Heterosexuals fall short in studies

By C. G. McDaniel

Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO Homosexuals; "far from being sick," often function better than heterosexuals; says a San Francisco psychologist.

The psychologist, Dr. Mark Freedman, adds. “I am not saying that millions of gay people in this country always function better than heterosexuals."

But he reports in the March issue of Psychology Today that a number of studies of homosexual men and women have shown that many have what psychologists regard as valuable personality traits.

The American Psychiatric Association in December 1973 removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, and the American Psychological Association took similar action in January.

Freedman cites the work of Dr. Evelyn Hooker, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who in 1957 found that homosexual and heterosexual men rated the same in terms of normal personalities.

And Freedman himself did his doctoral research in

1967 on female lesbians

homosexuals

and found that they "are no more neurotic or disturbed than heterosexual women."

He reported finding that in certain ways the lesbians actually functioned better than a comparable group of heterosexual

women.

Freedman, a staff psychologist at the Northeast Community Mental Health Center in San Francisco, was a founder of the Association of Gay Psychologists.

because

Homosexuals, of intense social pressures against them. begin very early to seek an individual identity. purpose and meaning, leading them to discover and live according to their own values, he said.

In his research. Freedman reports, he found that lesbians scored higher than heterosexual women in autonomy, spontaneity, orientation toward the present and sensitivity to their own needs and feelings.

He cited other studies that showed lesbians to be more independent, resilient, bohemian. self-sufficient, goal-directed and self-accepting.

Feelings of separateness, Freedman said, bave led some homosexuals, as well as other minorities, to oppose the values and

institutions of the dominant society.

Among homosexuals this has resulted in an increased sensitivity to the value of the individual person in our society, he said.

The psychologist said homosexual women and men are not bound by some socially defined roles that gentleness, for example, is feminine and that aggressiveness is masculine.

Many therefore have a wider range of emotional expression because they are

homosexuals

not confined by the standard roles," he said.

The social stigma which forces most homosexuals "to hide behind a mask of heterosexuality in order to survive" also may be harmful, the psychologist said.

"Social pressures can narrow and cripple a person," he said.

"I suspect, in fact, that many homosexuals end up trying to fit society's ugly image of 'the homosexual' rather than pursuing any of the positive roles and patterns I've mentioned," he added.