Originally posted yesterday afternoon at 3:15 PM.

That’s not fair, as Hanna Rosin at Slate will shortly point out. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn’t just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She’s also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an “abnormal” disinterest in babies, don’t want to play with girls’ toys or become mothers, and whose “career preferences” are deemed too “masculine.” Unbelievable:

The majority of researchers and clinicians interested in the use of prenatal “dex” focus on preventing development of ambiguous genitalia in girls with CAH. CAH results in an excess of androgens prenatally, and this can lead to a “masculinizing” of a female fetus’s genitals. One group of researchers, however, seems to be suggesting that prenatal dex also might prevent affected girls from turning out to be homosexual or bisexual.

Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, and her long-time collaborator, psychologist Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, of Columbia University, have been tracing evidence for the influence of prenatal androgens in sexual orientation…. They specifically point to reasons to believe that it is prenatal androgens that have an impact on the development of sexual orientation. The authors write, “Most women were heterosexual, but the rates of bisexual and homosexual orientation were increased above controls . . . and correlated with the degree of prenatal androgenization.” They go on to suggest that the work might offer some insight into the influence of prenatal hormones on the development of sexual orientation in general. “That this may apply also to sexual orientation in at least a subgroup of women is suggested by the fact that earlier research has repeatedly shown that about one-third of homosexual women have (modestly) increased levels of androgens.” They “conclude that the findings support a sexual-differentiation perspective involving prenatal androgens on the development of sexual orientation.”

And it isn’t just that many women with CAH have a lower interest, compared to other women, in having sex with men. In another paper entitled “What Causes Low Rates of Child-Bearing in Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia?” Meyer-Bahlburg writes that “CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”

In the same article, Meyer-Bahlburg suggests that treatments with prenatal dexamethasone might cause these girls’ behavior to be closer to the expectation of heterosexual norms: “Long term follow-up studies of the behavioral outcome will show whether dexamethasone treatment also prevents the effects of prenatal androgens on brain and behavior.”

In a paper published just this year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New and her colleague, pediatric endocrinologist Saroj Nimkarn of Weill Cornell Medical College, go further, constructing low interest in babies and men—and even interest in what they consider to be men’s occupations and games—as “abnormal,” and potentially preventable with prenatal dex:

“Gender-related behaviors, namely childhood play, peer association, career and leisure time preferences in adolescence and adulthood, maternalism, aggression, and sexual orientation become masculinized in 46,XX girls and women with 21OHD deficiency [CAH]. These abnormalities have been attributed to the effects of excessive prenatal androgen levels on the sexual differentiation of the brain and later on behavior.” Nimkarn and New continue: “We anticipate that prenatal dexamethasone therapy will reduce the well-documented behavioral masculinization…”

It seems more than a little ironic to have New, one of the first women pediatric endocrinologists and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, constructing women who go into “men’s” fields as “abnormal.” And yet it appears that New is suggesting that the “prevention” of “behavioral masculinization” is a benefit of treatment to parents with whom she speaks about prenatal dex. In a 2001 presentation to the CARES Foundation (a videotape of which we have), New seemed to suggest to parents that one of the goals of treatment of girls with CAH is to turn them into wives and mothers. Showing a slide of the ambiguous genitals of a girl with CAH, New told the assembled parents:

“The challenge here is… to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody’s wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother. And she has all the machinery for motherhood, and therefore nothing should stop that, if we can repair her surgically and help her psychologically to continue to grow and develop as a girl.”

In the Q&A period, during a discussion of prenatal dex treatments, an audience member asked New, “Isn’t there a benefit to the female babies in terms of reducing the androgen effects on the brain?” New answered, “You know, when the babies who have been treated with dex prenatally get to an age in which they are sexually active, I’ll be able to answer that question.” At that point, she’ll know if they are interested in taking men and making babies.

In a previous Bioethics Forum post, Alice Dreger noted an instance of a prospective father using knowledge of the fraternal birth order effect to try to avoid having a gay son by a surrogate pregnancy. There may be other individualized instances of parents trying to ensure heterosexual children before birth. But the use of prenatal dexamethasone treatments for CAH represents, to our knowledge, the first systematic medical effort attached to a “paradigm” of attempting in utero to reduce rates of homosexuality, bisexuality, and “low maternal interest.”

