FOUR YEARS

AN EDITORIAL BY VIRGINIA

Well, we ARE a big girl now. That is, today is our Birthday. Today we are FOUR years old, this being the first issue of our fifth year. To those of you who have come upon TRANSVESTIA only within the last year or so or who have bought only scattered or recent issu- es of the drama of this statement will be lost on you. But for those loyal sisters who started at or near the beginning and who "grew up" (and in many cases this can be taken almost literally in a TV sense) along with the magazine it will be understood. We have come a long way I believe. The first two issues were put to- gether somewhat out of "hunger" as the saying goes. I had only 25 paid subscriptions and had had them for sometime waiting for more replies to my original let- ter of announcement. Finally I felt I could hold this money no longer without giving something for it, so we "went to press. It was kind of a sad little journal and yet I was proud of it as it was the first real effort at a communication between TVs. There had been an abort- ive attempt four or five years before with which I had been associated and to which I had given the name TRANSVESTIA, but it was a mimographed thing, print- ed only on one side and on long paper. A good try but it didn't make it because it was not initiated on a bus- iness basis. I felt that my first edition was off to a better if a smaller start.

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From that small beginning TVia (and Chevalier Publications) has grown both in size, appearance, rep- utation and influence. What have we done in these ye- ars?

Well, primarily and most importantly,

we

have found a lot of you--we have lost some too by var- ious kinds of attrition. Some have rearranged their lives

9.