Your Personal Space

by Douglas J. Moore, Ph.D

clinical

lar situations. If you need I will be writing a regular specific advice or counseling, mental health column for the Gay please indicate that in your People's CHRONICLE. I am a letters, and I will try to refer psychologist in a priyou to someone who can help. vate practice which Second, provides this column will provide therapy for women and men with a a forum for readers to express broad range of concerns and their views on mental health circumstances. In addition, I issues and how they have coped teach, consult, and do research with them. Third, it will exat several institutions in Cleveplore mental health topics which land. suitable particularly prevalent to people who are gay, and report on current psychological news of general interest.

This column will use several different formats to focus on mental health issues. First, it will provide an opportunity for readers to submit questions for which they would like some infor-mation. Though I will not be providing individual personal advice, I will discuss issues

to the question and how others may have coped with simi-

I encourage readers to send questions, accounts of personal experiences and opinions. In addition, I welcome input from persons who are not gay. Friends, co-workers and family members also need a forum where they can exchange their views on mental

DEFINITIONS: Woman/Man

By Janice T.

Most people know what the words Woman and Man mean. When you ask for a definition of womari and/or man you find how wideand vague

ranging, incomplete,

these words are.

What do the words womar man mean?

arid

Woman and Man can be defined in a clinical sense. They can be defined in terms of historical documents, or in terms of what a person considers themselves to be. Unfortunately, even some of our most common sources for definitions are not helpful.

Why should I care about these definitions?

The definitions of these words serve as tools to limit

HAVE A Problem? NEED TO Talk? LAKE GEAUGA GAY Social Advocate taskforce Can Help Call-357-1199 AOL Support Grap

two us

and divide us. A man and woman can marry, but not two women or two men. Women and men are limited on the job and elsewhere. Clinically, a woman is a person who gestates, lactates, and menstrates. A man is a person who impregnates. That covers a good number of the population but it is not complete. It does not cover older "women" or preadolescents. It does not cover people who are incapable of participating in the child making process because they are not equipped to do so. Or those who are dually equipped, or illformed.

Historically, we have been defined as women and men, or more precisely female and male on our birth certificates. Afterwords our families "socialize" us into womanhood or manhood using more ar less strict guidelines guidelines which are supposed to

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health

issues pertinent to and lesbians.

gays

November and December can be difficult months because of the

holidays. Some of the

may include:

*Increased

reasons

pressure to

drink

or take drugs.

*Loneliness.

*Confusion as to how to divide

time between your

family

up and your lover's family. *Wanting to be with your lover alone vs. with the family. *Pressure from not being out

to the family.

*Initiation of old

family

roles you have tried to change.

Next month I will describe some of the ways people have coped with the above problems. Please send suggestions that have worked for you.

be understood by all. Using the birth certificate, all people are defined male or female (except those who lack the paperwork or whose paperwork was improperly prepared).

Most of the time people become a woman or a man because that is what they are taught. Girls are given dolls and boys are given trucks and toy guns.

Ironically, few if any legal challenges to these definitions exist. Or maybe you can't challenge something that has been defined by legislation. We do know, however, that there are somethings that a females (or males) can not do legally.

Even lexicographers (people who write dictionaries) have trouble defining the words. Go ahead and examine your favorite. You'll probably a definition that uses another form of the root word in its definition. A bookshop owner and I chased definitions for quite sometime before

made the circle back to the original words.

Perhaps the best

definitions

are from the person themselves. Accepting a persons definition of his or herself leads to the best understanding of that person.

So, what do the words and man mean?

woman

November 1987

The CHRONICLE