Dear Ann Landers,
live with another woman who has a young fe-male child. Yes, we are lesbians and I am not ashamed of it I am very fond of the little girl and consider myself very nearly a parent because of my relationship with her mother. What I need to know is what I should call this child when I refer to her in conversations? I don't like to say, "She is the daughter of my room-mate," because she is much more than that. I am proud of the fact that she is the daughter of the woman I love and is as dear to me as if she were my own child. Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated. NO CLOSETS FOR US

DEAR NO CLOSETS,
The question you should be asking yourself is why do you feel the need to hit people over the head with the fact that you are in-volved in a lesbian relationship? It seems to me this is a personal matter. In fact, I can think of no matter that is more personal. Since you feel compelled to cut the world in on your sexual preference, you could refer to the child as "the daughter of my female lover with whom I am living." If it's popped eye-balls you're after, you'll get them. Homosexuality {Another View) Contrary to what the leadership of the gay liberation movement and misin-formed professionals would have one believe, homosexuality is an unnatural condition, the outward evidence of a psychological disturbance. Homosexuality is rarely due to biological factors within genes, chromosomes or hormones. It is wrong to compare homosexuality with left-handedness or right-handed-ness, for to do so is to imply that people are bom with the homo-sexual tendency. They are not. People do not choose to become homosexual. 666 THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA They may thinlc they are making a free choice to be homosexual, but they are driven to this form of interpersonal behavior by forces within the uncon-scious region of their mind. It is completely incorrect to refer to this condi-tion as a sexual preference, thereby implying free choice. The causes of homosexuality can be readily discovered by looking in two places. One leads to an inspection of the personalities of the homosexual's parents and the nature of the family interactions and patterns during the early years of the homosexual's life. The other area for inspection is into the un-conscious regions of the homosexual's mind. The findings in both areas are consistent with each other and irrefutably establish a purely psychological basis for the condition. Nature provides each person with enormous potentialities which the envi-ronment releases and develops. It is part of Nature's plan for the opposite sexes to mate. The kind of mothering a child receives awakens his or her ca-pacity to experience intimacy with another human being. Good mothering creates courage, the capacity to trust and the capacity to experience intimacy. These fundamental human qualities make possible the further psychological development of sexual identity and the capacity to experience sexual arousal toward persons of the opposite sex. Fathers play a necessary role in this process. The child is thereby prepared to enter into a heterosexual rela-tionship later on in life. Mothers of homosexuals fail to provide the quality of mothering which fills the child with a sense of courage, self-confidence, security and an ability to experience intimacy. These women who are not fully prepared for mothering may show some or all of a variety of personality characteristics towards their infants and small children. They are one or more of the following: domi-neering, aggressive and even masculinized, or infantile and ineffectual. In short, they are lacking in what can be defined as mature femininity. As a con-sequence they tend to be overly possessive, even clinging, or rejecting and hostile, often volatile and unstable. These qualities instill great fear in the heart of an infant and child, the very last kind of feelings a child requires in order to proceed further with personality development. The fathers of homosexuals are often physically absent, more often they are emotionally remote, and they are usually dominated by their wives be-cause of their own passivity and weakness of masculine qualities. Such fa-thers tend to be openly or secretly hostile and rejecting towards their sons from early life on, and overly close and even seductive towards their daugh-ters. The relationship between the parents of the child who eventually becomes THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA 667 homosexual is far from perfect. They are frequently distant and/or openly hostile toward each other. The wives tend to demean their weak and ineffec-tual husbands. The emotional distance between them tends to create overt or covert alliances between mother and son and father and daughter. Under these circumstances, little girls fail to fully develop a feminine iden-tity, which will later make it impossible for them to enter into a committed, loving and sexual relationship with a man. Instead, they may remain infantile and childlike and become easy prey for an aggressive lesbian with whom they find intimacy which mimics the mother-child relationship. Sex becomes part of the relationship. Other little girls become "masculinized," a trait which im-itates the harsh, aggressive qualities of their mothers and also incorporates el-ements of their fathers' personalities, with whom, as noted above, they had developed excessively close relationships. Little boys cannot find their full masculine identity when they grow up within such family patterns and cannot enter into intimate, loving rela-tionships with women. They are too frightened to do so. They lacked the inner courage to fully develop as young males and as a consequence they lack the inner psychological conditions to be able to relate to women. In particu-lar, they have been short on good fathering. Much of the meaning of later overt homosexual behavior is a search for maleness which they expect to magically acquire from the homosexual act. Homosexuals can be successfully treated by psychological methods alone, a fact which further confirms the purely psychological basis for the condition. Parenthetically, were homosexuality a "normal" condition like left-hand-edness, it should exist in all cultures. It does not Successful treatment of homosexuals requires the removal of those unconscious conflicts (fears, guilt, confusion with regard to sexual identity, etc.) which were created by their childhood family patterns and experiences, and the stimulation of further personality development which is long overdue. Homosexuals must also be discouraged from having such relationships and must be encouraged to relate to members of the opposite sex. In order for successful treatment to occur, the treating doctor must thoroughly understand the condition, he must have mastered the required therapeutic techniques and his own personality must be mature, especially with regard to his or her own maleness or femaleness as the case may be. The personal and social consequences of defining homosexuality as merely a matter of preference are enormous. Troubled people who might otherwise seek treatment are being misled. Society is already changing its values, e.g., homosexuals wish to "marry," adopt children. Educators are misleading the 668 THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA young by defining the condition as "normal." In short, to define homosex-uality as "normal" is to assault the fundamental building block of all socie-ties, namely, the heterosexual bond and the family which springs from that bond. credit: Harold M. Voth, M.D., Psychiatrist, Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas; author of The Castrated Family, Kansas City; Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, Inc, ACCEPT ME AS I AM DEAR ANN: When I read the letter from "Why Me?" I knew I couldn't keep quiet any longer. I had to write. I, too, am a homosexual-male, 24 years old. I was in therapy for three years at my mother's insistence and am now convinced I will never be straight I'm not happy about the situation but I can handle it The problem is my family. Although my parents know, no one else does. My relatives are all ultra-conservatives -politically, socially and religion-wise. It would kill them if they knew that their brother, nephew, grandson, cousin was gay. The news nearly de-stroyed my parents six years ago and I'm not eager to put anyone else (in- cluding myself) through that hell again. I hate living a lie. I don't want to deceive some nice woman, marry her and produce children (gays can, you know) just to please my family and cover up what I really am. Unlike your other correspondent who asked "Why Me?" I am asking, "Why can't I BE me?" NEED AN ANSWER DEAR NEED: As far as I'm con-cerned you CAN. I would have no trouble accepting you as you are. The question is, do you have the courage to come out of the closet? Others have. Only you can make that decision. THE ANN LANDERS ENCYCLOPEDIA 669 Hyperactivity {How Parents Can Help) HYPER HELP