IUBio

Brain/genetic differences and homosexuality

Peter Marvit marvit at cattell.psych.upenn.edu
Tue Oct 5 10:22:45 EST 1993


Just an additional cautionary note to LeVay's findings.  Interested
people should carefully note the subjects (albeit post-mortem) he used to
do his cell counts, as well as his specific methods. 

My recollection is that much of his (male) homosexual sample died from
AIDS-related diseases (and thus were presumed to be gay, rather than
HIV-infected through some other vector). If this is the case, I would be
concerned about the putative identification of sexual orientation of his
subjects. Assuming he conducted pre-morbid interviews or otherwise
posthumously verified the sexual orientation of the subjects, I would
then be concerned about the (not yet fully characterized) effect of the
AIDS virus and other opportunistic diseases on the CNS in general and the
brain in particular.  We already know that more advanced AIDS patients
get a general neuropathy and "AIDS dementia", implicating a possible
general degeneration or wide-spread lesioning.

On the other hand, I also assume LeVay has addressed these concerns
somehow/where. I'm sorry that I do not have that information.

	-Peter "berhaps behavioural genetics is more promising" Marvit


: Peter Marvit <marvit at psych.upenn.edu>,   Psychology Dept,  Univ. of Penn :
: 3815 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA  19104  w:215/898-6274  h:215/387-6433 :



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