MEDICAL ROUNDUP

Men Who Want to Be Women

By Dr. Walter C. Alvarez

sexual woman into being a can have performed that will

Emeritus Consultant in Medicine, Mayo man. He couldn't do it. The

Clinic, and Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Mayo Foundation Distressed mothers write asking what to do with a boy who is constantly borrowing his sisters' clothes and putting them on. When he gets caught at it he says he won't do it again, but he, does not keep his promise.

ALVAREZ

Such a boy obviously is called a transvestite or a person with the personality of a woman and the body of a man. Often if al physician will treat such a perDR. WALTER C. son with sympathy and understanding he will learn that since childhood the fellow has wanted one thing to be a. woman. He wishes he could be operated on so as to become more like a woman. Every so often one reads in the newspapers of one of these persons; who did get operated on in Europe and assumed the name and status of a woman.

An excellent book describing the problems of such a person was written recently by someone who for the first part of his life was known as Robert Cowell. He was an aviator and, a racing car driver but he was always rather feminine in appearance, and in restaurants people stared at him and wondered if perhaps he was woman dressed in man's clothing. Yet he married and had children.

Finds Peaco

a

Eventually he got operated on and officially became a woman named Roberta Cowell. She wrote a most informative book called "Roberta Cowell's Story" (British Book Center, New York). A while ago she wrote me to say that she now feels greatly relieved to have made the change; at last she has achieved mental peace.

Parents need not worry about a transvestite. Transvestites are rarely aggressive| and are not likely to bother other boys or men.

I doubt if psychiatric treatment can do much good. I often say a psychiatrist might just as well try to talk a normal heterosexual man into being a woman or a normal hetero-|

person not only could not change, but would not want to. It is very unfortunate that most people in this world look upon these unhappy and unfortunate mixed-up people with dislike and even hatred, and have a desire to persecute or jail them. Actually, but for the grace of God, any one of us might be in the same boat. These poor people have been terribly gypped by nature.

Some Get By

People should remember that, besides the mixups, there are all grades of sexuality in both men and women. Many partial homosexuals are able to marry and have children. They get by. Others are so decidedly homosexual that they cannot stand marriage. Some try it but soon have to give up.

Men write to ask if there is any medicine they can take to make them normal sexually. I know of none. Some men ask if there is any operation they

make them normally heterosexual, but I know of none. The main trouble with a sexually mixed-up person seems to be up in his brain.

During the last several years I have been asking homosexual persons about their ancestry and so far I have always got a story of one or more near relatives who were a bit psychotic or alcoholic or epileptic. Occasionally I have found others in the family who were homosexual or what I called asexual. They were persons who seemed uninterested in either men or women and who usually never married.

Some writers say that homosexualism is not inherited. I suppose they mean "not inas homosexualism.” herited What I fear is that they failed to note that it is commonly inherited as a variant of phychosis.

Dr. Alvarez cannot answer re-

quests for information or to attempt to diagnose by mail.