So no more Elena Kagans, no more Donna Shalalas, no more Martina Navratilovas, no more k.d. langs, no more Constance McMillens—because all women must grow up to suck dick, crank out babies, and do women’s work. And the existence of adult women who are not interested in “becoming someone’s wife” and “making babies” constitutes a medical emergency that requires us to treat women who are currently pregnant with a dangerous experimental hormone. Otherwise their daughters might grow up to, um, be nominated to sit on the Supreme Court, serve as cabinet secretaries, take 18 Grand Slam singles titles, win Grammies, and take their girlfriends to prom.

And we can’t have that.

Two things: Gay people have been stressing out about the day arriving when scientists developed treatments to prevent homosexuality. The preventing gay sheep freak out is here, Twilight of the Golds is here, and I recall—but can’t quickly find a link for—a “fellow” at the Family Research Council or the American Family Association who backed in-utero hormone treatments to prevent homosexuality. Well, here we are—the day appears to have arrived. Now what are we going to do about it?

And will the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee invite Maria New to testify at Elana Kagan’s confirmation hearings? New could argue that Kagan—childless, unmarried Kagan—is unfit to serve on our highest court because her “low maternal interest” pegs her as abnormal, well outside the “maternal mainstream.” Maybe GOP senators would be mollified if Kagan knocked back a few bottles of dex during her confirmation hearings?

UPDATE: A little more about dex from Alice Dreger:

The specific drug we’re talking about, dexamethasone, is not a benign drug for pregnant women, nor for the children exposed in utero. The studies we do have on the early prenatal use of “dex” are worrisome. The number of women and children missing from the follow-up studies of this drug use is more worrisome still.

This drug is unequivocally experimental and risky. That’s why, back in February, I organized interested members of the Bioethics community to fight to make sure every woman offered dex for CAH knows the truth about its experimental and risky nature. (You can read about our efforts in Time magazine. And you can about the medical establishment’s resultant mad scampering to make sure everyone knows this is experimental here.) Make no mistake: In spite of Dr. Maria New’s outrageous FDA-regulation-flaunting claims that this off-label drug use “has been found safe for mother and child,” it ain’t been. New is a rogue pediatrician whom medical societies have been nudging (and sometimes yelling at) for years. Because she apparently wouldn’t stop experimenting on these women and children without ethics oversight, in January I got called in to help by a few freaked-out clinicians. And I called in my colleagues to call out the feds. New just looks and sounds safe for mothers and children. Which is why she’s really dangerous.

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222 replies on “Doctor Treating Pregnant Women With Experimental Drug To Prevent Lesbianism”

  2. This research does nothing to increase the incidence of so-called lipstick lesbianisms! That’s the outrageous part you fail to mention.

  4. Wow they have a cure for women thinking for themselves? How are we going to continue the patriarchy if we DON’T put this in tap water.

  5. The motivation seems appalling, but the science is interesting. Makes me wonder if they can do the opposite if, say, you wanted a softball champ.

  7. There’s an upside to this: if what they say is true, and is proven true, then at least the “homosexuality is a choice” argument will be scientifically destroyed.

  10. Dr. Maria New’s credentials need to be pulled and they need to be pulled right now! She is the abomination and what happened to not messing with God’s will? MF hypocrites.

  12. @7: This is the catch-22 of that debate. If homosexuality is a choice, then it’s a sin and we can just make laws to oppress them. If people are born that way, then there must be a ‘cure’ we can find. Either way, the LGBT community loses.

    This is why I hope they never find a “gay gene”.

  13. Who the hell has ever had “daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood?” I can understand a be-corseted spinster in the 1890s fantasizing about motherhood, but what kind of little girl obsesses over being pregnant?

  14. becky: I never did, but there do seem to be lots of little girls who like playing with baby dolls and pushing them around in strollers and pretending to change them and shit like that. I (in spite of my fully XX anatomy) am just abnormal, I guess. GIMME THE DEX!

  15. Isn’t Dr. Maria New’s occupation just a bit too masculine? Why isn’t she home popping out babies instead of all this doctor scientist stuff? Give that doctor some of that there CAH.

  16. But shouldn’t what she does with her body be a woman’s choice? A very private choice made in confidence with her physician?

