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Sexual Identity Hard-Wired by Genetics - Study
Mon October 20, 2003 12:11 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sexual identity is wired into the genes, which
discounts the concept that homosexuality and transgender sexuality are a
choice, California researchers reported on Monday.
Our findings may help answer an important question -- why do we feel
male or female? Dr. Eric Vilain, a genetics professor at the University
of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a statement.
Sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth and
springs from a variation in our individual genome.
His team has identified 54 genes in mice that may explain why male and
female brains look and function differently.
Since the 1970s, scientists have believed that estrogen and testosterone
were wholly responsible for sexually organizing the brain. Recent
evidence, however, indicates that hormones cannot explain everything
about the sexual differences between male and female brains.
Published in the latest edition of the journal Molecular Brain Research,
the UCLA discovery may also offer physicians an improved tool for gender
assignment of babies born with ambiguous genitalia.
Mild cases of malformed genitalia occur in 1 percent of all births --
about 3 million cases. More severe cases -- where doctors can't inform
parents whether they had a boy or girl -- occur in one in 3,000 births.
If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous
genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment,
Vilain said.
Using two genetic testing methods, the researchers compared the
production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice -- long
before the animals developed sex organs.
They found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female
mouse brains, prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were
produced at higher levels in the male brains; 36 were produced at higher
levels in the female brains.
We discovered that the male and female brains differed in many
measurable ways, including anatomy and function. Vilain said.
For example, the two hemispheres of the brain appeared more symmetrical
in females than in males. According to Vilain, the symmetry may improve
communication between both sides of the brain, leading to enhanced verbal
expressiveness in females.
This anatomical difference may explain why women can sometimes
articulate their feelings more easily than men, he said.
The scientists plan to conduct further studies to determine the specific
role for each of the 54 genes they identified.
Our findings may explain why we feel male or female, regardless of our
actual anatomy, said Vilain. These discoveries lend credence to the
idea that being transgender --- feeling that one has been born into the
body of the wrong sex -- is a state of mind.
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