Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T21:48:06.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Male Monozygotic Twinship Discordant for Homosexuality

A Repertory Grid Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

K. Davison ,
H. Brierley  and
C. Smith
K. Davison
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, General Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 6BE
H. Brierley
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, General Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 6BE
C. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, General Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 6BE
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the development of homosexual behaviour is a controversial subject. The original suggestion that homosexuality is a purely inherited trait has been attributed to Krafft-Ebing (Kallmann, 1952). Perhaps the strongest support for this view was Kallmann's series of 40 male monozygotic twin pairs showing 100 per cent concordance for the overt practice and quantitative rating of homosexual behaviour (Kallmann, 1952). This report has been criticized, and Kallmann later conceded that the 100 per cent concordance was possibly a statistical artefact (Kallmann, 1960). Habel (1950), who obtained the index twins from a prison population, found concordant homosexuality in 3 out of 5 monozygotic pairs (60 per cent), but none of 5 dizygotic pairs. In a more recent study, Heston and Shields (1968) found concordant homosexuality in 2 out of 5 monozygotic pairs (40 per cent) and 1 out of 7 dizygotic pairs (14 per cent). Heston and Shields (1968) also report a family with a sibship of 14 which included 3 pairs of male monozygotic twins, in two of which both twins were homosexual and in the third both heterosexual; no environmental factors which differentiated the homosexual from the heterosexual sibs could be detected. These workers also refute the suggestion that the tendency for monozygotic twins to be more alike with regard to homosexuality than dizygotic twins is related not to genetic factors but to problems of sexual identification which predispose to homosexuality (Money, 1962) by pointing out that there is no evidence that monozygotic twins per se are especially prone to become homosexual.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 118 , Issue 547 , June 1971 , pp. 675 - 682
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

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.)

References

Bene, E. (1965). ‘On the genesis of male homosexuality.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 803–13.Google Scholar
Bieber, I., Dain, H. J., Dince, P. R., Drellich, M. G., Grand, H. G., Gundloch, R. H., Kremer, M. W., Rifkin, A. H., Wilbur, C. B., and Bieber, T. B. (1962). Homosexuality. New York. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Brown, D. G. (1958). ‘Sex-rôle development in a changing culture.’ Psychological Bulletin, 54, 232–42.Google Scholar
Brown, D. G. (1963). ‘Homosexuality and family dynamics.’ Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 27, 227–32.Google ScholarPubMed
Fenichel, O. (1945). The Psychoanalytical Theory of Neurosis. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1910). Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. I The Sexual Aberration, p. 19. (transl. Strachey, J. 1949). London: Imago.Google Scholar
Habel, H. (1950). ‘Zwillingsuntersuchungen an Homo-sexuellen.’ Zeitschrifl für Sexualforschung. 1, 161–80.Google Scholar
Heston, L. L., and Shields, J. (1968). ‘Homosexuality in twins. A family study and a registry study.’ Archives of General Psychiatry, 18, 149–60.Google Scholar
Kallmann, F. J. (1952). ‘Comparative twin study on the genetic aspects of male homosexuality.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 115, 283–98.Google Scholar
Kallmann, F. J. (1960), discussion p. 259 of Rainer et al. (1960).Google Scholar
Klintworth, G. K. (1962). ‘A pair of male monozygotic twins discordant for homosexuality.’ Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 135, 113–25.Google Scholar
Lange, J. (1930). Crime as Destiny: A Study of Criminial Twins. Pp. 154–60. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Mesnikoff, A. M., Rainer, J. D., Kolb, L. C., and Garr, A. C. (1963). ‘Intra-familial determinants of divergent sexual behaviour in twins.’ American Journal of Psychiatry, 119, 732–8.Google Scholar
Money, J. (1962). ‘Factors in the Genesis of Homosexuality’ in Determinants of Sexual Behaviour (Ed. G. Winokur), Springfield, Illinois: C.C.Thomas.Google Scholar
O'Connor, P. J. (1964). ‘Aetiological factors in homosexuality as seen in RAF practice.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 110, 381–91.Google Scholar
Parker, N. (1964). ‘Homosexuality in twins: A report on three discordant pairs.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 489–95.Google Scholar
Rainer, J. D., Mesnikoff, A., Kolb, L. C., and Carr, A. (1960). ‘Homosexuality and heterosexuality in identical twins.’ Psychosomatic Medicine, 22, 251–9.Google Scholar
Sanders, J. (1934). ‘Homosexueele tweelingen.’ Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor de Geneeskunde, 78, 3346–52.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1963). ‘Diagnosis of zygosity by fingerprints.’ Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 39, 78–84.Google Scholar
Slater, P. (1964). The Principal Components of a Repertory Grid. London: Vincent Andrew and Co.Google Scholar
Slater, P. (1965). ‘The use of the repertory grid technique in the individual case.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 965–75.Google Scholar
Smith, S. M., and Penrose, L. S. (1955). ‘Monozygotic and dizygotic twin diagnosis.’ Annals of Human Genetics, 19, 273–89.Google Scholar
Tanner, J. M. (1951). ‘Photogrammctric anthropometry and an androgyny scale.’ Lancet, i, 574–9.Google Scholar
West, D. J. (1959). ‘Parental figures in the genesis of male homosexuality.’ International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 5, 85–97.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.