In 1972 David Sherman, a Christian historian of religion, began his study of bhakti-yoga under the saintly Gaudiya Vaishnava master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. Later David moved with his family to Dallas, Texas and began full-time service to the Lord, becoming a formal disciple of Srila Prabhupada’s by the name Deva Deva das. Over the years he served the Vaishnava community at various locations and eventually took the order of vanaprastha and then the vows of sannyasa. His sannyasi name was given and his fire sacrifice performed by His Holiness Srila Radhanatha Swami of Mumbai, India.

Bhakti Ananda Goswami has a bachelor’s degree, successfully completed the oral presentation of his master’s degree, and has five years of accredited graduate-level college education in his special field of comparative bhakti-tradition studies. He has been honored by his college’s department heads and faculty and by interfaith leaders in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka for his pioneering discoveries in this field. He was asked to contribute to an important Catholic text on ecology, and his scholarly papers have been accepted for presentation at international academic conferences. He also has professional certification and extensive education and work experience in the medical and human services fields. He has especially worked with troubled youth and in respite and hospice care for the multiply disabled and people with severe organic mental illness and brain injury. During his time as a medical biophysics research assistant, he also pursued his education in the neurobiology of behavior as a way to improve his human services work in caring for the mentally and emotionally ill.

Born with an undiagnosed medically intersex condition, he was sex-assigned and raised as a girl. Then in his gender-ambiguous youth, despite his desire to simply live a chaste life, he was first sexually harassed and persecuted by misunderstanding people as a masculine girl/lesbian and then, as he further masculinized, as a feminine gay man. Later, after complete masculinization, he was subjected to experimental medical abuse from curious university “gender groups,” and after his legal gender reassignment to male, he was again mislabeled by the uneducated as a transsexual and persecuted in the Hare Krsna movement as such. A lifetime of being intersexed, not perfectly male or female, not being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transsexual, but at times persecuted as all of these has given Bhakti Ananda Swami some unique insights into the nature of sex and gender along with great empathy for persons who have been rejected and persecuted for being “different.” As a result of all this persecution, in 2001 he decided with the permission of his family to make a public statement about his medical condition and to publicly use his extensive experience and education in the field of behavioral neurobiology to help others suffering from persecution in the GLBTI community. He is now providing the topical index to his 2001 review of the scientific literature regarding sex differentiation and sex-dimorphic behavior in vertebral species including man. The information in this article is from his recent review of this research literature.

In spite of illness related to post-polio syndrome, Bhakti Ananda Goswami has continued his service to the Vaishnava community through religious scholarship and pastoral care. In 2001 he was appointed coordinator to establish an interfaith committee for the World Vaishnava Association, and as a Catholic he has continued his bhakti-yoga practice of lifelong devotion to Jesus Christ. He advocates holiness of life for everyone in both celibate chastity and marital faithfulness, believing that sensual self-mastery is a key to both self-respect and the spiritual freedom to love unconditionally.

There is not a single biological cause or mechanism for the great multiplicity of biological intersex conditions. Neither is there a single cause or mechanism for all “same-sex” attractions or “sexual orientations.” It is correct to state that the origin or cause of homosexuality in all cases has not been proven, but it is also correct to state that the basic biology of sex differentiation, sexual behavior, and partner preference has been conclusively proven. In fact, the causes for many sex differentiation and sex-dimorphic behavior problems are very well known to biologists. The problem is that the too general term “intersex” is analogous to the too general term “homosexual” in that both attempt to describe a class of people that contain individuals with radically different conditions. In fact, among intersexed persons some of the most common forms are almost biologically opposite syndromes (C-AIS XY-females and C-CAH XX-males). In the same way, same-sex attractions or sexual orientations or acts are not a simple, single syndrome that can be given a single definition and found to have a single cause and end. Just as it is a disservice and would be medical malpractice to lump all intersexed persons together, giving them all the same diagnosis and attempting to treat them all the same, it is equally erroneous and damaging to “homosexuals” and “lesbians” to lump them all together, giving them the same diagnosis and treatment. So, the question is not as simple as “is it a choice?” First “it” must be defined. When this is properly done, then the question becomes questions, and the answers are specific to the specific syndrome. In some syndromes “homosexuality” is absolutely not a choice. In others it absolutely is the result of choice. In between, there are a full range of unique situations that combine various degrees of physical, emotional, and moral/ethical or religious freedom and “choice.”

