Correlation between ring finger length and sexual preference

Question

Is there any truth to the claim that people who have ring fingers that are longer than their index fingers are attracted to the opposite sex?

In other words, in the picture below, the hand on the left belongs to a heterosexual person, while the hand on the right belongs to a homosexual person

enter image description here

As in, _always_? I assume the claim allows for some flexibility in identification. If not, I provide a counter-example to the claim and we can debunk it with a picture. — MrHen, Jun 07 '11 at 00:03
Hmm... I would think that the claim would be valid for the majority of people; every rule has an exception :) — Gustavo Mori, Jun 07 '11 at 00:25
@MrHen - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence! Just kidding. By the way, @Gustavo you do seem to need a qualifier in that claim as @MrHen suggests, such as 'always', 'sometimes', 'never'. It's trivially true as the question now stands as some people meeting that criterion are attracted to the opposite sex. — , Jun 07 '11 at 01:09
@Gustavo Mori: ...including the rule that _every rule has an exception_. ;-P — Randolf Richardson, Jun 07 '11 at 01:55
+1 to MrHen. According to that claim I'd have to be in "the other camp" from where I actually am. — jwenting, Jun 07 '11 at 05:42
I'm also an exception, apparently, but we don't have all the puzzle pieces. If F = index longer than ring finger and H = homosexual, then P(F|H) (probability that homosexuality implies one also has a longer index finger) can be high even though P(H|F) (probability that a longer index finger implies homosexuality) is low. A high % of homosexuals might fit the "finger rule," but without knowing the general distribution of the "finger rule" among heterosexuals, we can't say much else. — Hendy, Jun 07 '11 at 22:28
I just noticed something! If I hold my hand toward myself to simulate the pictures above, my index finger is distinctively longer than the ring. If I hold my hand with the back facing me, palm extended, the finger difference is either negligible, or slightly favoring my *ring finger* as being longer. So... it might depend on how you hold your hand! — Hendy, Jun 10 '11 at 20:10
So, if you have one hand with bigger index and other one with bigger ring finger, you're bi. :P — cregox, Jul 28 '11 at 17:53

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

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As an example, see this study:

http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/readings/homofinger/homo_finger.html

Finger-length ratios and sexual orientation (Department of Psychology and Graduate Groups Neuroscience, Endocrinology, UCB)

Our results suggest that events before birth (or even before conception in the case of older brothers) influence human sexual orientation. The masculinized right-hand 2D:4D ratio in homosexual women may reflect fetal androgen levels that are slightly higher than in heterosexual women. Homosexual men without older brothers have 2D:4D ratios indistinguishable from heterosexual eldest sons, indicating that factors other than fetal androgen (such as genetic influences[8], [9]) also contribute to sexual orientation. Finger measures indicate that men with more elder brothers, including those men who develop a homosexual orientation, might be exposed to greater than normal levels of prenatal androgen.

.8. Bailey, J. M. & Pillard, R. C. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 48, 1089-1096 (1991). Links

.9. Hamer, D. D., Hu, S., Magnuson, V. L., Hu, N. & Pattatucci, A. M. L. Science 261, 321-327 (1993). Links

A more layman's summary of the same study from BBC:

Scientists from California found that lesbian women have a greater difference in length between their ring finger and index finger than straight women do.

The same pattern was also found for homosexual men - but only when the researchers looked at those males that had several older brothers.

Please note that the study did not indicate direct causality, merely correlation, though it did propose a theory deriving the higher likelyhood of both traits (finger length ration and homosexuality) from the same underlying cause - fetal androgens.

edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

Community

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answered Jun 07 '11 at 01:19

user5341

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@DVK unrelated, but I have a friend who has a deliberately awful metal band (think spinal Tap) and is looking for a name, I'm going to suggest they use homofinger/homo_finger. – Monkey Tuesday Jun 07 '11 at 05:21
Awesome DVK! This is exactly the type of correlation studies that I was looking for! – Gustavo Mori Jun 07 '11 at 05:34
wow, so they claim that it's determined before your parents even had sex whether their children (who may or may not ever be born) will be homosexuals or not. Now that's an extraordinary claim with no evidence, only conjecture. – jwenting Jun 07 '11 at 05:43
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@jwenting it's not necessarily extraordinary, it's epigenetics, which, last time I checked is still listed in the dictionary quite snugly between conjecture and evidence:) – Monkey Tuesday Jun 07 '11 at 06:27
not quite. He seems to claim that just because your brother is a homosexual, that somehow changes the hormonal balance in your parents so you will become one too. And that that brother is a homosexual because of the length of one of his fingers... – jwenting Jun 07 '11 at 07:58
@jwenting: did you go read the link? Having more older brothers, period, increases the likelihood of a male being homosexual. The finger length difference doesn't *cause* homosexuality, it's merely an outward sign that we have discovered *correlates* with those who are, indeed, homosexual. This strikes me as a simple application of statistics, not extraordinary claims/no evidence -- higher numbers of older brothers correlates with homosexual younger siblings. Therefore, yes, before you're even conceived, if you have many older brothers, your prior probability of being homosexual is higher. – Hendy Jun 07 '11 at 17:03
the entire question was about causality. It's well known that growing up in a homosexual environment increases your chances of becoming one yourself. The length of your fingers is totally unrelated to that, the question was whether it is related. Your "report" claims it is so related, that longer fingers are a symptom of homosexuality, rather than a statistical fluke used in order to "show" that homosexuality is genetically defined rather than a social phenomenon. – jwenting Jun 08 '11 at 05:25
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"It's well known that growing up in a homosexual environment increases your chances of becoming one yourself." Eh, what? Got a reference for that? The nearest I can find, from Abigail Garner's *Families Like Mine*, is that you might be more likely to experiment, and more likely to reject labels altogether. – TRiG Jul 26 '11 at 23:55
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'the entire question was about causality.' Well, the title certainly wasn't, just to begin with. 'Your "report" claims [...] that longer fingers are a symptom of homosexuality.' No, it doesn't. But its a nice trick to put report in scare-quotes to cast doubt on it being legitimate. Of course, it was only published in Nature, so it was probably just a slap dash bit of research... – Oddthinking Jul 29 '11 at 12:39
[Found the following](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6285233/amp/Length-ring-index-fingers-reveal-sexuality.html) and thought to ask, but since it's already here, does this article contain anything that would change your answer? – Oct 19 '18 at 02:33

Correlation between ring finger length and sexual preference

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