Effeminate Behavior in Boys

Abstract

This report continues previously published studies on boys with early and persistent effeminate behavior. Parental age and birth weight did not differ in the case of 43 such boys as compared with 153 boys from an ambulant psychiatric population. Complications occurring in the pregnancies with them were fewer than in the comparison group and approximated a normal incidence. The majority of the effeminate boys were first- or second-born, more of them second-than firstborn. Incidence rates for indirect inguinal hernia, enuresis, imperfect descent of the testicle, and speech impairment were found to be high among them. The relevance of these findings for the possibility of a genetic basis for the effeminate behavior of this group of boys is considered.