We should always remember that while our inherent attractions may not presently be subject to free choice, we still have choices when it comes to our actions. This is true for everyone regardless of sex orientation. It is often not necessary or wise to act upon every impulse in life, and self-confidence and self-esteem are directly related to a person’s ability in self-control. At the same time, most of us share a prolonged need to experience physical and emotional intimacy with others in loving relationships that are both meaningful and satisfying. To deny choice’s freedom when it is a factor, or to deny biological compulsion and emotional needs when choice is not a factor, can be equally damaging to the person. Still, the tragic arguments will go on with one side screaming “choice!” and the other side screaming “not a choice!” when the fact is that for some people “it” is a choice and for others “it” is not. The real question is… what is “it”? A proper analysis of “it” results in more meaningful and personally relevant questions and answers.

The first myth is that the biology of sex differentiation, sex-dimorphic (two sex) behavior, gender identity, and sexual orientation is not yet understood. The pure science of the biology of sex, etc., has had vast energies and resources put into it in the last century, and now the general mechanisms of all the above sex-related elements of biology are extremely well understood. From the sex differentiation and behavior of the smallest microbes to Homo sapiens and the role of environmental estrogen-mimicking compounds in the biosphere, the biological mechanisms of sex and sex-related behavior are extremely well understood, often in great detail, in the scientific community. It is only when religious, moral, psychological, or social and civil law elements are introduced into the picture that the clear truths of the sex-related “laws of nature” become obscured. Thus biologists can study and discuss the pervasive existence of intersexuality, sex-dimorphic dominance and submission behavior, and even same-sex pairing in nature, but the human race, both religious and nonreligious, has yet to even admit that intersex humans exist. There are only two legally recognized sexes in any nation, and the law must force an intersexed infant into one of these at birth, regardless of how appropriate or not their hasty “sex assignment” may turn out to be.

If the human race cannot face and deal humanely with its intersex members, who clearly require the right to choose their legal identity and thus their identity-defined sexual “orientation,” then how can we expect the human race to deal rationally with the religious, medical, moral/ethical, and civil/legal issues raised by homosexuality? The vast and in-depth learning of biologists has been allowed to benefit humanity in every other field, but when it comes to human sexuality, there seems to be an inviolable wall keeping the human race in the biological and medical nineteenth century. Both religious and civil authorities have refused to acknowledge the verifiable, universally accepted scientific facts of the basic biology of sex, and how these facts are obviously connected to sex-related mechanisms, influences, and outcomes in human biology. Christian churches are not the only institutions avoiding the implications of the unquestionable truth of our biology, which has been proven beyond any doubt. There is no major religion or society or government that wants to deal with the facts. Medicine and law don’t want to deal with the facts. Thus intersex persons are fighting the medical and legal establishments for their most basic of human rights. Why do I keep bringing up persons with anatomical or genetic intersex conditions? Think about this. Depending on how someone else sex-assigns the intersexed infant, they assign that baby to a life of being labeled as either a heterosexual or homosexual person. It is, after all, how our own sexuality is defined/assigned that determines whether our inherent sexual attraction will be considered “same sex” or not!

For many persons, the problem is not that their attraction/orientation is wrong, but that their religious and social/legal status is wrong. They have been simply wrongly assigned/defined throughout their lives by others including doctors, clerics, parents, teachers, and the civil/legal authorities. Their “homosexuality” or “lesbianism” has been created by someone else’s definition of them. How can this be? How can a person’s essential sexuality and gender identity be mistaken? Very easily, in fact biology tells us that while there is distinctly masculine and feminine, defining male and female and assigning sex, especially at birth, is an altogether different challenge. None of the indicators that we have used to define sex are 100 percent reliable! There are XY-male animals and humans with vaginas and uteruses and XX-female animals and humans with penises and testes. There are individual animals and humans with both testes and ovaries. There are otherwise normal XX women who have been born with no vaginas, and there are otherwise normal XY men who have been born without penises. So if “sex” chromosomes and internal or external reproductive organs don’t “make” us boys or girls, men or women, then what does? And why should we be stuck in an at-birth sex assignment that may later prove to be erroneous? Obviously, an educated guess will be made based on observable parts at birth, but persons should always be given primacy over their mere parts in humane considerations. After all, medicine and law exist to serve the best interests of persons, not disembodied impersonal parts.

