Prenatal hormones and sexual orientation Only 23% of childhood gender problems will result in transsexuality in adulthood. Drawing on some transsexualism cases, Garcia-Falgueras and Swaab state that "[f]rom these examples it appears that the direct action of testosterone on the developing brain in boys and the lack of such action on the developing brain in girls are crucial factors in the development of male and female gender identity and sexual orientation ... ." Countless studies have been run on peripheral levels of sex steroids in male and female homosexuals, a considerable number of which claimed to find "less 'male hormone' and/or more 'female hormone' in
Male a female. The part of the Y-chromosome which is responsible for maleness is the sex-determining region of the Y-chromosome, the SRY. The SRY activates Sox9, which forms feedforward loops with FGF9 and PGD2 in the gonads, allowing the levels of these genes to stay high enough in order to cause male development; for example, Fgf9 is responsible for development of the spermatic cords and the multiplication of Sertoli cells, both of which are crucial to male sexual development. The ZW sex-determination system, where males have a ZZ (as opposed to ZW) sex chromosome may be found in birds and some