of Finland, which may
eliminate these confounds, found a
strong eect of 2D:4D ratio for both
women and men, but not in the way they
expected16. They found that gay men did
indeed have more feminized digit
ratios, but they also found that gay
women had more feminized digit ratios!
Unfortunately, even though using a
homogenous population removes some
confounding variables, it also means that
it is questionable whether these results
generalize to gay individuals in the rest
of the world. The authors in the Finnish
study also found that gay people were
more likely to have a larger number of
older siblings, male or female, than
straight people, and they
hypothesized that this is due to
a depleted womb environment
after several children have
occupied it before, similar to
the FBOE theory16.
Another line of evidence
that points to variations in
womb environment aecting
sexual orientation is the
amount of asymmetry found
among gay people.
Developmental instability (DI)
is a term used to describe the
results of stress in utero that
can cause an organism to
develop atypically. DI results in
fluctuating asymmetry (FA),
which is a measure that assesses the
extent to which bilateral features dier
from each other 15 . The bigger the
dierence between the two halves of
someones body (one ankle, elbow, or
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay? 6

knee bigger than the other; fingers on scope of this paper. But lets turn to the
one hand longer than another, etc), the additional evidence for eects of sex
more developmental instability was hormones in humans.
present in the womb. Gay women and Do you know any gay men? Are
men are both more likely to have higher their birthdays in May? If so, it might not
FA than straight people, indicating that be a coincidence: gay men are more likely
they were exposed to more in utero to be born in May, and less likely to be
stress such as smoking, certain born in October and November, though
medications, or simply having an older the latter finding only approaches
than average mother, and thus more significance20. Gay women appear to have
developmental instability 15 . These birthdays clustered around October and
results are supported by other studies November, although the statistical
that show that other developmental significance has not been tested20. But
stressors such as smoking during why would this be? The answer involves
pregnancy are correlated with the both melatonin and testosterone. The
likelihood of having a lesbian daughter, largest amount of testosterone in
and that gay men are more
likely to be born prematurely
and have lower birth weights,
pointing to the presence of
developmental instability6,8,26.
Furthermore, perinatal (after
birth) disruptions in
testosterone levels can aect
the size of a part of the
hypothalamus called the Post-
Optic Area nucleus. The POA
has also been implicated in
same-sex attraction, where
studies using rats found that
higher levels of testosterone
correlated with a smaller POA
nucleus, and a smaller POA
nucleus was associated with
greater same-sex behavioral Figure 5: The percentage that the amount of gay men and
10
tendencies . However, that womens birthdays deviate from the U.S. average in a certain
begs the question are rats a month20.
comparable model for human
sexuality? the complicated answer of pregnant mothers is generally present at
which is, unfortunately, beyond the the end of the fourth month of gestation,
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
and, as we have already seen,
testosterone is a male sex hormone
important in sexual dierentiation and
perhaps in sexual orientation4,20. If we
apply this to the gay men and women
with clustered birthdays during specific
months, the gay women born in October
and November would have experienced
their highest levels of testosterone
during the summer solstice, while the
gay men born in May would have had
their spikes during the winter solstice20.
No, were not talking about some sort of
magical moon-phase determining
whether youre gay or straight. But
melatonin levels in mothers, which are
reduced during long exposures to
sunlight, are negatively correlated with
testosterone production17. This means
that mothers who are getting a lot of sun
(such as during the summer solstice,
when the day is longest) during the
fourth month of pregnancy are producing
significantly less melatonin, and thus
more testosterone. Mothers who are
exposed to little sun during the fourth
month of their pregnancy (such as during
the winter solstice), are producing higher
levels of melatonin and thus less
testosterone. So baby girls who are
exposed to ver y high levels of
testosterone are thus more likely to be
gay, and baby boys who are exposed to
lower levels of testosterone are more
likely to be gay.
So, we have seen evidence that sex
hormones and sexual orientation are
correlated, but what about other
dierences between gay and straight
people? Surely if there are such big
7
dierences in the womb, well be able to
see other eects, right? Although they
can't be as easily assessed with the naked
eye, a lot of the dierences between gay
and straight people are in the brain and
can be seen with the right mix of
technology and knowing where to look.
One such dierence is the size of corpus
callosum, the bundle of fibers connecting
the two hemispheres of the brain. Gay
men are more likely to have a larger
isthmus, (the name for the most
posterior part of the corpus callosum)
than straight men, which more closely
matches the size of the isthmus in
women 32 . Relatedly, gay men and
straight women show more
bilateralization of the brain, meaning
that their two hemispheres are more
likely to show equal activation during
verbal tasks, rather than a strong
preference for the left side as in most
straight men1,30. Oddly enough, left
handed people also show this functional
asymmetry and gay people are
significantly more likely to be left handed
than the general population 32 . The
finding of larger corpus callosa in gay
men (even right handed gay men) show
that gay men are more likely to have left
handed organization of brain areas even
if theyre not left handed. How does this
relate to bilateralization? Because the
corpus callosa is necessary for the two
hemispheres of the brain to talk to
each other, a larger isthmus might allow
more information to pass from the left
side of the brain to the right, allowing for
greater bilateralization in straight
women, gay men, and left-handed
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay? 8