When people reach adulthood, they should have the right to define themselves. A person is more than the sum of his/her parts. Even before adulthood, people still have fundamental human rights, and what could be more essential than the right just to be? To attempt to force a physical (surgical and chemical) sex and a gender identity onto an infant is an abominable assault on its humanity. Similarly, to deny rational adults access to surgical and chemical treatment for sex- and gender-differentiation disorders is also abominable. In either case, precious human beings are being profoundly abused and denied their most basic of human rights in an impersonal system that gives primacy to parts over persons. Human dignity cannot be safeguarded when a person’s essential right to be himself or herself is subject to being so violently assaulted. Parents, civil authorities, religious authorities, and doctors are permitted by law to subject helpless, unconsenting intersex infants to sex-modifying and sex-changing surgeries, but they deny rational adults access to the same treatments, when these are requested and appropriate medical interventions for insufferable sex-differentiation conditions. How can we expect authorities with such confused priorities to justly come to terms with the profound errors in its entire method of assigning sex and thus determining what is and isn’t a “same-sex” orientation? If religions allow the medical establishment and civil authorities to assign someone’s sex (and they usually do), and the assignment proves wrong, then the medical and civil authorities may have “created” a homosexual or lesbian. Will the clerics then condemn such a person for their “same-sex” attraction and behavior? This question is not just an academic exercise. Countless intersexed persons have been wrongly assigned a sex at or after birth and subsequently stigmatized as homosexuals or lesbians. The issue of the medical and civil rights and religious status of intersexed persons is a test case for all sex- and gender-different people because the issues are so much clearer in anatomical or genetic intersexuality than in the “psychology”-muddled debate over homosexuality, etc.

Every entity, animal or human, is unique. By ignoring the great variety in real-world human sex differentiation, religious, medical, and civil/legal authorities have conspired to violate the most basic human rights and dignity of sex- and gender-different minority persons. Biologically based forms of homosexuality are part of the continuum of sex differentiation that generally appears in all sexually dimorphic life forms. There is no question that this is true. The same mechanisms that cause sex differentiation in “lower animals” and other species also cause them in mankind. This is not a speculation; it is an established and well-proven fact. Since sex-dimorphic behavior in both social and solitary species is governed by the same identifiable biological mechanisms, and these mechanisms are also present and function the same way in mankind, then it is a pathological denial of the real world to assert that these fundamental realities of natural law and science have no bearing on human sexual behavior. So let us consider what some of these mechanisms are and how they do relate to human sexuality.

\Before going further regarding the science of sex differentiation, I want to make a statement about my personal interest in all of this. I am a sannyasi and a siksa or instructing master and religious renunciate in a very ascetic religious tradition. I am strictly celibate and chaste, and I do not advocate any kind of illicit sex. Furthermore, it is unheard of for a master in the lineage I am in to teach on such matters regarding sex. So at the risk of being publicly ostracized by other religious leaders in the tradition I belong to, why am I doing it? Why am I risking my good name for the possibility of being misunderstood as some kind of “tantric sex guru” for speaking out on these issues? The answer is simple. I love people, all people, and I am concerned for their total spiritual and physical well-being, which involves all of their pastoral needs including general health and medical care, their physical, mental, affective/emotional, character/developmental, and educational needs, and even their relational, familial, vocational, social, and civil/legal needs. I also have an extensive background in postgraduate-level research and in medicine and human services. In addition, because I was born with a very rare intersex condition myself, I have studied the mechanisms of sex differentiation in great depth, and I have known and have tried to be available to help many sex- and gender-different people over the years in my various ministries. All of these factors have combined to give me a unique fitness for my present service in the spiritual (and other) care of persons with unusual sex- and gender-related challenges and problems. How could I not serve souls with my full knowledge, ability, and strength? If my God and Savior has called and fitted me to serve souls in some capacity, who am I to refuse to do it? Thus I plan to continue to serve and give God’s love and solace/comfort to all souls, regardless of their sexual identity or orientation. I cannot be more concerned about how this makes me look in some people’s eyes than what my Lord requires of me in His service to suffering souls. So I will continue to publicly answer the sincere questions of persons concerned with these issues, regardless of whether it will be viewed as inappropriate for me as a sannyasi to do so.

Intersexed animals and humans are usually nonreproductive and there are many different intersex conditions that occur to various degrees in both. Some are caused internally in the fetus itself, as in Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), the two most common types of serious human intersex conditions. In AIS, the XY-male chromosomes are “normal,” but the genetic plan for their utilization of androgens is not. These peoples’ bodies, at the cellular level, cannot use their male hormones and so develop along the female pathway despite having XY-male chromosomes and functioning testes. Their body is blind to the presence of their own testosterone, and thus they become “sex reversed” or anatomically female except that they lack a uterus and ovaries. Their testes are usually hidden in the lower abdomen or inguinal area. This is a genetically caused disorder and often runs in families. Some tribes have a high incidence of AIS, and it is one of the most common causes of extreme (complete) XY-male intersex or “sex reversal.” Complete C-AIS persons are always considered female and raised as such despite their XY-male chromosomes. Before modern medicine, such persons were usually just considered unfortunate, barren women.

