Gender-related traits in gay men, lesbian women, and heterosexual men and women: The virtual identity of homosexual-heterosexual diagnosticity and gender diagnosticity

Three studies investigated the relationship between gender-related traits a nd sexual orientation. Study 1 showed that gay men and lesbians in an unsel ected sample of 721 college students differed from same-sex heterosexuals m ost strongly on gender diagnosticity (GD) measures, which assess male- vers us female-typicality of interests (effect sizes of 2.70 for men and .96 for women) and least strongly on measures of instrumentality (I) and expressiv eness (E). In Study 2, GD measures showed large differences between 95 gay and 136 heterosexual men (effect sizes of 1.61 and 1.83) and between 46 les bian and 225 heterosexual women (effect sizes of .98 and 1.28), whereas I a nd E showed much smaller differences. In Study 3, GD showed large differenc es between 90 gay and 81 heterosexual men (effect sizes of 1.76 and 1.97) a nd between 82 lesbians and 108 heterosexual women (effect sizes 1.67 and 1. 70), whereas I and E showed much smaller differences. Using data from Studi es 2 and 3, "gay-heterosexual diagnosticity" measures were computed for men and "lesbian-heterosexual diagnosticity" measures for women, based on occu pational and hobby preferences. These measures correlated very strongly wit h GD measures.