Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-r5d9c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-26T16:20:14.650Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Homosexuality in Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Elke D. Eckert ,
Thomas J. Bouchard ,
Joseph Bohlen  and
Leonard L. Heston
Elke D. Eckert
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Thomas J. Bouchard
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Joseph Bohlen
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
Leonard L. Heston*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Box 393, Mayo Building, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55455, USA
*
∗ Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We describe six pairs of monozygotic twins, in which at least one member of five pairs were homosexual, and one of the remaining pair was bisexual, from a series of 55 pairs, reared apart from infancy; all the female pairs were discordant for homosexual behaviour. This and other evidence suggest that female homosexuality may be an acquired trait. One male pair was concordant for homosexuality, while the other was not clearly concordant or discordant; this suggests that male homosexuality may be associated with a complex interaction, in which genes play some part.

Information

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 148 , Issue 4 , April 1986 , pp. 421 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bouchard, T. J. (1984) Twins reared together and apart: What they tell us about human diversity. In Individuality and Determinism (ed. Fox, S. W.). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Bouchard, T. J., Heston, L. L., Eckert, E., Keyes, M. & Resnick, S. (1981) The Minnesota study of twins reared apart: Project description and sample results in the developmental domain. In Twin Research 3, Intelligence, Personality and Development (eds. Gedda, L., Parisi, P., Nance, W. E.), pp. 227–233. New York: Alan R. Liss.Google Scholar
Dank, B. M. (1971) Six homosexual siblings. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1, 193–204.Google Scholar
Fischbein, S. (1977) Onset of puberty in MZ and DZ twins. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellogiae, 27, 151–158.Google Scholar
Gedda, L. & Brenci, G. (1975) Twins as a natural test of chronogenetics. Acta Genet icae Medicae et Gemellogiae, 24, 15–30.Google Scholar
Gladue, B. A., Green, R. & Hellman, R. E. (1984) Neuroendocrine response to estrogen and sexual orientation. Science, 225, 1496–1499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottesman, I. & Carey, G. (1983) Extracting meaning and information from twin data. Psychiatric Developments, 1, 35–50.Google Scholar
Habel, H. (1950) Zwillingsuntersuchungen an Homosexuellen. Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung, 1, 161–180.Google Scholar
Heston, L. L. & Shields, J. (1968) Homosexuality in twins: A family study and a registry study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 18, 149–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hrubec, Z. & Robinette, C. D. (1984) The study of human twins in medical research. New England Journal of Medicine, 310, 435–441.Google Scholar
Kallmann, F. J. (1953) Heredity in Health and Mental Disorder. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Koch, G. (1965) Die Bedeutung genetischer Faktoren fur das menschliche Verhalten. Arzliche Praxis, 17, 823 and 839–846.Google Scholar
Lange, J. (1931) Crime as Destiny (translated by Haidane, C.). London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Myers, M. F. (1982) Homosexuality, sexual dysfunction, and incest in male identical twins. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 27, 144–147.Google Scholar
Pollin, W., Stabenau, J. R. & Tupin, J. (1965) Family studies with identical twins discordant for schizophrenia. Psychiatry, 28, 60–78.Google Scholar
Sanders, J. (1934) Homosexueele tweelingen. Nederl Geneesk, 78, 3346–3352 (from an abstract in English prepared by E. Slater).Google Scholar
Stern, C. (1973) Principles of Human Genetics, 3rd ed. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.