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is the most common cause of extreme XX-female intersex conditions. This condition is caused by a defect in the adrenal hormone system that hyper-androgenizes them in utero. A complete CAH person may be considered “sex reversed” in that they have a normal external male anatomy despite their XX-female chromosomes. Before modern medicine, these people were always considered unfortunately sterile but otherwise normal males. They have ejaculation, but no viable sperm. Even at the present, a high percentage of CAH males are not detected at birth. Some grow up and only find out about their XX-female chromosomes after going to a fertility clinic for sterility diagnosis. Imagine the trauma a couple faces when their marriage is thus suddenly legally invalidated as a result of such a test! As long as the chromosome XX or XY test for sex is used, such tragedies will go on. This tragic situation did become so severe at the Olympics, with national sports heroes and heroines going home in shame due to “failing” genetic sex tests, that the International Olympic Committee has now placed a moratorium on all genetic testing. They can’t figure out how to keep the games strictly XY-male and XX-female because there are so many intersex athletes in the games presenting exceptions to this rule!

There are other types of internally caused intersex conditions, but they are far more rare. There are also conditions due to abnormal sex chromosomes such as Turner and Klinefelter Syndromes that are more common. In history, I believe that the largest percentage of intersexed persons have been either AIS or CAH individuals.

True hermaphroditism is defined by the presence of both testicular and ovarian tissue in the same person. This is extremely rare. Such people may have one ovary and one testis, or one ovary and a mixed ovotestis, or one testis and a mixed ovotestis or bilateral ovitestis. Ovotestis are gonads (sex organs) in which there is both ovarian and testicular tissue. The material mechanisms of true hermaphroditism are not all well understood. Most true hermaphrodites have normal chromosomes. Many have XX-female chromosomes and are raised as girls. Some of these later mature (virilize) to become fully functioning males and require legal sex reassignment.

There are also external causes for various intersex conditions. The mother’s body can be a major cause of feminized male fetuses. Either her own body can be the source of excessive estrogens feminizing her XY baby, or in the case of twins, it is suspected that a male or female twin can produce hormones that affect their other-sex sibling. While this has not been conclusively proven in human twins, it has been verified among litters in various animals. In littermates, the males and females next to each other in the womb can hormonally modify each other’s development. Certain conditions in the mother’s health have also been proven to masculinize the XX-female fetus, and the mother may also be influenced by such environmental factors as diet, air and water pollutants, medications, alcohol and drug abuse, etc.

In biology it is well established that fetal hormones determine the outcome in terms of masculinization and feminization of the individual. Hormonal influences can completely override the sex chromosomes when it comes to influencing both the gross anatomy and subtler neuroanatomy or “wiring” and thus the sex-related behavior of species, including the human species. This is not at all debatable. Since different parts of the gross reproductive anatomy mature at different intervals and these mature independently of various parts of the nervous system, it is possible to have a contradiction between various aspects of a person’s neural, gonadal, and genital sex. In fact the specific and detailed mechanisms of many such contradictions are now known in human intersex conditions. These variations are also responsible for some of the easily recognized basic types in any homosexual population, and they affect the individual’s gender identity and/or sex orientation. The great complexity of our physical and neurological development in utero gives rise to the tremendous variability in the outcome of our neuro-sexual and physical embodiment. The perfect example of this complexity is that gender identity often seems independent of sexual orientation. To understand this completely, people need to learn the basics of sex biology.

To identify if an apparently physically normal person may have been fetally estrogenized or androgenized and to what extent, one needs only to assess the signs and symptoms relative to the subjective sense of self or gender identity and social and sexual responses to others. Such a personal inventory should be able to reveal the difference between a transgender with a gender identity disorder and a homosexual with same-sex attraction. It should also reveal the difference between transgenders who feel compelled to surgically alter their anatomical sex, and homosexuals who are fully comfortable with their physical selves even though they may exhibit excessively masculine- or feminine-gender behavior.

Very Feminine Homosexual Men and Very Masculine Lesbians

Like “intersex,” the word “homosexual” is too general a term. It indiscriminately merges together persons with entirely different natures and behavior. This merging gives rise to numerous misunderstandings, like those that arise from the impossible-to-answer question, “is homosexuality a matter of choice or not?” This nonsense question is too general because the category of “homosexual” is too general.

