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I'd heard about this a couple of years ago, but I never bookmarked the studies or articles and I kept forgetting to look it up. But I'm listening to back episodes of The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe, and Dr. Steven Novella is talking about a study that shows that men's ring finger is longer than their index finger. Women's hands are much more equal in length ratio. Homosexual men have more of a female ratio in their finger-length than heterosexual men do.
A meta-study was published about 2 years ago that looked at the 5 studies done previously on this issue, and that meta-study confirmed the results.
The thinking is that the ratio of the index to the ring finger is affected by the level of testosterone in the uterus at the time the limbs are developing and that may also affect sexual orientation at that stage in development.
This means that sexual orientation is congenital, which just means something that's present at birth. But it's not necessarily genetic. It could still be genetic because a gene could determine the level of testosterone, but if testosterone levels were elevated for some other reason, that could also have an effect, even if it's not in the genes of the baby. So it's more precise to say it's congenital, rather than genetic.
The finger length issue is only with regards to hetero vs. homosexual men. Women who are gay do not revert to a male ratio. What I find amusing is that my finger ratio is well within the hetero male range, which is very unusual for females. My finger-length ratio is actually steep enough that I cannot wear gloves with fingers in them because any pair of gloves that fit the rest of my fingers leaves 1/2 to a full inch of extra space at the tip of my index finger and I can't manipulate anything while wearing gloves. I've never tried men's gloves because they tend to be too big all around to fit me, but I wonder if male gloves in my size might better accomodate this finger length ratio?
A meta-study was published about 2 years ago that looked at the 5 studies done previously on this issue, and that meta-study confirmed the results.
The thinking is that the ratio of the index to the ring finger is affected by the level of testosterone in the uterus at the time the limbs are developing and that may also affect sexual orientation at that stage in development.
This means that sexual orientation is congenital, which just means something that's present at birth. But it's not necessarily genetic. It could still be genetic because a gene could determine the level of testosterone, but if testosterone levels were elevated for some other reason, that could also have an effect, even if it's not in the genes of the baby. So it's more precise to say it's congenital, rather than genetic.
The finger length issue is only with regards to hetero vs. homosexual men. Women who are gay do not revert to a male ratio. What I find amusing is that my finger ratio is well within the hetero male range, which is very unusual for females. My finger-length ratio is actually steep enough that I cannot wear gloves with fingers in them because any pair of gloves that fit the rest of my fingers leaves 1/2 to a full inch of extra space at the tip of my index finger and I can't manipulate anything while wearing gloves. I've never tried men's gloves because they tend to be too big all around to fit me, but I wonder if male gloves in my size might better accomodate this finger length ratio?
