Left-Handedness in Homosexuals Studied
Health24News
Aimee R. Rush
March 12, 2001
WASHINGTON D.C.--A new study appearing in the Psychological Bulletin indicates that there may be a correlation between left-handedness and homosexuality.
Researchers at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the University of Toronto analyzed 20 studies that compared the rates of left-handedness in 6,987 homosexuals and 16,423 heterosexuals.
The results indicated that homosexual participants were 39 percent more likely than heterosexual participants to be left-handed; left-handedness was 34 percent more common in gay men than in heterosexual men, and lesbians were 91 percent more likely to be left-handed than were heterosexual women.
Since handedness is determined in early development, probably before birth, the researchers say that the correlation between handedness and sexual orientation demonstrates that at least some influences on adult sexual orientation operate quite early, perhaps even before birth.
The findings also suggest that there may be at least one cause of homosexuality that is common to both gay men and lesbians. A good deal of previous biological research on sexual orientation has suggested that sexual orientation in men and women is influenced by different factors.
There are approximately 30 million left-handed people in the United States and several hundred million worldwide. While the study's results support the notion that sexual orientation has an early neurodevelopmental basis in some men and women, the factors responsible for the handedness/sexual orientation association are still unknown. Researchers say that while the findings are reliable, they are not absolute and only provide clues to the origins of sexual orientation. They stress that handedness cannot be used to determine if an individual is homosexual or heterosexual.
Further information is available from the following Web sites: Psychological Bulletin, www.apa.org/journals/bul.html ; the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, www.camh.net ; and the University of Toronto, www.utoronto.ca .
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This news story is not produced by the American Psychological Association and does not necessarily represent the opinions of the association.