In 1952, at the height of the McCarthy era, Franz Kallmann, a Jewish
psychiatrist and eugenicist who fled the National Socialist regime in Germany,
published a study, in which he claimed to have found a one hundred percent
concordance rate for homosexuality among forty pairs of identical twins. From this
data, Kallmann concluded that homosexuality, which he saw as a pathological mental
condition, had a genetic cause. As well as being a clear statement that sexual
orientation is constitutionally based, Kallmann's study also reflected social and
scientific conceptions of lesbians and gay men that had been extant for centuries. The
twin study perpetuated the portrayal of homosexual women and men as insane in
general, and in particular continued the stereotype that lesbians were masculine and
that gay men were effeminate.
Seven responses to Kallmann's study were published between 1960 and 1973,
some in support of his genetic theory, others favoring environmental explanations
based loosely on psychoanalytic theories. The environmental argument eventually
gained ground in twin studies in the late 1960s concurrent with the widespread
acceptance in the psychiatric community of the theory that homosexuality is caused by
dysfunctional relationships between parents and children. The seven twin studies that
responded to Kallmann retained his characterization of lesbians and gay men as
gender transgressors. Simultaneously, homosexual activist groups began to question
the pathological model of sexual orientation. Twin studies of this type ended in 1973,
the same year that the American Psychiatric Association reversed its position on
homosexuality and removed it from the diagnostic manual. / Graduation date: 2005
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/29741 |
| Date | 17 June 2004 |
| Creators | Boltseridge, Nathan H. |
| Contributors | Nye, Robert A. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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