Although there is endless variety in human sexuality, there are also some rather common variant syndromes of sex differentiation, which are recognizable across time and cultures. These are the very feminized homosexual “male” and the very masculinized lesbian “female,” the stereotypical “queen” and “butch dyke.” That these types appear in all societies should help us to understand that there is a biological role in their genesis. No society, religion, social class or milieu creates such people, they just appear in every society, social class, and religious culture. To their perceptive childhood peers, or those who are experienced in the care of large numbers of children, such persons can be identified at an early age. Thus such a gender-different child might be labeled as a “sissy” or “tomboy.” In biology it is well known that social animals express their sex-dimorphic behavior early on in play preference, social grouping, and “pecking orders.” Children and immature chimps are more interested in each other’s social play preferences than in each other’s genitals. Thus neurologically masculinized XX-female children and chimps (with female genitals) will be more likely to get involved in the males’ play, and neurologically feminized XY-male children and chimps (with male genitals) will be more likely to try to involve themselves in the females’ play. The person who is thus extremely neurologically masculinized or feminized does not have a normal childhood as a boy or girl and cannot grow up from a feminized boy into a normal masculine man, or from a masculinized girl into a normal feminine woman. When play preferences give way to mature sexually dimorphic behaviors, those persons neurologically masculinized or feminized during the fetal stage will mature into a sexual being whose needs and instincts compel them to express a sexuality normal for their neuroanatomy but often contrary to their genital anatomy. Thus the “sissy” may mature into a “queen” and the “tomboy” into a “butch dyke.” Such people have no childhood or adult choice in this. They were “hardwired” for it during fetal development by hormones at a critical period of neuro-organization in utero. If their sense of self has been thus affected, then their object of desire will likely be affected too. Very feminized and masculinized homosexual people commonly engage in sex-dimorphic behaviors usually seen in the opposite sex. The very feminine homosexual male is commonly sexually receptive, and the very masculine lesbian commonly engages in male-typical mounting behaviors.

Ordinary or “Gender-Normal” Homosexual Males and Lesbians

Besides the above-described homosexual persons who stand out as excessively masculine or feminine, there are others who appear “normal” within society but still experience same-sex attraction. This largest group of gay men and lesbians are exclusively homosexual, comfortable with their anatomical sex and normal in terms of their gender identity. Such persons choose different same-sex partners for a variety of reasons. Some may choose partners similar to themselves, while others may choose the highly masculinized or feminized persons described above. If such normal homosexuals take the above-proposed test for gender-related fetal hormonal influences, their answers will reveal a mostly normal gender identity. But if they take tests to assess their sexual preferences, then their exclusive “gayness” will be revealed. Basically, this type of homosexual is an otherwise normal person, but with exclusive and immutable same-sex attraction for biological reasons yet unknown. Psychological, familial, or social influences can also be involved in ways that may suppress, reinforce, or otherwise modify such a person’s response to same-sex stimulus. Since this class of homosexuals is by definition “gender normal” (not excessively masculine or feminine behaving), they cannot be compelled by neuro-related, gender-identity differences to seek same-sex partners. This does not mean, however, that they have a “choice” in their attractions/desires. This is the class of gender-normal homosexuals who do not respond normally to their species’ social- and sex-signaling stimuli. Since heterosexual signaling responses are known from all animal studies to be biologically based, it is only reasonable to conclude that exclusive and persistent same-sex attraction in humans is also biologically based. This link between biology and behavior, in fact, can be observed in general human studies of social or sex signaling and response. So why then should this “law of nature” universal link between biology and behavior be denied when it comes to homosexuality?

