TOWARD UNDERSTANDING

The purpose of this column is to create a better understanding of homosexual problems through the psychiatric viewpoint.

Dear Dr. Baker,

Over a year ago I read a very interesting article in ONE where it was said that one of the causes of homosexuality is inheritance and the case history of two identical twins, separated at birth, was mentioned. Both of them had, in maturity, been found to be homosexual to the same extent. Ever since, I've been engaged in a very difficult and (unfortunately) not too scientific an investigation on this subject.

I'm one of those exceptionally lucky individuals who has found a very satisfactory lover, a job I like and which has given me a very satisfactory income and independence from both our families and society in general; and I've also had the great fortune of acquiring a large group of "gay" friends, all of them of similar backgrounds, social and economic levels. Most important of all, we are all quite well adjusted to homosexual life in Mexico where taboos are even greater than those in the States due to the fact that this is an exaggeratedly masculine society ("macho" is the real term).

I started looking around and made a very interesting discovery: ALL of the members of my group have some relative who is also a homosexual. Some have had grandfathers who practiced a certain amount of it before their marriages; most have had uncles, and there is even one whose mother lives with her friend and has done so for many years. Many have homosexual brothers or sisters.

I guess this is an exceptional group because we have had the opportunity of investigating into our family histories two or three generations back, which is only possible in a society

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BLANCHE M. BAKER, M.D., Ph.D.

like the one we have in Mexico. Here people seldom move away from their home towns more than once in their lives and family skeltons are easy to dig out of the family closet.

Now I must admit that there are a few whom I have not been able to get any information on, nor do I think I ever will, and perhaps in most of their cases there has been a suppressed homo in the family who due to social pressure never let his or her true nature come out, and who has passed his true nature on to his offspring who in the freer society of our day have been able to live a truly satisfying life.

I submit this information to you so you can let some of my fellow readers find out about themselves and maybe do some investigating along the same lines and submit it to you.

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