One-hundred ten feminine and masculine boys: Behavioral contrasts and demographic similarities

Abstract

A longitudinal research project on atypical and typical psychosexual development in male children has been ongoing for 7 years. During this period, 60 boys, referred in consequence of extensive cross-gender behavior, and these boys' parents have been evaluated. Fifty of the families have been demographically matched with families in which the boy shows typical gender-role behavior. The rationale behind the study rests on the retrospectively recalled childhood behaviors of adult males with an atypical sexual identity. The majority of transsexuals, transvestites, and homosexually-oriented adult males recall their childhood as characterized by a preference for the clothes, toys, games, and companionship of girls and, in the case of transsexuals, the wish to be a girl (Benjamin, 1966; Stoller, 1968; Green and Money, 1969; Saghir and Robins, 1973; Green, 1974; Prince and Bentler, 1972). None of these studies was prospective, raising the question of validity of the recalled data. The research design described here utilizes a sample of males behaving in the way these atypical adults recall from their boyhoods plus a contrast sample whose behavior is like that recalled by most sexually typical adult males. Cfinical interviews of a sampling of the feminine boys and behavioral descriptions of the boys provided by their parents have been reported (Green, 1974). Until now, there has been no reporting of the demographic characteristics