In the continuum of sex differentiation and sex-dimorphic behavior variations, sex object attraction or “partner preference” in animals and comparable “sexual orientation” in humans demonstrably have biological determinatives. However, these hormonal influences are not acting on the person’s gender identity, but on their involuntary response to sex signaling from the persons they are attracted to. For example, in every pair of same-sex finches that set up a nest together, at least one in the pair is responding to the sex signaling of the other. Similarly, the gender-normal gay man is being “turned on” by something about his partner and is thus positively responding to his partner’s signals. Since a creature’s response to sex signaling is just as innate and instinctual as sex signaling itself, then it is fair to say that the orientation side of the equation can be just as inborn as the gender-identity side. There is social and sex signaling in most species of animals, especially in social animals like the great apes and man. In these species, sex-dimorphic behavior is programmed into individuals so that both sexes will be able to function as a social group in order to reproduce and sustain the species. There are two sides to this programming. One side involves the individual’s sense of self or gender identity, and the other side involves how the individual responds socially and sexually to others. This side of the picture involves the individual’s response to signals from others and thus their sex-partner preferences. No attraction to the opposite sex means that they are not responding in a “normal” way to the opposite sex’s sex signaling. Instead, the homosexual is responding to the sex signaling of his or her own sex regardless of gender identity. The neuro-locus of sexual attraction is therefore obviously independent of the locus of sense of self or gender identity. These mechanisms of sex signaling and response/attraction are very well known, right down to which chemical olfactory stimulants trigger which kinds of responses in normal women and men. Every detail of human sex signaling including form, sound, scent, motion, touch, color, decoration, etc., has been analyzed by someone somewhere. The advertising industry alone has spent vast amounts of money on such research to understand the human responses to social and sex signaling. Still, the learning from all this research has not been applied to the obvious question of the biological origin and mechanisms of same-sex attraction in humans.

Same-Sex Pairing and Peer Bonding

In gay and lesbian subculture, despite the influence of feminism and other attempts to disconnect certain behaviors from sex and gender, it can still be seen that many homosexual people are essentially attracted to their gender-type opposites. The pairing-up will tend to be between a person who is more masculine and a person who is more feminine. When masculine gay men or lesbians are exclusively attracted to their feminine counterparts in masculine/feminine pairs, then they are responding in a normal heterosexual way to the sex and social signaling of their partners. Their behavior and response is in fact normal heterosexual dimorphic behavior, but because of their anatomy they are considered a same-sex pair.

The survival and health of a species depends not just on opposites attracting as in sexually dimorphic reproduction, but also on the strong biological drive to emulate an ideal specimen among one’s same-sex peers and to bond with them. This peer-bonding behavior can be most observed in individuals prior to their development of opposite-sex attraction and reproductive maturity. Certain attractive or advantageous physical features and behaviors give individuals prominence over their peers, and these characteristics, when perceived, are emulated in the peer group and younger generations. This behavior serves to strengthen the species and can be seen throughout the biological realm. Among humans it is evident in the way that children and teens imitate and bond with their idolized siblings, peers, heroes, movie stars, etc. Such peer bonding is eventually overshadowed with the arrival of opposite-sex attraction and the competition to mate, but there are some individuals who do not make this transition and continue in the peer-bonding mode. These persons never enter into the opposite-sex attracted, reproductive phase of their species’ development. Gender-normal homosexuals who do not display masculine and feminine sex dimorphic-like pairing will most likely play out this type of “like-attracting-like” peer fixation well into life. They will usually be attracted to partners who are very similar or ideal versions of themselves. Such behavior may also be accompanied by other traits normally seen in adolescent behavior.

It can be observed that all humans are born autistic, or self-centered, and then most gradually move from infantile self-absorption to youthful “like-attracting-like” peer bonding and finally to adult pairing, homemaking and child rearing. Intersexed and homosexual people growing up in societies where they are socially stigmatized and mistreated may often experience difficulty even in peer bonding, what to speak of pairing. In extreme cases they will become isolated, depressed, or self-loathing due to such difficulties. Human beings gradually expand their awareness, appreciation and love of others beginning with the parents and then progressing towards siblings, peers, mates, community, humanity, etc. Finally, as mature, caring humans, we are no longer self-centered but instead become “other-centered” beings. We learn to love not just ourselves but everyone around us. Unfortunately, any person who is mistreated and abused during this progression may become developmentally arrested and unable to properly extend their love toward others. Having met many very loving and other-centered homosexual men and lesbians, it is clear that such persons are not necessarily developmentally arrested in this regard simply because they do not have opposite-sex attraction or because they have been mistreated in life. Genuine other-centered love can exist within anyone, regardless of embodiment, and of course the ultimate realization of this type of selfless love is God-realization. God and His devotees are always engaged in pure, loving exchanges, and the peer bonding and pairing of this world are merely reflections of that original spiritual love. We should know that any loving relationship experienced or observed in this world has its pure, original counterpart in spiritual reality.

Other Types of “Homosexual” Behavior

There are other types of “homosexual” behavior that do not involve exclusive same-sex attraction but are instead related to bisexuality or sexual aggression between heterosexual males. This is the type of behavior that can be attributed to “choice.” People who are bisexually oriented experience attraction to both men and women. They are gender-normal but respond to the sex-signaling stimulus coming from both sexes. For most bisexuals, this orientation seems to be innate or “wired” into the neuroanatomy and cannot be changed. Since bisexual people are attracted to both males and females, they may choose or decide to engage in homosexual behavior and some may even prefer to live exclusively homosexual lives.

