(A4a2b) lesbianism

As of this date, 06-05-20, this folder contains 3 items. ******* item 1 FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY (Book Review by Homosexuals Anonymous) ******* item 2 ADULT CHILD SPEAKS ABOUT HER SAME-SEX PARENTS ******* item 3 LESBIAN COUPLE FOUND GUILTY OF BOY'S MURDER ************************************************************************************************************** ******* item 1 FEMALE HOMOSEXUALITY (Book Review by Homosexuals Anonymous)******* From: "PFOX" ******* Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 23:31:30 +0000 ******* Female Homosexuality: Choice Without Volition by Dr. Elaine V. Siegel ******* While some still try to maintain that men and women who struggle with homosexuality cannot change, a number of dedicated, open-minded, and courageous mental health professionals are finding otherwise. Consider the following: ******* Dr. Elaine V. Siegel received her Ph.D. from the Union Graduate School in Cincinnati, Ohio, and served as the Faculty Supervisor and Training Analyst at the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training. ******* Dr. Siegel worked with twelve women who were referred to her for help with emotional difficulties. "...All these women saw themselves as homosexual, strove for homosexual liaisons, and had homoerotic fantasies." [Female Homosexuality: Choice Without Volition - A Psychoanalytic Study, Volume 9 of the Psychoanalytic Inquire Book Series, (Hilldale, NJ: The Analytic Press, 1988, p. xii] ******* "As with any other patient, I did not set out to 'cure' them or to dissuade them from their lifestyle. Rather, I prepared myself to listen and to be emotionally available." [ibid., p xi] ******* As Dr. Siegel worked with these women, she noted, "I was struck by their common need to idealize homosexuality as better than heterosexuality and by the volatility of their suffering..." [idem.] "I came to understand their difficulties as developmental arrests that precluded heterosexual object choices. But that was after I knew them well and had concluded some of the analyses." [ibid., p. xii] ******* The process was disquieting for Dr. Siegel. "To be a liberal and liberated woman and yet to view homosexuality as the result of untoward development seemed at times a betrayal of all I then believed. But viewing my patients through the lens of psychoanalytic thinkers and clinicians soon showed me that allowing myself to be seduced into perceiving female homosexuality as a normal lifestyle would have cemented both my patients and myself into a rigid mode that precluded change of whatever nature. Thus, I kept on analyzing, always trying to open myself to the often heavy developmental needs of the women." [ibid., p. xiii] ******* Dr. Siegel found, "As conflicts were resolved and distanced from, anxiety was reduced and life became more joyful and productive for all these analysands. With the attainment of firmer inner structures, interpersonal relationships also solidified and became more permanent. Although I never interpreted homosexuality as an illness, more than half of the women became fully heterosexual. This was taken by the referral source as a 'betrayal of the sisters.' The homosexual community and networks to which... my patients belonged reacted very much like the families of disturbed children when the child, as a result of treatment, is no longer forced to express conflict for them. Even those women who at the end of their analyses remained homosexually inclined were viewed with suspicion by their former peers." [ibid., p. xii] ******* Dr. Siegel noted, "I have never met a homosexual person, either male or female, who did not appear internally driven toward homosexuality. Most often, the homosexual is egosyntonic. But so are many other symptoms. It is during analytic investigation that the patient, not the analyst, decides what is 'good' for him or her and what he or she wishes to change, what to retain. Often, as we all know, such changes are accompanied by mourning and anxiety because the symptoms appear to have served well and have become familiar accompaniments of life." [ibid., p. xiii] ******* Dr. Siegel was asked, "Of all the homosexual women you've worked with, how successful were you in helping them to acquire a heterosexual identity?" [Tom Gregory, "Interview: Elaine Siegel on Lesbianism," NARTH Bulletin, Vol. IV, No. 3, (December 1996), p. 17] She replied, "More than half. At least 70% decided to at least give heterosexuality a try. ...If you look at this from an analytic angle, some of them started to live heterosexual lives, but still had homosexual fantasies. So, to my mind, the analyses were not finished, but the women thought they were..." [idem.] ******* Dr. Elaine Siegel, Ph..D., A.D.T.R., offers the important insights of an experienced clinician and scholar who has psychoanalyzed over 40 Lesbian women. She states, "Homosexuality is not an illness, it is a developmental lag." ******* PFOX -- Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, Box 561, Fort Belvoir VA 22060, 703-360-2225, [email protected], www.pfox.org ******* To subscribe to this list, send a blank email to: [email protected] ******************************************************************************************************************* ******* item 2 ADULT CHILD SPEAKS ABOUT HER SAME-SEX PARENTS ******* From: "PFOX" ******* Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 12:26:22 +0000 ******* It was the TV pictures that first got to Bronagh Cassidy. Same-sex couples marrying in San Francisco: "They were so proud of themselves. And then they had these little children with them." Cassidy, a 27-year-old married mother of two, sighs. "Something inside of me wants to be able to help those kids, because I know they are going to have problems." ******* Sound ignorant, maybe even bigoted? This week, as the Senate is expected to begin debate on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, many voices will try to convince you that people like Cassidy are, as Cheryl Jacques, head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, put it in a recent letter, "hate-filled people who will stop at nothing to achieve their discriminatory, offensive goals." ******* But Cassidy knows better: She is one of the first generation of "gayby boom" babies, raised by two moms. Adult children of same-sex parents are rare. I recently came across Cassidy's story by accident, after she e-mailed a friend of mine who is a family scholar. ******* Back in 1976, Cassidy's mom had a religious ceremony with a woman named Pat. To make Cassidy, they