The Transvestic Wizard

by Doris (32-G-4)

On rereading the Oz books of L. Frank Baum to my offspring recently I was struck by the crossing of the sexes which L. Frank Baum utilizes in his novels, and by the generally feminine under- tone of these delightful tales. While the biography of Mr. Baum does not show any grounds for supposing that he ever indulged in cross-dressing, one cannot mistake the thought as it appears in his famous books.

Quite aside from the fact that the major characters in these Oz books, the ones that command and live and rule, are always girls, one can spot even more astonishing sex switches in them-- the sort certainly banned in modern children's novels. Even in the original "Wizard of Oz" there is an episode in which the little wizard, a humbug from Nebraska, appears before his visitors in the guise of a beautiful woman. And in the second book, "The Land of Oz" appears the most amazing sex change in all modern children's literature. Tip, a young boy and the hero of the novel, becomes transformed, after a little persuasion by the Witch Glinda, into the beautiful young girl princess Ozma. One condit- ion Tip lays down before he agrees is that if he doesn't like it, he can change back to his male form. But once he has become a girl, he never so elects. He loves being Ozma, and as the sweet and charming fairy princess, Ozma rules Oz ever afterwards.

Can you imagine a modern children's book writer.trying to get away with that today? A little later, Baum tries the switch the other way. In a now rare novel called "The Enchanted Island of Yew" his hero is a fairy girl who elects to become a boy knight for one year--and as a gentle girlish boy in armor triumphs over all foes--but after the year is up, unlike Tip, /Ozma, she elects to regain her feminine form permanently. (Incidentally, in this same book, appears the one true masochist of children's liter-

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