Transvestia

second divorce. She knew I was going through mental hell, and for some reason decided to be the motivator to get me back on my feet. We were engaged for more than a year, during which time I slowly began to regain my self-confidence and began to work toward getting a better job. From a $9,000 a year position to unemployment checks is a shattering experience, and she proved to be a rock to which I could cling. Some time after I met her I told her about my feminine desires.' I was still at the stage where I thought I could be "cured" and she decided that with her help I could be. How wrong we were. I know now, as I said before, that I can never change and I will never again attempt to. Unfortunately, she still thinks if I just "make up my mind" I can and of course this leads to arguments and ever worse. Had I only met Virginia and discovered T Via and FPE before this marriage! As it is, I am determined to try to make this marriage work but it is a real job since my wife thinks I decieved her by telling her I would try to give up my desires. Since I have not been able to, she regards this as reneging on my promise to try. What my wife doesn't know yet is that I was truthful at the time because at the time I thought I could, but now I am just as truth- ful when I say that I never can because now I have arrived at the correct awareness of the fact that we can never abstain

an awareness that took me a long time to reach. I believe that what is to be will be but that we can have some effect on the course of our lives. Rather like the philosophy expressed on a little card a friend of mine carries in his billfold and produces on request: "I believe in predestination, but drive carefully; you might bit a Presbyterian!" We have to try to mold our lives within the overall frame of life and within which we have some leeway.

Who is Ann today? I am my brother's sister. The development of my femme personality has come about entirely as the result of reading the philosophy of the dual personality expressed by Virginia and others in our magazine. I really regard this as the best, most practical, and safest from a mental health standpoint of any approach to our problem. Last year, after 20 years as a practicing transvestite I acquired my femme name. This seems a simple step, I'm sure, to some of our more experienced sisters, but it made a real difference to me. I find, too,

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