ABSTRACT
When long bone development is complete, dimorphism is marked in the long bones of the arms and legs relative to the arm span or stature; males have greater arm:span and leg:stature ratios than do females. Postnatal development of this skeletal dimorphism is under the control of gonadal steroids, primarily testosterone and estrogen, and growth hormone. Steroid hormones influence bone growth directly and by stimulating growth hormone secretion. The relative size of bones in adulthood reflects the pattern and levels of steroid hormone and growth hormone action during childhood and may also re-
flect prenatal steroid action. Therefore, as reasoned by Martin & Nguyen (2004), anthropometric analysis of adult males and females may be useful in identifying variations in the level of androgen and estrogen receptor activation during development. To this end, these investigators made extensive bone measurements on individuals of Caucasian ancestry between the ages of 20 and 50 (118 heterosexual men, 116 gay men, 60 lesbians, and 109 heterosexual women). Height for women and men did not vary with sexual orientation, although there was a trend for lesbians to be taller than heterosexual women and gay men to be shorter than heterosexual men. Weight and BMI of heterosexual men was greater than that of gay men. Similarly, the weight and BMI of lesbians was greater than that for heterosexual women. Similar results have been reported. Hand measurements revealed that the width:length ratio was greater for heterosexual men relative to gay men and greater for lesbians relative to heterosexual women. Similarly, hand length was greater for heterosexual men than for gay men by 1.41 mm, and greater in lesbians than heterosexual women by 2.2 mm. Heterosexual men and lesbians had significantly longer legs and greater long bone growth in the arms than did gay men and heterosexual women respectively. It was found that overall, both gay men and lesbians were approximately 33 percent closer to the opposite sex in arm:stature (arm:height) ratios. Overall, these data conform to the notion that gay men are feminized relative to heterosexual men and lesbians are masculinized relative to heterosexual women. The authors concluded that their data suggest either different levels of hormonal signals in homosexual and heterosexual during childhood, or different sensitivities of target tissues induced by an earlier perinatal hormone exposure, or both.
