Eventually, Barbara found a man willing to impregnate her (but refused to reveal his identity, thereby recreating for her daughter the same mystery that surrounded Barbara's own birth). At the time of the delivery, Barbara told the nurses about her situation and they arranged for Arlene to take her place in bed and be wheeled out of the hospital with little Arlene (the child was named after her). Barbara, now impersonating a man, walked beside her and handed out cigars! All of this was confirmed by the hospital authorities and testified to how a bizarre life style may be given social support and approval by well meaning individuals (who understand little about the dynamics of female transsexualism).

With the new baby, Barbara and Arlene settled into a brief but happy period together. However, once in a drunken stupor Barbara's mother confided to Arlene the unusual circumstances surrounding Richard's birth. She admitted that she had arranged for Barbara to be raped so that her daughter, having tasted the fruits of male love, would give up being a lesbian! When Barbara heard the story she could not admit the facts into consciousness. The story, corroborated by Susan, highlights the tragic sense of the family's sadism. After a two year period of "marriage," Arlene ran off with Barbara's rival Gwen, another female to male transsexual.

The situation was bizarre, incestuous, and ludicrous. Barbara, having changed her name to Brian taking the same name as Richard's father, that is, the man who "raped" her exchanged lovers with her rival Gwen, and began living with Gwen's ex lover Alice!

Alice, an attractive, feminine woman, had a serious thought disorder, was agitated, manic, and had an affective illness (manic depressive disease was ruled out). At this time Barbara's son Richard became acutely disorganized and violent and asked to be hospitalized. One of his psychotic delusions was the fear that he was turning into a woman. Richard was eventually institutionalized for diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia and spent three years in a state hospital, after which he was discharged to his mother, who had undergone SRS and was now his "father." Barbara eventually married Alice and began living in a make believe "doll's house" type marriage, attending church, involving herself in civic affairs, and presenting herself as an earnest, responsible, lower middle class family man. Her facade, which was accepted as genuine by neighbors and employers, was transparent only to the mental health profession and the courts, who knew the real facts about this unusual couple. Indeed, it was this couple, Brian and Alice that sat outside my office. Two years later Barbara and Alice were to request artificial insemination in order to have a third child.