To the best of my knowledge, no evidence of "hormonal imbalances" has ever been found in homosexuals.
"Chromosones" are another way of saying genes. (To be more precise genes are contained in chromosomes). As noted above, there is certainly a genetic component to homosexuality.
By the way, I didn't mention above, that homosexuality is not considered a mental illness unless it's ego dystonic, meaning that the person is gay but cannot accept this. The pathology isn't the homosexuality, it's the inability to deal with it.
A transexual (transgender) is a person who has persistent strong cross gender identification and has persistent discomfort with their own gender. They feel for example like a man trapped in a woman's body. They occassionaly go so far as to surgically change their external body features, from man to woman for example, to match what they feel is their true gender identity. They also cross dress. It is considered one of the "gender identity disorders" and it is extremely rare. In men it occurs about 1 in 70,000 and in women about 1 in 250,000. The way the media carries on about it, you'd figure it affected one in 10. Remember thought that gender identity and homosexuality are two completely different things.
Although animal studies have shown some small change in frequency of transexualism by changing the hormonal balance of the mother during pregnancy the cause of human transexualism is unknown. It is CERTAIN however, that gender identity of the opposite sex is not chosen any more than gender identity of the same sex.
There are several classes of hermaprodites. There is the "true hermaphrodite" with one testes and one ovary and a penis and vagin. Then there is a femalepsuedohermaprhodite who has external female genitalia, but has XY (male chromosomes). She is infertile and at puberty does not menstruate. (Ovaries are not present. Malepsuedohermaphrodites have a penis, and no vagina, but XX (female) chromosomes. They lack testes, and at puberty they do not develop secondary male sex characteristics. Needless to say, hermaphroditism is entirely genetic. The newborn, does not have any say in whether his or her sex organs match their chromosomes.
Almost universally, when a hermaphrodite is born, the infant undergoes surgery to make "him" into a her. The primary reason for this is becuase it's much easier to create a functioning vagina than a functioning penis.
<img src="http://members.aol.com/rnfpantera/hking1">