  17. you know, there was one thing keeping me from being all depressed while reading ‘The handmaid’s tale.’ The belief that people who think they know what women should do and want to do, and know that better than the individuals who make up the cohort ‘women,’ didn’t exist outside a few non-influential fundamentalist sects. Now I’m not sure I can finish the book…

  18. the extended application of this science to all women in general sounds totally terrible, but in case peeps aren’t familiar with CAH it’s a pretty serious condition with some pretty serious health complications. So while it sounds like this researcher has gone off the deep end, combating severe CAH in women with some form of treatment is a good idea.

    Check it out here at NIH:
    http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/C…

  19. To what degree do we embrace science as truth, and to what degree reject it? Do these decisions change when we don’t agree with the results?

    Also, if a trait like homosexuality were found to originate in the genes somewhere, whether this is viewed as an ‘aberration’ or a neutral mutation of the sort that happens all the time is a value judgement, and we’re back where we started anyway. Those of you screaming to yank this doctor’s PhD because she’s taking her research somewhere you dislike, be careful lest you become the same self-righteous demagogues you’re fighting.

  21. “You know, when the babies who have been treated with dex prenatally get to an age in which they are sexually active, I’ll be able to answer that question.”

    This sounds like the ethics of Dr. Moreau.

  24. Women’s sexuality has always been something that doctors need to fix medically when it goes awry, hasn’t it? I mean, if the technology exists to make women into baby-making sex robots, why wouldn’t you want to? That’s what they’re for! Amirite?

  26. I guess it’s not the motherhood thing that bothers me, but the whole fantasizing about actually being pregnant part. Kids play with dolls, that’s cool; however, everyone I’ve ever met has been freaked out by those “pretend pregnancy” forms for little girls – you know, the reverse backpack style fake tummy that turns into a doll. Whatevs, the story is creepy and horrible enough, that was just a creep-plus detail.

  28. This shit is wrong on so many levels and must be stopped. I have a question for the slog mind, however. What if it were shown conclusively that prenatal exposure to an environmental contaminant caused increases in the rates of CAH and ambiguous gender development among fetuses, but it caused no other adverse effects? Would it be unethical to demand the banning of the contaminant? Would people with CAH or ambiguous gender view this as an act of discrimination against them?

  29. @24 You forgot cooking and cleaning, Fnarf. We need *something* to do after we’ve exhausted our husbands and put the baby down for a nap…. 🙂

  30. @29, if there was a hormonal or chemical or even surgical treatment that made women not want to post comments on the internet, would it be ethical to use it? What if it was clinically proven to made women want to fuck or clean? These are the questions that science must answer, for we mere day-to-day humans, even though we may have come into contact with these unfathomable women ourselves, can’t possibly answer them.

    I do hope I’ve got this sarcasm thingie turned on here.

  31. I might be mollified if the sub-rosa Faggoty Randys among the GOP knock back a few cases of testosterone to see if their balls will grow big enough to out themselves (their gay selves, not their newly enlarged testicles).

  32. No one’s brought up eugenics yet?

    If we can “cure” gays of their “disease” then maybe we can also cure blacks and other “inferior” races of their “disease?”

    Hell, we could use science to create an entire race of fair-skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed, obedient Nazis… er, perfect people.

  33. This is why I could never support abortion or euthanasia. These issues have NOTHING to do with being gay, and “cross-pollination” with other groups supporting other liberal policies has not worked well in getting us what we need.

    Maybe I’m not expressing myself well, but this is why I would never be a part of Planned Parenthood similar groups.

  34. @30 Unless, of course, they were describing your awesomeness, Fnarf, dear, then female commenting should definitely be turned on…! Hmmmm, cleaning AND fucking? Isn’t that what Vodka Red Bulls are for? Remember Norma Rae? “Just bend me over the ironing board, honey, while I finish this crease…” This also reminds me of the guy who wrote to Dear Abby years ago, asking if he could get some very low-voltage shockers installed on his wife’s side of the mattress, as she was having difficulty waking up early enough to fix him a proper breakfast before he headed off to work… If you find, however, a pill that would make my husband notice the skid-mark underwear that accumulates on his side of the bed, please send it to me post-haste. Gracias.

  35. Well, maybe if they have found a drug to prevent lesbianism, that someone should be working on the reverse. I am sure many straight and gay couples would be ecstatic to have the ability to ensure their child is gay. A straight girlfriend of mine has dreams of having babies – gay babies. True story.

