A Male Monozygotic Twinship Discordant for Homosexuality

Abstract

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.