MEDICAL ROUNDUP

Public Needs Facts

About Homosexuals

By Dr. Walter C. Alvarez

journalist who was railroaded

Emeritus Consultant in Medicine, Maro into prison by the police.

Clinic and Emeritus Professor of Medicine,

Mayo Foundation

Every so often when people scold me for talking about homosexuality in this column. I search my soul, but always decide that I am doing the right thing because today there is such a tremendous need for more knowledge in regard to this very common mental quirk-a quirk which causes terrible unhappiness to hun-

dreds of thou-

sands of men DR. WALTER C. and women.

ALVAREZ

I just received a letter from a fine woman-a letter which cheers me because she says that a few years ago she, with her sheltered upbringing, would have been outraged at seeing in the paper an article on homosexuality. But today she thinks very differently, and she awaits with great interest every column I write on this subject.

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What has changed her is the fact that recently, when she kept asking her big handsome son why, at 30, he does not seem to be interested in getting married, he told her he couldn't marry because he is so decidedly homosexual in what little love interest he has. Naturally, this was a terrible shock to her. Ever since she has been heart-broken about it. Now she is remembering the many times she wondered about her son. Even as a little boy, he liked dolls and he preferred to play with girls rather than boys. He was gifted artistically and he much preferred painting or playing the piano to baseball. In later years, she often wondered why he always drew away from a lovely girl as soon as she showed signs of getting much interested in him.

Now, she confesses to me that she suspects that the boy's father was homosexual because he never showed her much affection; he rarely came to her bed and he quit by the time he was 40.

I am glad to hear that Peter Wildeblood's splendid book, "It's Against the Law," is now going to be re-published in this country. Everyone interested in sexual difficulties should read this moving story of a fine, sensitive and gifted