by Virginia Joy (FE-M-1)

The Happy Beginning

I was born on a sheep-station in the Australian outback. My father was a strong, kind man, my moth- er a gentle and refined lady, and my sister and three brothers, who arrived in the years following, were all splendidly normal youngsters, Why was I so different from the others? Why was it that, as far back as I can remember, and certainly from the age of five or six, I had this intense yearning to wear feminine clothing?I was not excessively interested in clothes, and certain- ly I was not at all interested in boys' clothes. But the desire to dress as a girl burned in me then, and burns in me still.

My parents

generous, honourable and loving

people could not understand my strange longing, and who can blame them? Although somewhat sickly, thin and delicate, I had a boy's body, even if I was mental- ly very feminine as I still am. But in those days, and in that tough part of Australia, which is still a man's country, a boy who wanted to be a girl was a rare phe- nomenon indeed. Although I seized every opportunity to wear feminine clothing, these chances came seldom, and if I was caught I was subjected to ridicule which made me, blushing hotly and sick with shame, determ- ined never, never, never to do it again. But when the opportunity arose (as, for example, when my mother's nieces, my cousins, came to stay with us) I did it a- gain; it seemed right to me, even if it seemed silly to everyone else.

Until I was nine years old I strove desperately to act like a real boy, and to win the respect of my fath- er and of the many men who worked for him on the sta- tion.

The station itself (it would be called a ranch in America) was on the fringe of the desert. It was a huge property, scores · perhaps hundreds

of thousands