the individual involved. He added that in his work at the hospital he dealt mostly with psychotic patients, people who had broken with reality. At the hospital, he and co-workers attempted to reduce the patients' anxiety.and to find out what fear or fears lay behind their anxiety. Among the many loarned fears that can drive a person to the psychotic stage, Dr. Bossent listed the fear of homosexual tendencies. This, howevor, he emphasized, is a learned or cultural fear, instilled into the person, usually before the age of reason. The audience applauded Dr. Bessent. Mr. Julber requested that thero be no more applause until the panel was ovor.
Dr. Blanche Baker said that her interest and concern with homosexuality had begun at an early age whon much to her horror and surprise a female schoolmato foll in love with her. She said that fortunately she had an understanding father who gave her access to books on the subject so that she acquired enough of a learned viewpoint on the subject not to be orucl to her friend whom she did not understand. She said that her roading gave her the viewpoint that homosexuality was a mental illness, but that after yoars of psychiatric work and experience with both heterosexual and homosexual people she had come to entirely discard the concept of mental illness necessarily relating to homosexuality.
She said she felt that understanding homosexuality was the great problem of this civilization. She said everyone was a blend of masculine and feminine qualities; that the dangerous and common misconception that "men are men and women are women #1 was sinply not true. She was greatly concerned over the "creative expression which hides behind a mask.... unused...unfulfilled." Because of this deep concern she has lent her support to the organizations ONE, Mattachine, and DOB whenever possible.
Those who felt homosexuality was a "crime against nature" simply did not know nature, she contended. "The animals do everything people do in the semal realm. The problems of the homophile are simply
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