did artificial insemination at home, mixing the sperm of two gay friends "to make sure nobody would ever know who the father was," says Cassidy. (That was in the days before widespread DNA testing.) The two women stayed together for 16 years, until Pat died. Three years later, Cassidy's mother married a man. ******* What was it like for Cassidy being raised by two women she called "Mom" and "My Pat"? ******* "When growing up, I always had the feeling of being something unnatural," Cassidy says. "I came out of an unnatural relationship; it was something like I shouldn't be there. On a daily basis, it was something I was conflicted with. I used to wish, honestly that Pat wasn't there." ******* Why does she oppose same-sex marriage? "It's not something that a seal of approval should be stamped on: We shouldn't say it is a great and wonderful thing and then you have all these kids who later in life will turn around and realize they've been cheated. The adults choose to have that lifestyle and then have a kid. They are fulfilling their emotional needs -- they want to have a child -- and they are not taking into account how that's going to feel to the child; there's a clear difference between having same-sex parents and a mom and a dad." ******* Sounds judgmental in print. But up close, Cassidy comes across as fiercely protective of her mom (Cassidy is a pen name she's adopted to protect her mom's privacy). Like many children of same-sex parents, she was expected to defend and protect her mothers from society's homophobia. Her own troubled feelings about her family life were clearly unacceptable to her parents. Even now, the prospect of speaking about her own experience gives her the shakes. ******* Cassidy's story is not science. It's just her own feelings. Many researchers say most kids do just fine in these alternative family forms. Cassidy doesn't buy that research, though. "I don't think a fair study could be conducted because children currently in that family wouldn't necessarily be open to speaking their true feelings about it." ******* A few years back, she watched "20/20" interviews with children like her. "They were asked questions like: 'Are you happy? Do you love your parents?' I don't think it's fair to ask them those questions. These are their parents. They aren't going to say they are suffering, because they don't want to make their parents feel bad." ******* Some people will say if Cassidy's mom and "my Pat" had been legally married, everything would have been fine. Cassidy doesn't think so. "Even if society were open to it, there's just the whole issue of your self-identity. I always had the feeling I was in a lab experiment." ******* She feels driven to do something, say something to protect other children like her. "Whenever I see it on TV, something inside of me says NO. I don't think it's fair that the kids are being put in this situation. They don't have a choice about it." ******* Do any other adult children with same-sex parents feel the same way? Will we allow any space in this intense debate between adult combatants for something as simple as one child's feelings? ******* (Readers may reach Maggie Gallagher at [email protected].) ******* COPYRIGHT 2004 MAGGIE GALLAGHER ******* PFOX -- Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, Box 561, Fort Belvoir VA 22060, 703-360-2225, [email protected], www.pfox.org ******* To subscribe to this list, send a blank email to: [email protected] ******************************************************************************************************************* ******* item 3 LESBIAN COUPLE FOUND GUILTY OF BOY'S MURDER By Baldwin Ndaba, Mail & Guardian (South Africa), 23 March 2006, http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=128&fArticleId=3171828 ******* From: Robert A. Jason ******* Johannesburg, South Africa ******* A four-year-old boy died after he was brutally assaulted when he refused to call his mother's lesbian lover "Daddy", The Star newspaper reported on Thursday. ******* Jandre's mother, Hanelie Botha (31), and her partner Engeline de Nysschen (33) appeared in the Vereeniging Regional Court on Wednesday and were found guilty of the boy's gruesome murder. ******* His father, Jan, sat in court holding the hands of his fiancée, Yolanda Deysel, and listened attentively to Magistrate Rita Willemse, who in her judgement, accepted evidence that among the reasons that led to Jandre's brutal ordeal was his refusal to call De Nysschen "Daddy", the paper said. ******* The court had heard evidence from Lydia Nkomo and her daughter Aletta Lesiba, who worked for the couple in their tuckshop, that De Nysschen had viciously assaulted Jandre while demanding that he must call her "Daddy". ******* Both testified that while Jandre was assaulted, his mother failed to intervene or protect him. Evidence showed he had sustained horrific injuries, including a fractured skull and brain damage, as well as broken legs, collarbone, hands and pelvis. ******* The court accepted the evidence of Professor Mohammed Dada, a trauma expert, who said the boy's injuries were similar to those of a person who had fallen from a double-storey building. ******* Delivering judgement, Willemse acknowledged there was no substantial evidence linking Hanelie to the assaults, but said she was equally guilty of murder for failing in her legal duty to protect her child against abuse and violation. ******* The court found she had lied to Dr Elna Gibson, one of the medical doctors who treated Jandre, by saying the boy got his injuries after he had slipped in the bath. ******* The doctors who had examined Jandre dismissed the pair's version that he had slipped in the bath. They said excessive force was required to inflict the kind of fatal injuries sustained by Jandre. ******* Convicting the two, Willemse dismissed their version and said there was substantial medical evidence before her about the nature of the injuries suffered by Jandre. ******* The case was postponed until June 26 for a pre-sentencing report. ********************************************************************************

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The following warning is a prophetic message given to me, Frank Wagner, in November of 1974. ******* LISTEN TO THE CRY OF THE ABORTED CHILDREN. THEIR CRY IS NO. THEIR CRY IS A CRY OF TERROR. HEED THEIR CRY. ******* This prophecy is now being fulfilled. ******* For details about the source, meaning and fulfillment of this prophetic message go to ******* http://ca.geocities.com/fwagner4/index.html ******* email me at *** [email protected] ***