The "Male Lesbian" State of Mind

      As I pointed out in chapter five, many of the love-shy men inter-
viewed for this book conveyed the impression of being male lesbians. A
male lesbian is a fully heterosexual man who often wishes that he had
been born a female. And yet if he had been born female he would still
have felt strongly attracted to women (and not to men) romantically,
esthetically, sexually, and socially. A male lesbian is a person who from
his earliest years onward had never felt any attraction towards members
of his own sex--not even for purposes of recreational play. He is a person
who had always felt rather strange, detached, and disinterested around
age-mates of his own gender, and who had always entertained the
fantasy that if he could only win acceptance from an all-girl peer group
he could feel "at home" there.
     The "male lesbian" state of consciousness may be related to inborn
temperament, and may at least partly explain why the love-shy men
tended to have become very romantically attracted to girls from an early
point in life.