Content area
Full Text
Arch Sex Behav (2011) 40:863864 DOI 10.1007/s10508-011-9805-6
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
New MRI Studies Support the Blanchard Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism
James M. Cantor
Published online: 8 July 2011 The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Twoindependentempiricalarticleshave recentlyappearedinthe literature that, taken together, bear out an hypothesis Blanchard (2008) postulated in the Archives about brain development in transsexualism:
[T]he brains of both homosexual and heterosexual male-to-female transsexuals probably differ from the brains of typical heterosexual men, but in different ways. In homosexual male-to-female transsexuals, the difference does involvesex-dimorphicstructures,andthenatureofthedifference is a shift in the female-typical direction. If there is any neuroanatomic intersexuality, it is in the homosexual group. In heterosexual male-to-female transsexuals, the difference may not involve sex-dimorphic structures at all, and the nature of the structural difference is not necessarily along the malefemale dimension. (p. 437)
Blanchards prediction follows from studies that have repeatedly shown that the homosexual male-to-female transsexuals arefemale-shiftedin multiple, sexually dimorphic characteristics,whereastheheterosexualmale-to-femaletranssexualsare not(Blanchard,1989a,1989b).Forexample,homosexualmaleto-female transsexuals are sexually attracted to natal males, expressgreater interest in female-typical activities (even in childhood), and are naturally effeminate in mannerism. In contrast, heterosexual male-to-female transsexuals are indistinguishable from nontranssexual natal males on these variables. The heterosexual...