1406 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



genetic considerations. In recent years ani- 

 mal studies such as these cited, together 

 with new findings in the fields of psychiatry 

 and clinical psychology, suggest possible al- 

 ternative explanations.^ The investigations 

 into the nature of psychologic sex provide 

 an example in point, for a person's psycho- 

 sexual orientation, once established, be- 

 comes an ineradicable part of personality 

 functioning. 



III. The Establishment of 

 Psychologic Sex 



In the human psychologic sexuality is 

 not differentiated when the child is born. 

 Rather, psychologic sex becomes differenti- 

 ated during the course of the many experi- 

 ences of growing up, including those experi- 

 ences dictated by his or her own bodily 

 equipment. Thus, in the place of the theory 

 of an innate, constitutional psychologic bi- 

 sexuality such as that proposed by Freud — 

 a concept already questioned on theoretical 

 grounds by Rado (1940), among others — we 

 must substitute a concept of psychologic 

 sexual neutrality in humans at birth. Such 

 psychosexual neutrality permits the devel- 

 opment and perpetuation of divers patterns 

 of psychosexual orientation and function- 

 ing in accordance with the life experiences 

 each individual may encounter and transact. 



A. THE EVIDENCE OF HUMAN 

 HERMAPHRODITISM 



The evidence for the foregoing statement 

 has, in part, emerged from the study of 

 human hermaphroditism.^ The sexual in- 



'^ Others have also pointed out analogies between 

 the ethologic findings in lower animals and cer- 

 tain psychologic and behavioral phenomena in hu- 

 mans. Lorenz, Bowlby and Walter, to name but a 

 few (see Tanner and Inhelder, 1953, 1954, 1955), 

 have discussed possible relationships implicit in 

 animal findings to the ontogeny and phylogeny of 

 psychologic development in children. Russell and 

 Russell (1957) have made the suggestion that cer- 

 tain aspects of human behavior might best be ap- 

 proached and studied from an ethologic point of 

 view. 



*The term hermaphrodite is used here to de- 

 scribe not only those individuals with completely 

 ambiguous external genital development but also 

 to include all instances in which a contradiction 

 exists between the predominant external genital 

 appearance on the one hand and the sex chroma- 

 tin pattern, gonads, hormones, or internal accessory 

 structures, singly or severally, on the other. In this 



congruities which occur in hermaphroditism 

 involve contradictions, singly or in com- 

 bination, between six variables of sex. These 

 variables, the first five of which are dealt 

 with in specific detail by other writers in 

 this volume, are: (a) chromosomal sex: (b) 

 gonadal sex; (c) hormonal sex; (d) internal 

 accessory reproductive structures; (e) ex- 

 ternal genital morphology; (f) the sex of 

 assignment and rearing. Hermaphroditic pa- 

 tients, showing various combinations of 

 these six sexual variables, may be appraised 

 with respect to a seventh variable, (g) Gen- 

 der role^ or psychologic sex. In this way 

 one can ascertain something about the rela- 

 tive importance of each of the six variables 

 in relation to the seventh. 



A nineteenth century classification of her- 

 maphrodites was based on the assumption 

 that the microscopic structure of the gonads 

 was the ultimate criterion for purposes of 



sense the older terms pseudohermaphrodite and 

 inlersexuality are superfluous and unnecessarily 

 confusing and have not been retained. Undeniably 

 no classificatory scheme is perfect or sacrosanct; 

 other classifications of the hermaphroditic anoma- 

 lies have been published (c/. Wilkins 1957, Jones 

 and Scott, 1958). 



^ By the term, gender role, is meant all those 

 things that a person says or does to disclose him- 

 self or herself as having the status of boy or man, 

 girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not 

 restricted to sexuality in the sense of eroticism. 

 Gender role is appraised in relation to the follow- 

 ing: general mannerisms, deportment and de- 

 meanor; play preferences and recreational inter- 

 ests; spontaneous topics of talk in unprompted 

 conversation and casual comment; content of 

 dreams, daydreams, and fantasies; replies to 

 oblique inquiries and projective tests; evidence of 

 erotic practice and finally, the person's own replies 

 to direct inquiry. Lest there be misunderstanding, 

 the term gender role is not identical and synony- 

 mous with the term sex of assignment and rearing. 

 Sex status can be assigned to a child by parental, 

 medical, or legal decision. The psj^chologic phe- 

 nomenon which we have termed gender role, or 

 psychosexual orientation, evolves gradually in the 

 course of growing up and cannot be assigned or 

 discarded at will. The components of gender role 

 are neither static nor imiversal. They change with 

 the times and are an integral part of each culture 

 and subculture. Thus one may expect important 

 differences in what is to be considered typical and 

 appropriate masculine or feminine gender role as 

 displayed by a native of Thailand and a native of 

 Maryland, or as displayed by the pioneer con- 

 temporaries of Peter Stuyvesant and by their de- 

 scendants in Westchester County suburbia of the 

 1960's. 



