Transvestia

well hidden, don't we?) And the professional female impersonators, I soon found out, were usually either gay or TS's. I'm sure there must be a TV somewhere in that business but where is still a mystery to me.

was

College ended and the Service beckoned. After 6 months I returned to civilian life in Chicago. Meanwhile my family had sold the home in the country. P away at college now and Father and Mother each had separate apartments. I moved in with my Mother. The situation seemed right for Carol to reappear, but when I told Mother about TVism she was far from understanding. In retrospect, I probably could have presented the sub- ject better (how the Wive's book would have helped then), but basically Mother had a serious problem of her own-- her marriage--which did not facilitate her attempting to understand me. So Carol went back into her closet more or less, with the only compromise available that of wearing lingerie under my boy clothes from time to time. This saddened me, but I could live with it because of having previously achieved my own self-acceptance.

Life went on and I kept up to date on things by buying every book available on impersonation (they may be gay but they do make lovely girls, certainly worthy of emu- lation as far as physical appearance goes), and by screening other publications for stories on TVism. During this period, 1957 - 1961, Carol only went out 8 or 10 times. These were solitary excursions at nighttime- mainly walks or drives in my car. I would have gone out more, but Mom got upset whenever I shaved my legs and tweezed my eyebrows, and rather than compromise Carol's appearance by not performing these basic steps to femini- nity, I just stayed home.

Meanwhile, I rose to a managerial position in my civilian occupation with a large corporation. At the same time I had remained a member of a military reserve com ponent, and found myself spending more and more of my free time engaged in furthering my military status. I took several leaves of absence from my civilian firm in order to do this. In 1960 I received my reserve comission after attending Officer's Training in the reserve, and in 1961 applied for extended active duty in my comissioned status. My reasoning here was to see if I would enjoy

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