Parent-Child Relations in Transsexual and Non-transsexual Homosexual Males

¹ Clark Institute of Psychiatry, 250 College Street, Toronto 2b, Ontario, Canada

Transsexual and non-transsexual androphilic subjects did not differ significantly in unreplaced loss of father in childhood or in father-son relationships. This contradicts the assumption that transsexualism per se is due or mainly due to an unavailability of a father figure. There were also no gross differences between transsexual and non-transsexual subjects with regard to unreplaced loss of mother, mother-son relationship or having been raised by foster parents or relatives.

There was, however, a significant difference between homosexual and heterosexual subjects in unreplaced loss of father and/or mother, and significantly more homosexuals reported they were raised for the longest time by relatives or foster parents. In these cases father and mother figures were definitely available. These three differences between homosexual and heterosexual males could possibly be explained by the finding of Slater (1962) and of Moran (1968), Abe and Moran (1969) and Moran and Abe (1969), that the age of the parents, particularly of the fathers, at the birth of homosexual sons tends to be higher than in the general population. Whether this indicates a biological or psychological causal factor is to be left open.

The homosexual subjects indicated a significantly poorer father-son relationship than the heterosexuals and indicated more often that they were closer to mother. However, again this fact per se does not convey any information as to whether the disturbed father-son relationship was basically due to the behaviour of the father, the son, or both, and whether the high degree of closeness between mother and son was basically due to an overpossessiveness of the mother or to the son's not breaking away from his mother's protection. In either case, parent-child relations did not relate significantly to degree of gender identity disturbance.