TOWARD UNDERSTANDING

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

Dear Dr. Baker:

I have been wanting to write to someone for a long time. I think I have a problem; I am trying to find out what I am.

I read your July column and also August and found them interesting. In the August issue page 21 Dr. Hooker said, "God forbid that any boy should grow up to be a homosexual." I think that was unfair. If I am or were a real homosexual, I'd be as proud of it as I am my name.

As a boy I can't recall ever having had anything to do with boys until about 1944 or 1945 when my family moved to a better side of town. At that time I was about fourteen and had to make all new friends: I had good clean fun with boys and girls and only had sex with girls. A boy who lived across the street from me was also in my room at school, and I protected him when the children picked on him and called him "faggot boy." Somehow we became close friends and did our homework together over at his house in his room. Gradually we started to hug and kiss and I enjoyed it more than I had with the girls. He wanted to teach me how to have sex with him but I always said no. We did, however, masturbate each other when we kissed too much, but I only had sex with girls. This went on for five years.

In 1950 I joined the paratroopers and became "all man." I met a few homosexuals in the service but never had anything to do with them. In 1951 the girl I was going with got pregnant; I wanted to marry her but she refused. She said she could not marry me because I often acted more like a girl than she did. The next

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

year I got married to a girl I felt I loved but came to hate. In 1957 I met a nice girl who was just what a man needed. I even planned to get a divorce and marry her because we had been living together commonlaw for one year. No one said anything about my having extra-long fingernails or wearing tight clothes or taking every Friday night as my "night out." One Friday night in January, 1958, I went into a bar I had never been in before. It turned out to be gay. As I turned to leave, I came face to face with the first earth angel I'd ever met. Oh! yes, it was a "queen." No one had to tell me I loved her. I took her home with me and confessed to my girl-friend. She was very understanding and moved out and my queen moved in. Words