There are also those who are overly sexed and androgenized, known as the “alpha males” or dominant females. These persons are highly sexually aggressive. Androgens cause phallic growth and stimulate libido and sexual aggression in both men and women. More sexual activity stimulates more androgen production and thus more libido, etc. It is a self-perpetuating cycle. Highly sexed and aggressive individuals typically have high androgen levels. If a normal person becomes sexually abstinent for a long period of time however, their system will eventually begin to quiet down sexually and produce lower amounts of these hormones.

The typical alpha male is compelled to force others to submit to him and may sometimes even indulge in bisexual or “homosexual” behavior. He is like the biggest bull elk in a region, or the biggest bull in a herd. Such hyper-androgenized persons have a genetic or other innate cause for their super-masculinity, and like the alpha male in a herd, they are often not satisfied with just dominating the females in their domain but must sexually dominate all of the males that they can as well. In the sex-dimorphic social ordering of many animals, the dominant or alpha male will be the most highly androgenized, sexed, and aggressive of the males. He will usually dominate every male that he can, and this domination involves sexually aggressive acts, social signaling, and even mounting and submission-forcing behavior. In the extremity this means forcing sexual submission as well. Thus when a subdominant bull or outside challenger is defeated by the alpha male, he will allow the dominant male to mount him or assume a sexually dominant position over him. After such a display of submission, the dominant male will cease his violent attack on the challenger and may even give him a kind of protection from other aggressive males. This apparently bisexual or homosexual behavior among animals is not about the alpha male actually desiring to mate with other males but is purely about dominance and submission. This behavior can also be seen in human society within prisons, warfare, and other social situations where dominance has become very important. Such persons may engage in very aggressive and even violent “homosexual” behavior, but in fact, they are on a power trip and their motivation is nothing like that of ordinary gay men. In these cases people can engage in “homosexual” acts without experiencing same-sex attraction at all. Thus they can choose or decide to have “homosexual” relations without even being homosexual.

Dominance and submission is not just a male-female phenomenon. Within the male and female peer groups of social animals this dominance and submission game is always going on. Thus there is an “alpha bitch” in the wolf pack and a matriarch among the elephants. There is a supreme hen-of-the-roost at the top of the henhouse pecking order, and the most popular kid in school among both the girls and the boys. Only in spiritual life do we find this system reversed, when the competition is to serve rather than to lord it over others. Think about it! Godhead is the source and model of the anti-material value system. Sri Krsna exists to serve Radha-devi and She exists to serve Him! Lord Baladeva is the servitor Lord who serves the Divine Couple and all beings! The alpha beings of all beings, the Adi-Purusha and Prakriti, desire only to serve each other, not to dominate each other! By observing the material desire to dominate and exploit in this world, we can understand the lording-it-over mentality of the fallen souls. Of those souls who most want to dominate and force others into submission, the alpha males and alpha females are the most successful.

The mechanisms of physical deviation from the normal XX-female and XY-male always involve “defects” in the standard developmental plan. But does this mean that overall such in-between creatures are necessarily a mistake of nature or God? While intersex abnormalities affect one’s reproduction and socialization in social species like man, they don’t usually affect the individual’s viability. Sexual “defects” therefore account for a vast number of otherwise healthy, functional individuals in all species. Why does either nature or God not prohibit this enormous “third-sex” category of life?

In many highly social species, intersex members play a unique and very important role. For instance, in a bee colony, the queen alone is a reproductive female. The worker bees are all “intersexed” or nonreproductive females. In some species almost all of the males are or become nonreproductive after being dominated by the “alpha male.” In some kinds of herd animals, the alpha male essentially dominates his rivals until they submit to him and stop trying to mate with his harem. They may then essentially become a eunuch and part of his harem so to speak, enjoying his protection. When these submissive males are darted and medically examined, they are found to have experienced an actual lowering of their own testosterone levels. Their very survival may depend on this. As long as they are putting out the testosterone smells that trigger violent “rival” aggression in the alpha male, they will be in danger. So their body actually changes, and the testosterone decreases. They lose the desire to mate with the females and become receptive to the alpha male, who mounts them to establish their place in the herd’s dominance-and-submission “pecking order.” Such individual and group responses appear to be both personal and societal survival mechanisms. The alpha male, whether he is an ape or an antelope, will generally have the highest testosterone levels in the social order, and the subdominant males will have less and less as they descend in the “pecking order.” The feminized males will be at the very bottom end of the pecking orders in almost all social species. By contrast, in experiments with hyper-androgenized XX-female apes, these individuals sometimes actually became the dominant “males” of the group despite their XX-female chromosomes and infertility! So it is clear that testosterone and estrogen levels influence self-perception and behavior and have a profound influence over not just the bodily development, but also the sex-dimorphic behavior of all social animals.