individuals. We do not yet know if the respond to the odors of their potential
reverse is seen in gay women, but since partners? The answer is actually yes!
gay women are also more likely to be left Electroencephalograms, or EEGs,
handed, it is unclear whether or not their provide readings of dierent electrical
corpus callosa would appear more like a potentials in the brain, allowing us to
straight man or a left-handed person. measure responses to certain stimuli in
Genetics might also influence real time. Greater P3 amplitudes (which
social behaviors related to sexual means a positive electrical spike seen
orientation. Further research found 300 milliseconds after a stimuli) are
dierences in a region of 8q12 in often observed in response to scents of
addition to the Xq28 region described people with which the individual should
24
previously . A type of vasopressin not mate 19 . This would have the
receptor (Arginine Vasopressin Receptor beneficial eect of preventing you from
2) is also coded for at Xq28, and mating with someone who is genetically
Neuropeptides B/W Receptor 1 is found closely related to you, because you will
on 8q12 both receptors have been not be attracted to their smell. In this
implicated in social behaviors . 24
case, gay men and gay women would be
Therefore, the dierences at Xq28 and expected to respond with greater P3
8q12 in gay people could result in amplitudes in response to scents of the
dierences in certain receptors, which in opposite sex. Indeed, gay women
turn could result in dierent
social responses to dierent
genders. Additionally, the
receptor Cyclic Nucleotide
Gated Channel Alpha 2
(CNGA2) is also located on
Xq28 and this particular
receptor is important in
responses to odors of potential
mates in mice24. While a simple
linkage between these genes
and sexual orientation are not
proof of functional connection,
it provides a reason to now Figure 6: The strength of the P3 amplitude seen in women in
carry out genome wide response to dierent body odors. Blue represents weaker
association studies to look for amplitudes and red represents stronger amplitudes19.
these specific connections.
Researchers found that the respond more strongly to the scents of
CNGA2 is important for responding to men, and gay men respond more
odors in mice, but do humans really strongly to the scents of women even
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
though they did not know which gender
they were smelling19. So gay men seem
to have automatic physiological
responses against mating with women
and vice versa. There have been other
functional brain dierences described as
well.
Gay men not only have, on
average, larger corpus callosa than
straight men, but their hypothalamus
also processes a drug called fluoxetine
dierently. Gay men, when given
fluoxetine (a selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitor, or SSRI, often given as an
antidepressant), show a smaller
reduction of their cerebral metabolic rate
of glucose (CMRglu) in the
hypothalamus, cuneate gyrus, and lateral
anterior cingulate gyrus than straight
Figure 7: Dierences in CMRglu in gay and straight
men. Red represents an area where straight men
showed a greater increase in CMRglu. Blue represents
an area where gay men showed a greater increase in
9
men18. On the other hand, gay men have
a higher CMRglu in the prefrontal
association cortex and the cingulate
cortex compared to straight men18. This
is seen even in men who have had no
history of psychiatric disorders or
medications, which is important because
it means that, unlike the size of brain
areas, their dierential CMRglu is
probably not due to experience. One
important criticism of some of the
correlations described earlier in this
paper is that behavioral dierences
between people can result in brain
dierences. This would mean that
perhaps dierences in the way gay and
straight people act result in dierent
brain scans, but there is no actual
biological underlier of homosexuality.
For example, perhaps gay men and
straight women speak more because
of societal expectations, and thus their
corpus callosum forms more
connections between the two
hemispheres, rather than the size of
the corpus callosa resulting in better
hemisphere communication. The
dierences seen in CMRglu, however,
cannot be explained by behavior and
thus provide evidence of a pre-existing
biological anomaly. This finding then
provides evidence that there are
neurochemical dierences between
gay and straight men probably before
they even identify with one sexual
orientation or the other.
I have provided strong evidence
for in utero sex hormones,
d e v e l o p m e n t a l i n s t a b i l i t y, a n d
structural and functional brain
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay? 10

