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Transvestia

heart, and my spirit soared as the commercial jingle goes and I've had so many wonderful things happen to me and have met so many wonderful girls that I'm be- ginning to forget how difficult it was for me to fill out that application and drop it in the mail.

No longer do I feel the loneliness and frustration that was my lot before I "joined up". On the contrary, my correspondence is getting to the point of interefering with my dressing (not really, it just seems that way). But I wouldn't have it otherwise, because there is no greater joy and satisfaction than reaching out a helping hand, if only by letter to someone who is still struggling with his fetters, and giving that vital word of hope and encouragement.

And yet I know that it can be overdone. While trying to help others, we may trip ourselves, because we tread a path that is beset by social disapproval and we are blindly beaten with the same stick which fell on Walter Jenkins. Thus, mis-placed sympathy for the plight of another may lead us into the morose instead of helping him out of it.

Often I've been impatient because I'm convinced there are thousands like me and why don't we get on with the business of finding them. Why must we be so insis- tant that those we meet must be F.P.E.s? Aren't we putting the cart before the horse? After all, one usually likes to meet the people in an organization before he joins it.

The answer, it seems to me, lies in a parallel which I find distasteful but perhaps it is apt. Like the alcoholic, we must first establish and recognize the specific problem. We must identify it definitely as transvestism, nothing else. And next, and most important, the "patient" must recognize and admit his condition and must want to be helped. I didn't say "cured" - I said helped. He must want it so sincerely and urgently that he is willing to cast his lot with us. To bare his soul and to be willing to take the risk that we will not betray his confidence.

In other words, it is a two way street and if he can- not bring himself to trust us by joining the sorority, then

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