A Latency Girl's Struggle Towards Femininity

Gay at 7 ¹/₂ was one of the completest children, gifted in art and music, highly intelligent and functioning well at school, well liked by everyone, graceful, athletic and beautiful. Yet enigmatically she was referred by her mother because of her persistent wish to be a boy and total refusal to wear dresses which began around the age of 3 ¹/₂. She had told her mother, ‘There's something spoiling my life because I want to be a daddy when I grow up.’ Gay belongs to a typically intellectual family whose father is a surveyor, mother a graduate in Chinese. She is the third of four children, one older brother, Peter, aged 11-3 ¹/₂ years older than Gay—an older sister Jane, aged 9, and a younger sister Joanna, aged 5. Intensive treatment began when she was 8 years 3 months. After nearly two years of full analysis her sessions were reduced to twice weekly and treatment terminated four months later.

When Gay was born, her mother was disappointed. She preferred little boys and would have liked to have had a second one. However, to her own amazement she rapidly grew very fond of this loveable, cuddly baby and Gay's first three years were spent in an atmosphere of warmth and affection bestowed on her by both parents alike. During these years the family lived in Plymouth where the father was a Borough Surveyor, a job which enabled him to spend a good deal of his time at home sharing the handling and care of the children. Parental roles in this family were almost undifferentiated. In the Social History, Mrs H. remarked, ‘I remember when Gay was ten months how much she loved her father; by the time she was three she became almost over-fond of him and he did get slightly irritated by this, perhaps pushed her off a bit.’ Gay was 2 ¹/₂ when Joanna was born; this was an unwanted pregnancy. Mother reported that ‘Gay did not show much jealousy to Joanna and is rather motherly towards her.’ Soon after her third birthday the family moved to London where the father started a new job with a larg