Besides this hormone-behavior link to dominance and submission, it is obvious that in some species, intersex and related same-sex pair bonding serves as a population control. For example, in some birds and rodents, when there is extreme pressure on the species due to drought, lack of food, overpopulation, extreme cold or heat, lack of shelter or nesting habitat, etc., the incidence of same-sex pair bonding in the species will dramatically increase temporarily until the crisis has passed. Because these same-sex pairs do not reproduce, this acts as a natural species-wide local or regional method of population control. By thus reducing the reproductive success of one or several generations, the population increase is slowed or even reduced without massive starvation, inability to nest, or subsequent die-off in the species. Is this a mistake or is it an amazing species adaptation for survival? In these cases same-sex pairing is a win-win situation for both the individual and the species, because the individual’s imperative to bond and nest-build is satisfied and at the same time the species is able to avert a population crisis and disastrous die-off. In my own opinion, humans under such social or environmental duress may very well respond in a similar manner. Homosexual and intersexed persons may thus periodically increase from their normal baseline population levels under such conditions. Under ecological or other stress the human species, like other species, may have a mechanism of response for reducing its fertility. Environmental factors themselves may also cause disorders of sex differentiation. Modern-day pollutants such as “environmental estrogens,” petrol chemicals, pesticides, and other man-made factors actually increase the percentage of sex-differentiation disorders in animals and in human society. Major governmental and university research projects are being conducted worldwide to find some way to reduce the feminizing effects of environmental estrogens, which are causing a global “epidemic” of human masculinization and reproductive health problems.

While in the microcosm, specific mechanisms that account for intersex and same-sex pairing of animals may appear as “disorders,” “defects” or “errors,” but if we step back from the proximal causes and view the reproductive health of the species as a whole, and how it changes under different conditions over time in various local and regional environments, then we can see how this nonreproductive “third sex” actually plays an important role in the wider scheme of things. Nature or God does not prohibit such apparent errors because in fact they are not errors at all. In the “big picture” these human variations seem to serve an important purpose whether we, as humans, are aware of it or not. If a rise in intersex and related same-sex pairing is a mechanism of population control in animal species, why not recognize that it could also function in a similar way among humans? Is it always necessary or desirable for every member of human society to engage in sexual reproduction? Is human worth only to be measured in terms of fertility? Many of the world’s great religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism recognize and place value on people who are celibate and nonreproductive. Abstaining from sex relations, child rearing, or family life offers a person valuable time that, if wisely spent, can be utilized for self-realization and serving the greater family of humanity and God.

Human beings are not animals, but our bodies are made of the same elements and obey all of the same basic rules of chemistry and biology. We should stop thinking of our species as being somehow categorically beyond the laws of nature and God! There are mechanisms for everything, and understanding these can help us to treat each other justly, with understanding and compassion instead of confusion and fear.

To review, one has a subjective “gender identity,” which can be discovered through a personal inventory of feelings about oneself. One also has an object orientation that can be discovered by analyzing how one feels about others. Humans are masculine and feminine, not just genitally male and female or XY and XX. For physical, mental, affective/emotional health and ultimately self-realization, people need to understand themselves and be understood by others on their own terms, not indiscriminately lumped in together in pastoral care, diagnosis, and treatment. There are so many combinations and variations of the basic types and relationships mentioned herein, that ideally there should be no categories and every precious soul should be understood individually. However, since this is not possible, then at least we can make some effort to understand people a little better and to stop impersonally merging them all in together under too general and simplistic labels like “homosexual.” By daring to leave our comfortable denial to ask the right questions, we can accept the right answers and finally begin to render sex and gender justice to all of our sisters, brothers, and others. This means honoring the basic being of every person and recognizing the primacy of persons over their parts.

May the servitor Lord, and Sri-Sri Radha-Krsna who are always busy serving each other, deliver us from the desire to lord it over one another like the wolves and wildebeests! May we take the time to understand each other and to lovingly help everyone to spiritually progress in their own unique incarnations.

Amen, Aum, and Hare Krsna!

(From the book, “Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex.”)