Specific cross-gender behaviour in boyhood and later homosexual orientation

Abstract

Data from a group of males aged 13 to 23, who as children exhibited extensive cross-gender behaviour, was analysed. In boyhood they frequently played with dress-up dolls, role-played as females, dressed in girls' clothes, stated the wish to be girls, primarily had girls as friends, and avoided rough-and-tumble play. The majority of the group evolved a bisexual or homosexual orientation; two types of behaviour, boyhood doll play and female role-playing, were found to be associated with later homosexual orientation. The findings suggest developmental associations between specific types of boyhood cross-gender behaviour and the objects of later sexual arousal.