male, gay, and have AS

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As the person who started this forum, I have two comments based on what I have read here. (1) the idea that a male cannot be gay and have Asperger's is nonsense. Maybe, someone with severe autism is not likely to be gay (IF the testosterone theory is correct), but AS is a very mild form of autism, and possibly not even related (the verdict is not in yet, from what I have read).
(2) Although I do apologize for using the expression "abnormal sexual orientation," I don't see what is wrong with it. After all, "abnormal" just means "not-the-norm" to me. I don't feel that it has negative connotations. But, to those who feel that it does, I apologize.

Same here.

I've seen the "can't be gay and have AS" comment before. It's a load of crap, actually. I'm not sure if agmoie was the person who stated it before, but it's still a load of crap. If that theory is true, then how do you explain all of the men with AS that are gay? Their doctor's were wrong? They really don't like being with men? That theory just doesn't hold water. Hormonal influences in utero have never been proven to have anything to do with sexuality. Just as hormonal influences have never been proven to have anything to do with AS. They're both just theories. Sweeping blanket statements just piss me off. Ugh.

Not all gays or gay aspies are what you would call feminine. Some of them act as macho as some of the straight guys. I have a friend who's still in the closet about it and I would never have guessed he was gay.

Last edited by monitodelmonte on 30 Jul 2010, 5:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The reason people view this as a negative statement is because, behind it, is the idea that humans have a normal, even default state of heterosexuality, and that it takes a medical problem, such as a lack of testosterone in the womb, to change this default state into the "abnormal" state. It implies that homosexuality is an illness, a consequence of ill health, a deviance from the healthy state of heterosexuality.

It's kind of amusing to me, actually, because male fetuses that are deprived of androgens in the womb develop female external genitals. It is the addition of androgens that causes the anatomy there to develop into a penis and sac. Therefore should one consider male genitals an unhealthy deviance from the default, female state?

You have those associations wrong. The second digit (2D, index finger) to fourth digit (4D, ring finger) ratio is typically 1:1 in women and 0.96:1 in men. Greater prenatal androgen (particularly testosterone) exposure is associated with a lower 2D:4D ratio, i.e. the index finger being shorter than the ring finger, with respect to the sex norm.

Low 2D:4D ratio is associated with higher male fertility, lower female fertility, athletic success, aggression (possibly strongly related to athleticism), lower risk of heart disease, lower risk of cancer, autism, homosexuality, bisexuality, gender identity disorder.

There are references to all of these on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio but http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/02/manning.html has a nice table summary.

Just for the record:

Male
AS (Dx)
Gay (Perfect Kinsey 6)

2D/4D < 1.0 on both hands (both ring fingers are visibly longer than my index fingers)

The mean 2D:4D is about 0.96 for males, 0.94 for people (of either sex) with autism (www.autismresearchcentre.com/docs/paper ... g_etal.pdf), but the distributions overlap.