Dear Gentlemen:

LETTERS

An old German saying goes that "Werm im Glashaus sitzt, nicht mit Steinen werfen soll" (One who sits in a glasshouse should not throw stones).

Now, there has been much adverse comment on the Jorgensen case. As for me, it has many more implications than those which I have heard from others.

In the first place, it seems to me that a distinction must be made between transvestitism and homosexuality. To trace the origins of both of them, to establish their interrelatedness will remain subject to scientific research. The great question that remains still open is not only what can be done about it but also whether anything ought to be done about it. For the little minds the latter will always be irrelevant.

Two factors, I think, must be noted right here. The one is that many European psychiatrists believe that, notwithstanding links between the two, there are considerable differences between transvestism and homosexuality. They certainly cannot be used interchangeable as terms. Where such implication is felt to exist, I would advise not to pounce on it, prior to examination of scientific records or facts.

A second factor that needs to be mentioned is the frequency of transvestitism among mankind. A historical analysis will reveal that some forms of it can be found almost everywhere. A mild type of that desire forms the basis for all the carnival feasts in the world, such as the masquerades of the Hittite Purulli-Feast, its counterparts in the ancient world, the Purim Feast of Jewry, the Mardi-Gras of Christianity and its pagan forerunners. In some people the desire is more manifest, and as it gains in determination, becomes an attitude enveloping the total personality.

As it happened, with the ex-GI, it was serious business. He succeeded in getting what he wanted. Who is going to throw the first stone?

Maybe in a more permissive atmosphere, castration could have been avoided. I have known transvestites who have been perfectly at ease with themselves and at peace with the world, after they assumed the role they wanted. Who was hurt by it? In the case we are thinking of right now, there might have been strong compulsions. But she was under the care of four men, and under treatment for some time. Should we, of all people, sit in judgment over them? Or over their attitude, which is a combination of most humane considerations with the essence of liberalism, that of the right to self-determination? Again, who is hurt? And for those who try to tell Christine that she must now be unhappy because of all that has transpired I have the joke about the lion at hand. It's about the explorer of long experience and the young man who had never before been on an expedition. They are somewhere in the jungle when suddenly a lion appeared who naturally frightened the companion. Said the experienced leader: "You don't have to be afraid of him. Don't you know that lions never attack when they aren't hungry?" "Yes, said the other. "But does he know?"

And one word more about what it may mean to others. Transvestitism may be an escape from manhood and its obligations. It does not have to be an escape from homosexuality. Most homosexuals, I am sure, don't reject manhood, either for themselves or their partners. And not all transvestites object to the male role or the physical manifestations of maleness. There is a wealth of differentiation.

Finally, it might be unwise to point the finger and say you are not this and will never be that; you cannot have that and the other thing. After all, we who are exclusively homosexual won't be blessed with children; we will never be fathers and our old age may, after all, be an ordeal of loneliness. I propose, then, that over against all heated debates in other circles, in our groups generosity rather than envy, definite facts and not befuddled attitudes ought to hold sway.

Or Sarua

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