OMOSEXUALITY:

PART I: Is there any evidence that homosexuality is the result of inherited or constitutional factors?

Following is a combined two-part article originally published in SEXOLOGY magazine, The author, Mr. Rubin, delivered the paper as an address before an audience of the New York Area Council of the Mattachine Society a few months ago. We are grateful for the opportunity to bring this material to the attention of REVIEW readers.

CONFLICTING THEORIES

by Isadore Rubin, B.A., M.S. in Ed.

T is distressing to read in modern texts a presentation of the complex subject of homosexuality which leads the reader to Think that there is one single theory upon which students of the problem agree. In this respect, most texts are biased, one-sided or hopelessly out of date.

Actually, anyone who approaches the subject in any kind of open-minded fashion is well aware of the conflicting theories on such basic aspects of homosexuality as its nature, cause and treatment.

This lack of agreement was carefully noted by The American Law Institute-a body consisting of some of America's leading legal theoreticians-when it drew up its model penal code for sex offenders.

"Those who have studied the problem most," it declared, "are in such disagreement as to cause and the possibility of cure that a lawmaker must proceed cautiously in decreeing drastic measures

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Mr. Rubin a writer and editor of long experience, is Assistant Puhlisher of SEXOLOGY and Luz Magazines.

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What are some of the theories which have been put forward to explain homosexual behavior? What is the scientific evidence which has called these theories into question

In the latter part of the 19th century, embryologists discovered that in the first few weeks of prenatal life all embryos have the same anatomical features.

Even though sex has been determined at the moment of conception, sex differentiation does not appear until the eleventh or twelfth week as a result of hormone produced in the sex glands.

Later, it was also discovered that individuals of both sexes produce both male and female sex hormone, though in differing amounts.

These discoveries led to the widespread belief among students of sexology that the homosexual was a member of a "third sex," a term popularized by the great Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. This concept

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that constitutional factors were responsible for homosexualitywas supported by such pioneers as Krafft-Ebing and Havelock El-

lis.

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Under the impetus of this theory, the cause of homosexual behavior was sought either (1) in the individual's inheritance; (2) in a lack of balance between the various glands which produced hormones; or (3) in somatic (body) factors.

Hirschfeld in his book "Der Homosexualitat" published in. 1914 'declared that there was always a congenital element present in homosexuality. He therefore considered the male homosexual to be

a sex intergrade whose genetic sex did not agree with his apparent body build.

Havelock Ellis stressed hormonal factors. He saw homosexuality as "the result of a quantitative disharmony between the male and female sex-determining fac-. tors."

"There can be little doubt.” he. said, "that certain individuals; in organic structure, and probably as a result of unusual hormonic balance, possess a special aptitude to experience sexual satisfaction with persons of their own sex.'

R. Goldschmidt in 1916 concluded that there must be an he-

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reditary basis for homosexuality. conclusion was However, his based only on an analogy with intersexes which he found among gypsy moths.

"The degree of intersexuality in the gypsy moth," Goldschidt wrote, depends on the stage of development at which sex differentiation is disturbed. Should this crucial stage be reached very early in development, the end-result is complete sex reversal."

He argued that, just as there is an inheritance of body structures which constitute the intersexuality of moths, there must also be an inheritance of such behavior among humans.

More recently, investigators

such as Dr. W. Lindesay Neustatter, for example, in They Stand Apart, have pointed to rare cases of women who have an excess of male hormone because of at tumor of the suprarenal gland.

In these women, he noted, there was a "growth of beard, regression of the breasts and growth of the clitoris with alleged associȧted homosexual tendencies devel11