sexual personality objectively and comprehensively. I have no naive faith in present-day methods of studying personality tests, surveys, profiles, inventories, etc. They are sadly imperfect. But they are the tools now available, and they must be used. Only by studying the whole population-not just those who get to prison, or to the analyst's couch, or to the burlesque stage can we ever begin to dig out the facts.

My uneducated guess would be that a very wide range of personality traits would be found-probably as wide as among heterosexuals. So that there would turn out to be no "homosexual personality," any more than there is a "heterosexual personality." But there might be a different distribution of traits among homosexuals, and very possibly the facts might be unflattering. It would then be part of the student's job to ask "why." And of course that means considering all possible reasons-not ignoring, or sneering, at any of them. One need not reject all of psychiatric theory, but if homosexuals believe that their outcast status contributes to make them what they are, one need not automatically reject the hypothesis, just because it comes from them as too many of the doctors are doing. It is now held in the most respectable circles that the inferior performance of Negroes on intelligence tests is largely to be explained by the kind of lives they lead. Yet "scientific" circles have not taken this sort of factor seriously with regard to the homosexual's personality.

But the facts themselves have yet to be found. They are not for your guess or mine. They will be studied properly sooner or later. We must find trained people among us to begin, or else interest trained people from outside. I do not believe that heterosexuals are incapable of all objectivity about this, any more than I believe that we are incapable of it. Justitia

TOWARD

UNDERSTANDING

Blanche M. Baker, M.D., Ph.D.

THE PSYCHIATRIST WHO DARED See her, hear her, read her in your own home!

• Seventeen issues of ONE Magazine (1959-60), the complete series of her warmly human answers to letters from worried, unhappy homosexuals.

• A tape recording of Dr. Baker herself, some of her startling 1955 talk at ONE's Midwinter Institute. • The hauntingly beautiful memorial plaque created in marbleware (green-gold or ivory finish) by BOJI expressly for YOU.

"Toward Understanding," in art and sound, $50.00, California residents add 4% tax.

Items available only as a group at above price.

Social Service Division ONE, Incorporated, 2256 Venice Boulevard Los Angeles 6, California

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