Chapters
Hormones
The Hidden Cause of Homosexuality · Dr. Alaa Alsalem
2. Hormones as a Cause of Homosexuality
“Another area of research relevant to the hypothesis that people are born with dispositions toward different sexual orientations involves prenatal hormonal influences on physical development and subsequent male- or female-typical behaviours in early childhood. For ethical and practical reasons, the experimental work in this field is carried out in non-human mammals, which limits how this research can be generalised to human cases.”48
Hormones in humans can be described as: “special chemicals that travel through the bloodstream… [like] the body’s internal WiFi. They carry messages from the glands where they are produced to cells in different parts of the body. These chemical messages help to ‘turn on’ or ‘turn off’ cellular processes that control appetite, growth, stress, blood sugar, sleep cycles, sex drive, and sexual function, to name a few.”49
The question is: can we consider hormones a cause of homosexuality?
The male hormone testosterone and the female hormone estrogen are the primary sex hormones that should be investigated if anyone wants to find a hormonal cause of homosexuality. That said, neither these nor any other hormones have been scientifically established as being the cause of homosexuality.
The male hormone builds the characteristics that distinguish the male from the female, namely his reproductive organs, voice, hair, sperm, and sex drive. The same applies to the female: the female hormone builds the characteristics that distinguish the female from the male. As far as our research topic, the most that the hormone within males or females can influence is stimulating the sex drive in both genders. However, the hormones play no part in directing that drive in any particular direction (such as what occurs in homosexuals).
In addition, the male and female hormones have an evolutionary history linked to the start of sexual reproduction that came after asexual reproduction. These two hormones naturally require that males direct their sexual attraction toward females and vice versa. Any other direction for sexual desires is considered a deviation from nature (specifically, from the nature of the two hormones). Further discussion regarding the two hormones and general sexual arousal will be explored in more depth later.
Naturally, we do not deny the existence of illnesses resulting from an excess or deficiency of hormones and the impact on the male and female bodies.
"One of the most extensively studied disorders of sexual development is congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which in females can result in genital virilization. Over 90% of cases of CAH result from a mutation in a gene that codes for an enzyme that helps synthesize cortisol. This results in an overproduction of cortisol precursors, some of which are converted into androgens (hormones associated with male sex development). As a result, girls are born with some degree of virilization of their genitalia, depending on the severity of the genetic defect.”50
Such medical conditions stemming from a hormonal imbalance, such as a developmentally incomplete reproductive system, unidentifiable gender, or a mixture of both male and female genitalia, do not establish hormones as a cause of homosexuality. They remain individual medical conditions requiring
treatment. For instance, sometimes severe female genital virilization may require surgical intervention to restore the female genitalia to normal. A doctor may need to prescribe hormone treatments to reduce the effects of the overproduction of androgen. In other cases, a person can decide on one of the sexes through a surgical intervention that specifies his or her chosen sex. The seventh point of our research about gender reassignment possibly curing homosexuality will provide further clarification.
In 1995, Amy Banks MD51 and Nanette Gartrell MD52 conducted a study published under the title "Hormones and Sexual Orientation: a questionable link" to find out whether there is a link between hormones and homosexuality. The study concluded, "Studies of men and women who experienced prenatal defects in hormone metabolism (i.e., CAH and testicular feminization) have not found a concurrent increase in homosexual behavior. Overall, the data do not support a causal connection between hormones and human sexual orientation.”53
Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh also denied hormones played any major part in causing homosexuality: “The twin studies reviewed earlier may shed light on the role of maternal hormonal influences, since both identical and fraternal twins are exposed to similar maternal hormonal influences in utero. The relatively weak concordance rates in the twin studies suggest that prenatal hormones, like genetic factors, do not play a strongly determinative role in sexual orientation.”54