Post 23

        Keep always in mind the picture shown in Post 15. Male children begin bonding with their fathers early on, and that rewarding togetherness is the bridge where the sense of self-as-male is internalized.

          The exclusive maternal nurture  which Claude Hartland required, precluded his being close with his father. This almost exclusive contact with his mother and sisters resulted in his internalizing a female psyche. He learned to think and act as females and saw nothing amiss about valuing and participating in their interests and activities.

                    He wrote, “The first day in school brought me to realize how different I was from other boys of my age. My brothers got along fairly well, but I was miserable. I longed to be back among my dolls …. I was shocked rather than amused at their noisy sports and refused to join them. I was laughed at, called a girl-boy and I was only too glad when the teacher called us in.”

   Hartland was physically male, but psychologically female. The developmental timeframe wherein he was to become male through oneness with his father and subsequently with male peers was missed and misdirected. Thus, his brain and being functioned like that of females. The imbalance of parental influence was severe: too much maternal and too little paternal.