Transvestia

which makes me pause and wonder for the nine hundredth time why I, for example, can't see fit to show off a de- cent pair of legs in a flattering pair of stockings, be- neath a smartly tailored skirt and blouse with my hair brushed in a neat, clean style, and my face scrubbed clean and then worked with subtle and ever so compli- mentary colors, without the police rushing up to grab me, and the crowds shouting, "pervert, menace"? They fear not the "fact" but a potential they imagine will exist. I would be cleaner, lovelier, more graceful, more cheerful than most of the peasant women in from the country to buy and sell at the market. And yet, before I got two blocks (unless I was especially skillful that day), the "scandal" would be shouted, and I (and my sisters) would be hauled off to face how many counts of "public disorder". Disorder? We special women are some of the few who actively want to preserve order, or if not preserve it, then at least initiate it.

But you have said this all before, and better than I have. It's the frustration and my own personal "disorder" which makes me lose the patience my femmeself has tried so hard to teach me.

I am in Zagreb now, and the style of the women is quite different from what it is in Rijeka. They are more conscious of fashion, even though the materials are not very good, and cosmetics are hard to find that are any better than a dime-store quality. There are fashion magazines from Paris and Italy, and Yugoslavia itself publishes be- tween 6 and 10 issues given over to clothes and beauty care and hair styles. What the women cannot do with their clothes or their faces, they do with their hair. As a result the women in Zagreb have a great variety of hair styles, and many of them use color, rinse, and tint. It is difficult for them to leave the country, but when they do they come back loaded with material, shoes, cosmetics, and a certain flair from the neighboring countries of Austria, Italy, France and Germany.

Perhaps when I get to a country whose language I know I will be able to give you and the girls more thorough in- formation on the women and women-men.

My regards to the gang at TRANSVESTIA and Femme- Vanessa

Mirror.

Yours,