Bisexually concordant, heterosexually and homosexually discordant: a matched-pair comparison of male and female adrenogenital syndrome.

Prenatal hormonal experiments in subprimate species demonstrate conclusively that the pattern of adult mating behavior is masculinized or feminized as a function of prenatal hormonalization of the brain. In primates, especially human beings, postnatal socialization is superimposed on prenatal hormonalization. The syndrome of congenital virilizing adrenal hyperplasia [CVAH] is an experiment of nature in which the fetal brain is prenatally hormonalized by a masculinizing excess of androgen from abnormally functioning adrenal cortices. The syndrome was diagnosed in two children, one a chromosomal, 46,XX female, and one a 46,XY male, who amongst many others were psychoendocrinologically followed into adulthood. Each was able to fall in love exclusively with a female as a partner in sexuoerotic activity, though each experienced also, on an investigative basis, at least one genitosexual encounter with a male. On a behavioral technicality, therefore, each had a history of bisexual practices, whereas subjectively the woman identified herself as a lesbian, and the man as a Kinsey-one heterosexual. Hormonally, it may be inferred that in prenatal life both were ultramasculinized to such a degree that it was impossible for any postnatal interventions to permit the man to become a bona fide homosexual, or the woman a bona fide heterosexual. The full implication of these findings and those of similar cases for homosexual/heterosexual theory remains to be ascertained.