  37. I think it’s only fair Maria New gulp down some Dex so she can be cured of her career in medicine. Only men should be doctors. Women shouldn’t be worrying their pretty little heads with science. Every day that woman is in the lab is a day she’s not cooking, cleaning, or breeding babies.

    p.s. The only people who’d be crazy enough to take this shit to “un-gay” their kid are Phelps Family nut-bag, bigots and maybe it would be best if loony toons like that didn’t have gay children.

  38. I don’t know how any pregnant woman could foolishly offer her womb up to the hands of science and risk permanently damaging her child. I pity the innocent.

  39. I thought, according to the “moral majority” that being gay was a “choice” made by deviants? Isn’t she disproving that? And by “masculinizing” of a female fetus’s genitals… is she freaked out by women with large clitoris’? sad… cause that’s kinda hot!

  40. anyone else sensing an action movie here? at a lesbian wedding, “speak now or forever hold your peace”–a man runs down the aisle and injects a woman, who recoils in horror from her unnatural partner and begins kissing the injecter. a mother runs, in slow motion, towards the hospital with her young daughter, but trips and falls. The toddler plays with a hot wheels toy and must be abandoned. It is too late for her! America demands that the woman have a new, more heterosexual baby! America, where men are men and women do not play with G.I. Joes!

  41. Ironic that Dan fell for Dreger’s defense of J. Michael Bailey in a previous post, when Bailey has written and given talks favoring this exact practice.

    Or did you really think they’d be sated just bashing the trannies, Dan?

  43. @39: At a guess, people may feel threatened by large clitorises because then men would be even more expected to be able to find it.

  44. Par for the course for Intersexed kids. But it’s not just those who could suffer.

    “There is evidence from animal studies that prenatal dex treatment leads to neurotoxicity – brain cell death. Studies of children exposed to prenatal dexamethasone in utero also indicate plenty of reason for concern. Evidence from human studies indicates an increased risk to the children of problems with working memory, speech processing, and anxiety.

    Because the steroid is given before the sex of the fetus can be known, and because only some of the fetuses will have CAH, 87.5 percent of the pregnant women started on dexamethasone for this use are not even carrying an affected child. (In fact, half of the fetuses started on the treatment will be males.) They will not receive the treatment past the point at which their fetuses’ sex and CAH-status are accurately diagnosed; nonetheless, for a period of fetal development (including, obviously, brain development), almost 90 percent of those fetuses are being given a steroid that might harm them and can do them no good whatsoever.

    Read more: http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethi…

  45. I read this already. Instead of being frightened and depressed about what people think they can do to children in the name of “normalcy,” I choose to think about it this way: My momma managed to crank out a straight girl without CAH who has no interest in getting married or having children. So, EPIC WIN in the battle of me vs. the medical establishment! I’m going to donate my eggs to gay and lesbian couples in the hopes that they’ll turn out more little girls that buck the “maternal” trend.
    That is, of course, until they decide that all female babies should be treated with dex.

  46. What about us masculine gay guys? I mean I keep hearing all this talking about preventing men from becoming effeminate and acting girlish as boys (well I read it from crazy right wing Christian fundamentalists and see it in television broadcasts from 4 and 5 decades ago). But some of us boys grow up masculine. We don’t talk with lisps, we don’t swivel our hips, we don’t wear dresses, we play high school sports, some of us even enjoy becoming couch potato sports fans……..we just happen to be gay and proud. What about us? Well okay, I’m probably not as masculine as I claim….I admit that sometimes when no one is around and the shutters are closed, I’ll dance (badly) to 70’s disco and/or Cher.

    But even if you could come up with a drug to remove those attributes, how would that change the fact that I am physically attracted to men and not to women and always have been? I’d ask the same of removing the masculine features of women.

  47. Deplorable. But at least it shoots to hell the argument that orientation is a choice. If they need to “correct” a fetus, then they’ve admitted it’s something your born with. That’s half the battle. Until we can isolate and correct the “willfully ignorant” gene homophobes are born with, the other half might last a while.

  49. I was super “girly” as a child (I played with dolls, wore skirts, adored pink, etc.), and I’ve turned out to be a baby-hating, women-loving (although I’m bisexual, so I still love men), scientist-in-training lady here.

  50. My mother’s doctor gave me catnip at birth and now I love to play with yarn and cannot wait to start knitting… One friend said, “My mother made me a homosexual”.. I told him I’d make him one, too… It’s not working Dr. Mengele… I suppose they could show us all $3 bills before they spank us the first time…

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