Hormones and Brain Differentiation
 Cover | |
| Author | Günter Dörner |
|---|---|
| Country | Netherlands |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Homosexuality, transsexualism |
| Published | 1976 (Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 978-0444414779 |
Hormones and Brain Differentiation is a 1976 book about homosexuality and transsexualism by Günter Dörner,[1] in which the author advocated manipulating the sex hormone levels of pregnant women to prevent their offspring from becoming homosexual, and, based on experiments on rats, proposed brain surgery as a method of altering the sexual orientation of adult homosexuals. The book formed part of a 1970s campaign by Dörner to prevent homosexuality, and like other parts of his work has been controversial.
Summary
According to Dörner, research on animals shows that "the direction of sex drive can be changed, at least in part, by intrahypothalamic sex hormone implantations or hypothalamic lesions." He argued that "an important preventative therapy of sexual differentiation disturbances" could be achieved through "administration of androgens in gonosomal male foetuses with androgen deficiency during the critical differentiation periods of genital organs and, in particular, of the brain." Dörner noted that there are possible arguments against a program to prevent homosexuality, including the fact that "numerous prominent personalities" of the past were homosexuals, including some who were "outstanding poets, painters, or composers." However, he defended his proposal on the grounds that 25% of homosexuals attempt suicide and that "a great number of males and females with inborn sexual deviations are suffering from psychosexual pressure." Dörner wrote that he had received letters from unhappy transsexuals and homosexuals, and that in his view the medical profession has a responsibility to ease their suffering.[2]
Reception
Hormones and Brain Differentiation, like other parts of Dörner's work, aroused great controversy.[3] According to the neuroscientist Simon LeVay, the book formed part of Dörner's 1970s campaign for a public-health program for the elimination of homosexuality, which would involve "the measurement of sex hormone levels in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women and the correction of those levels in those cases where homosexuality seemed a likely outcome." LeVay wrote that Dörner's proposal to use brain surgery to alter the sexual orientation of homosexuals was based on experiments Dörner and his colleagues performed on rats in the 1960s and 1970s, in which allegedly homosexual rats (which in some cases had been castrated early in life) were converted to heterosexuality.[4]
The psychologist Alan P. Bell and the sociologists Martin S. Weinberg and Sue Kiefer Hammersmith, writing in Sexual Preference (1981), cited Dörner's book as evidence that homosexuality is linked to "the levels of male and female hormones in a person's system."[5] The philosopher Timothy F. Murphy identified Hormones and Brain Differentiation as part of a large body of "commentary linking the latest findings in sexual orientation research with techniques by which parents might control the erotic lives of their own children." Murphy observed that since Dörner "believes that homoeroticism is a tragedy ending in millions of suicides, it is not surprising that he believes fetuses at risk for homosexuality should be identified through amniocentesis and that abortion would be desirable for those fetuses unable to benefit from androgen therapy."[6] The psychologist Jim McKnight, arguing that "homosexuality is intermediate between heterosexual men and women", wrote that Dörner was correct to predict that, "Hormonal assays, stress responses, maternal recollections, anatomical and encephalographic differences all lie...somewhere between what is recognisably male and female heterosexual behavior."[7]
See also
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
- Books
- Bell, Alan P.; Weinberg, Martin S.; Hammersmith, Sue Kiefer (1981). Sexual Preference: Its Development in Men and Women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-16673-X.
- Dörner, Günter (1976). Hormones and brain differentiation. Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 0-444-414770.
- LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12199-9.
- McKnight, Jim (1997). Straight Science? Homosexuality, Evolution and Adaptation. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-15773-0.
- Murphy, Timothy F. (1997). Gay Science: The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10849-4.
- Silverstein, Charles (1991). Gonsiorek, John C.; Weinrich, James D., eds. Homosexuality: Research Implications for Public Policy. Newbury Park: Sage Publications. ISBN 0-8039-3764-4.