A Prenatal Testosterone Tale — Part I

We often see talking heads on TV including psychiatrists; psychologists; and even some transgender (TG) activists saying that TG is the result of the levels of prenatal testosterone. Too little testosterone for MTF, too much for FTM. There is no scientific evidence for this idea and there is evidence that refutes it. If people knew where the prenatal testosterone idea came from they would shudder in disgust. And thereby hangs a tale….

The tale begins in California at the turn of the 20th century. At the time, the mental hospitals were overcrowded because modern anti-psychotic drugs had not yet been invented. These hospitals then included homosexual patients since homosexuality was then regarded as a mental disorder. There were also “training” schools for the “feeble minded” to house people with learning defects who did not have good living skills.

Mengele, 1942

In this sunny environment, a eugenics movement grew up which spread to several other states across the country. The goal of the eugenics movement was to sterilize those whose genes were regarded as defective in order to improve the gene pool. The movement spread to many other states, was supported by huge charitable foundations that had been set up to memorialize the robber barons for oil, railroads and steel. Several top universities were involved and provided “top cover” for the movements activities. The foundations invited post-doctoral students from abroad to come to the U.S. to learn about the movement. One of these post-doc students was Joseph Mengele, later discovered to be performing unethical experiments at Auschwitz.

The movement spread from the U.S. to pre-WWII Germany where it received intellectual support from an influential biologist named Ernst Haekel. You know what followed. The German Nazis not only began to sterilize those with “undesirable” genes but later they began a systematic campaign of murder.

After the war and the partition of West from East Germany, the leaders in East Germany were looking for a way to demonstrate progress of their socialist society and began to show off their capabilities internationally. The East German athletes were carefully selected and trained and received the best medical care and scientific research to help their performance. Some of the female athletes were later found to have abnormally high testosterone levels due to genetics or to medical enhancement.

East German science would not be left behind. Since the socialist regime banned homosexuality and tacitly approved eugenics, scientists sought and received research funding for theories that promised to eliminate homosexuality. About this time experiments were conducted that involved injection of testosterone and estrogen into pregnant rats and other animals. Some of these experiments resulted in later changes in adult rat sexual behavior. The East German scientists used these studies to theorize that homosexuality could easily be eliminated by giving injections of testosterone to human mothers although there are no records of such experiments being carried out.

Testosterone

In the ’80s, the East Germans also advocated testosterone injections into pregnant mothers to eliminate transgenderism. Although they advocated for homosexual rights after the fall of the Berlin wall, they never advocated for transgender people to have rights and they never changed their position that prenatal testosterone levels were responsible for homosexuality and transgenderism.

I will detail the science that refutes the prenatal testosterone idea in a future post but here is a preview. First, all of the experimental research on prenatal testosterone was with animals and animals do not have gender at least the way humans do. Second, in some people Kallman’s syndrome, a genetic defect, results in chronically very low testosterone levels throughout life and yet MTF transgenderism is very rare in these individuals. Third, females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) are exposed to high levels of testosterone from conception and yet the frequency of FTM transgenderism is no different from the population. (In a future post I will also explore the controversy over whether CAH fetuses should be treated in utero with hormones to avoid lesbianism and transgenderism.) Fourth, there is doubt about some of the results of the animal experiments since we now know that masculinization of the brain for penile erection/ejaculation is not caused directly by testosterone but is caused by estrogens, so if estrogen gets into the brain it would masculinize, not feminize brain mechanisms.

Next time you hear the idea being espoused that transgenderism is due to prenatal testosterone levels; you should now shudder to remember the very dark places where this idea came from and the lack of scientific evidence to support it.

Tags: estrogen, featured, History, hormones, Identity, testosterone, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul