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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Hormones and the Brain
Message-ID: <722@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Dec-84 01:03:17 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.722
Posted: Wed Dec 12 01:03:17 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Dec-84 07:14:17 EST
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> = T. C. Wheeler

>                                   A couple of weeks ago, PBS
> was presenting its series on the brain.  There was a short segment
> about an East German Clinic that was doing studies of homosexual
> men and there brain patterns.  They came up with an interesting
> correalation between the amount of stress a women went through
> during pregnancy and homosexuality.  All of the men studied had
> been born during a period when the area had been under heavy
> bombing during WWII.  The preliminary conclusions were that stress
> in the mother triggered the production of one of the bodies hormones
> which in turn affected the orientation of the brains left and
> right hemispheres.  I don't remember the normal orientation, but
> the men seemed to have the same brain orientation (left side
> larger) as a woman....
> 
> It seemed like an interesting theory and the studies seem to
> show a leaning in that direction.  Anyone care to comment?

I saw it too.  Actually the narrator said that this study was
"highly controversial" but I'm sure any such study would be.

I am under the impression that the fraction of homosexuals in
the human population is fairly constant.  Certainly fluctuations
could occur from time to time, but if the population is constant
over the long term, the cause must be fairly common and evenly
distributed -- or perhaps even innate to species.  If stress
such as what German women would have been experienceing in WWII
is a significant factor in ``innate'' homosexuality, how does
this correlate with the constancy of the proportion of
homosexual.

Can someone confirm or refute my assumtion about the constancy of
human homosexual populations?
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!gam

37 22'50" N / 121 59'12" W	[ This is just me talking. ]