"VIRGIN VIEWS" - by

by VIRGINIA

I shall not have much of a column this issue because so much space has been devoted to the October Gathering and because the re- printing of my speech there serves the purpose of an editorial.

I would, however, like to add a few words to what Susanna has had to say in her column. First off, I approve wholeheartedly of her term "GG" instead of "RG" and will use it hereafter. But most im- portant is her comment about the masculine talk and behaviour left- overs in the femmepersonality. I agree very strongly and thus the title of this piece...clothes do not make the girl, personality does.

Some of you have not liked the word "Femme Personator" because you were more accustomed to "transvestite", yet it is exactly in what Susanna comments about that the difference lies--it is a matter of personality. One may like femme attire and wear it well, but if he does not act the woman portrayed, that is really bring her to life to the best of his ability, he remains a man in woman's clothes, which is to say a male cross dresser. The biggest jar I had at the gathering was the realization of how few made any attempt to change their voices--not to a simpering falsetto, but merely to a slightly higher but much softer way of speaking. It is not difficult to do and makes the femmeself so much more real.

In the beginning none of us is a real femmeperson, but as we live longer and accumulate a little history of femmexperience the "girl within", as Susanna calls her begins to emerge as a personality in her own right. While she has to use her brother's physical body to move around in, there is no reason why any more of his behavior patterns and character traits than necessary should be carried over. The real strength and beauty of Femme Personation lies in the ability of the individual to open the door to a new attitude toward life, to express another part of the totality of human experience, to feel a distinct difference between the femmeself and the everyday man-at-work self. This cannot very well be done if the femmeself is going to talk with his voice, walk with his gait, smoke his cigars, and argue in his ways about things interesting to him. This is a transvestite only... a cross dressed male, not a new feminine personality

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VIRGINIA