"SUSANNA SAYS..."

One of the greatest worries that assails everyone of us is the thought that we may be thought of as "gay". We go to great lengths trying to impress upon those we happen to meet outside our little world of finery that we definitely are not what we seem to be. Some of the girls carry this fear to such extremes that after they get dressed, they act even more manly than they would do in their male clothes. No attempt is made to endow their girl-image with the ges- tures and mannerisms that are considered feminine by society. Some- how they are afraid that by acting feminine, if they ever get caught or "read", such mannerisms will have pegged them as gay. Hence we observe the rather grotesque spectacle of a man who is dressed in women clothes who is properly made up, but who stops at that point and spends all possible effort in projecting as masculine a person- ality as he can. I have come upon such cases-and like so many other facets of the transvestic world-can't find the right answer. There are only two possible explanations: one is the above mentioned fear, the other is another fear: to release the feminine part of the per- sonality and to discover that she is stronger than the masculine self. Obviously we are in the presence of a struggle prompted by a double fear: social & psychological.

It is interesting however to observe how inconsistent we can be in our behaviour. We all agree that we should do our best to draw a sharp line between the transvestic world and the gay world. We go 80 far as to suggest an entirely new set of terms to describe our- selves. And still we eagerly doll up to attend a masquerade ball knowing perfectly well that the public is well aware of one thing: that it is a "drag" ball where the "queens" go to display their fab- ulous gowns. We know this but we shut our eyes to the inescapable fact that no one soul in that affair will believe in a million years that there is a difference between us and the rest of the be-gowned and be-jewelled "boys". We have become--in the eyes of the public-- exactly what we loudly proclaim we are not. And believe me, girls I'm not trying to point an accussing finger at anybody for the sim- ple reason that I am one of the worst offenders in this category. I just love to attend these balls and when I cross the lines of cur-

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