dierences correlating with scents that I report previously are more

h o m o s e x u a l i t y. B u t w h a t a b o u t convincing, because they did not know
arguments against these correlates? whether they were smelling a male or
Some people take issue with the female odor and could thus not exert
measurement of sexual orientation in top-down control over their electrical
general. How do you determine if impulses. Interestingly, the straight
someone is gay or straight? Do you women in the physiological arousal to
classify them by how they identify? Their videos study did not show a dierence in
past sexual behavior? Or should you arousal when viewing the male versus
physically test their arousal to various female videos, which leads me to my
genders before allowing them to next point12.
participate in a study? The findings Where are all the gay women in
above all came from studies that used these findings? The majority of the
identity as the findings above were found
measurement, meaning in studies that only
that the participants were looked at gay men. Why
c l a s s i fi e d b a s e d o n were women left out? I
whether they said they dont have an answer, but
were gay or straight, but I have several theories.
other studies have used First, a few of these
other methods. One studies are several
study used instruments decades old, and studies
that measure genital were focused on gay men
physical arousal to at that time because the
determine what gender AIDS crisis aected gay
aroused gay and straight men at incredibly higher
men and women. They rates than gay women.
found that gay men were Secondly, mens sexuality
more aroused to the male has always been more
pornographic videos and open and accepted than
Figure 8: A New York Times
gay women were more womens sexuality
headline about the discovery of
a r o u s e d t o f e m a l e AIDS in the U.S. The first study (remember the
videos 12,21
. H o w e v e r, was already underway, but it would admonition against
because expectations of be over 10 years before the first women riding astride a
behavior can influence study that specifically looked at how horse?) and thus is
sexual responses (i.e. the simply more likely to be
gay individuals might have felt pressure studied. Third, men are still sometimes
to suppress arousal to videos of the seen as neutral subjects, and so if
opposite sex), I actually believe that the studies want to eliminate as many
findings of gay peoples reactions to confounding variables as possible,
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay? 11

including gender, they are likely to pick population, because the sample was not
men because of the lack of estrus cycle representative of the larger population. If
hormonal variations. Even though we a study finds that white gay males have a
now know that men and women can polymorphism at the Xq28 region, that
have dierent expressions of diseases, does not mean that, for example gay
dierent reactions to drugs, and dierent women of color have the same
functionality of their brain, men are still polymorphism. By excluding people of
sometimes seen as a neutral human to
use as a participant. Lastly, as you can
see from the results of the study in the
previous paragraph, female sexuality has
been consistently found to be more
complicated than male sexuality. Straight
women are physically aroused by both
male and female pornography12,21. Gay
women have more feminized hands than
than straight women16. And significantly
more women than men report their
sexuality as fluid17. These variations
make it harder to study gay women and
suggest that more variables are involved
in female sexuality than in male
sexuality. However, because we cannot
infer that findings about gay males
sexual orientation applies to gay women,
more eort must be made to incorporate
them into future studies.
Additionally, non-white women Figure 9: A recent cover of The Advocate that
and men are missing from many of these explored the experiences of queer black people in
studies, which also strongly aects the America14.
generalizability. Similar to the missing
gay women in studies, researchers color, researchers ignore a huge portion
sometimes try to make participants as of the population. Future studies need to
similar as possible to control for possible include people of all races and genders; if
confounds (as in the Finnish digit ratio they re worried about confounding
and facial structure studies). However, variables, they can perform statistical
this means that the studies have less analyses after to look at between group
external validity, or generalizability, dierences, rather than ignoring entire
meaning that we dont know if the populations.
findings actually apply to the larger
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
Lastly, some of these reported
findings are correlational, meaning that
whether the biological dierence causes
sexual orientation, sexual orientation
causes biological dierence, or another
factor entirely is responsible is yet to be
determined. Some people discount the
correlational findings entirely. I prefer to
take a dierent route, in that I recognize
that these findings are correlational, but
when taking all of the findings into
account, I believe that they are more
than coincidental. But what would it take
to prove causation? Well, the diculty
and ethicality is probably part of the
reason it hasnt been done yet. For
instance, to prove that sex hormones
during pregnancy aect sexual
orientation, you would have to
experimentally manipulate the amount of
hormones a fetus was exposed to and
then measure their sexual orientation
later in life. This would likely not pass
any ethics board. As is the case with
many studies that would be unethical in
humans, we could try this in rats and
examine their sexual behavior. However,
it is quite likely that rat sexuality is not
as complicated as human sexuality, and it
is not clear if rat sexual behavior is
applicable to human sexual behavior.
With this in mind, where might the field
go from here?
While we cannot at the moment
manipulate in utero sex hormones to see
if a baby turns out gay, we could measure
the hormones of a pregnant person and
then compare those measures to their
childs sexual orientation many years
down the line. This would require a lot
12
of commitment from the participants,
since it would be a long study, but it is
more possible now than ever before.
Twenty years ago, few mothers would
have been willing to participate in a
study about their future childs sexual
orientation because of the extreme
stigma around gay individuals. While
that stigma has not been erased,
acceptance for gay people is at an all-
time high, and it is likely that mothers
would be more willing to join such a
study now.
We have come a long way from
the days of blaming horseback riding for
making women gay, and yet we still do
not have conclusive answers about the
origins of homosexuality. However, I
have presented a strong argument for the
validity and importance of biological
explanations. While we have not yet
determined causation, we have decades
of research that support correlations
between homosexuality and genetic
polymorphisms, in utero hormones,
developmental stressors, and structural
and functional brain dierences. These
findings continue to be replicated and
expanded upon as genomic sequencing
becomes more common, brain imagining
advances, and our knowledge of
hormones expands. With rapidly
advancing scientific technology and the
leaps and bounds that gay rights are
making everyday, who knows? In 20
years we might have the answer to the
origin of sexual orientation, looking back
and wondering why it took us so long to
figure it out.
 Did Your Brain Make You Gay?
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