THE FEMININE VIEWPOINT

One fact the homosexual often overlooks in his struggle to adjust to a hostile society is that the average heterosexual is as ignorant of the nature and characteristics of homosexuals as he is of the nature and characteristics of the inhabitants of Mars. This is particularly true in the case of lesbians. An astonishing number of reasonably well-informed persons could not tell you what a lesbian is without first consulting a dictionary. And to those who do know the meaning of the word, it usually conjurs up an absurd caricature composed of bits and pieces of gossip and heresay, weird ideas gleaned from biased and misleading novels, and perhaps a furtive peek at some of the more unusual case histories in Krafft-Ebing. If asked to describe a lesbian, the average heterosexual would picture a woman who looked, acted, and probably dressed more like a man, and made a career of luring theretofore happy and contented wives away from their husbands and seducing innocent juveniles. And the tragedy of it is that it is impossible to blame the public for its ignorance, for where is it going to learn the truth? Even if the average heterosexual were interested enough to want to learn the truth (and why should he be?) there are simply no sources of accurate information available.

Knowledge gained through personal observation, always the most reliable, is not available to the general public because lesbians are not

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by and about women

allowed to live openly, as such. The mask of outward conformity they must assume to escape ostracism renders them indistinguishable from their heterosexual sisters. This unrecognizable group, to which most lesbians belong, would change the hostile public attitude to a marked degree if it were not forced to remain hidden, for it is composed of women who lead decent, useful, perfectly respectable lives which differ in no appreciable way from that of the childless heterosexual woman. They establish and maintain homes, hold responsible jobs, take part in community activities, and behave in a manner that is in no way offensive to anyone. But since they must remain unidentified in order to be allowed to continue to live decently, the public is almost totally unaware of their existence. Only the worst element among lesbians dares come out in the open and be countedthe rebels, the phonies, the embittered and cynical, the angry and hurt and hopeless—those who, usually because of unjust treatment at its hands, feel only contempt and resentment for society and all its edicts, and express it by offensive or anti-social behavior. And it is on the basis of these exceptions, because they are visible, that all lesbians are judged.

Books, generally considered a reliable source of information on any subject under the sun, are almost entirely devoid of unbiased, objective, accurate information on lesbianism in general. They deal, almost ex-

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