Measuring gender

Over the past several years, various operational definitions of gender have been used in studies of gender conformity in homosexual males. The goal of these studies is to demonstrate that childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) is either the proximate cause of adult homosexuality or an intermediate ste p in a biologically mediated process. The hypothesis of a causal connection between the development of gender and sexual orientation is embedded withi n the context of a biological (evolutionary) understanding of human behavio r. Thus, testing the hypothesis of a causal connection between CGN and sexu ality requires a concept of gender that is compatible with the basic princi ples of biological causation and our current understanding of evolutionary processes. I will argue that the concepts of gender used in the attempt to demonstrate a causal connection between CGN and sexual orientation are inap propriate because they provide no uniform, consistent method for identifyin g and measuring the biologically significant components of gender. I will a lso argue that the concept of gender that does emerge from these studies su ggests an hypothesis about the connection between sexuality and gender that is not consistent with the cross-gendered theory of the etiology of homose xuality.