[Nat]

In a 2008 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, New and her colleagues administered a sexual behavior assessment questionnaire to 143 women with congenital adrenal hyperplasia who were not treated prenatally. They found that most were heterosexual, but the rates of homosexual and bisexual women were markedly higher in women with the condition — especially those with the most severe conditions — compared with a control group of 24 female relatives without congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

"And, in a paper published earlier this year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New and her colleagues reported on data from 685 pregnancies in which the condition was diagnosed prenatally, acknowledging the potential effects of the treatment for reducing traditionally masculine behavior in girls. Prenatally treated girls were more likely to be shy, they wrote, while untreated girls were "more aggressive."

Moreover, the authors said, failure to provide prenatal therapy seems to lead to traditionally masculine gender-related preferences in childhood play, peer association and career and leisure choices.