4. Being brought up in surroundings exclusively feminine—the father does not count in such circumstances—fosters homosexuality in the male as well as in the female, for reasons that are not sufficiently clear as yet. Moreover the _urning_ is usually an only child. 5. Finally inversion may be fostered by a sort of ‘latter-day obedience’ to the mother’s commands. I have observed not rarely that mothers warn their children against harmless, though warm and friendly contact with the other sex, as something unpermissible and bad and that the teaching thus instilled may unfortunately increase the disposition to one’s own sex through later obedience.” The first of these conclusions is a false one. The homosexual is not a victim of withdrawal from the mother, but rather of a fixation on her. But this subject will be discussed fully later. One represses no person with whom one identifies one’s self. _Identification is direct love, differentiation means repression._ Many homosexuals identify themselves with the mother—of that there can be no doubt. But that identification already implies the repression of the father-ideal. _The problem of homosexuality cannot be solved one-sidedly, and I have the records of a number of cases in which the mother plays no rôle whatever._ The only psychologic hypothesis we possess—_Sadger’s_—fails to satisfy on account of its onesidedness. It holds true of certain cases. But it neglects entirely the great significance of sadism, it overlooks the fact that the attachment to the father is more important and more deeply repressed than the love for the mother, it overlooks entirely the identification with the father and the differentiation from him and it fails altogether to explain the occurrence of later homosexuality, which is of particular interest to us (_tardive Homosexualität_). The awakening of homosexuality is ascribed to a period which varies according to the different investigators all the way from the fifth to the twentieth year, and even later. I mention here the ages shown in the first twenty of my cases taken at random. Homosexuality became manifest at 12, 10, 12, 15, 16, 22, 13, 11, 14, 8, 14, 12, 17, 17, 17, 13, 21, 15, 17, 24 (Average, 15). The ages as given are generally high,—only in one subject did the homosexual attitude become manifest as early as the eighth year. But that, certainly, is incorrect. For we know that the homosexual leaning is present already during the earliest period and positively that children’s feeling-attitude is bisexual during the first few years. The figures are significant only as showing us that “genuine homosexuality” is preceded by a lengthy period of latency. II