Transvestia

increase and social opinions begin to be modified.

This piece is written to tell you about some splashes that I made over the weekend of April 23-25. I was invited to be a panel speaker on the subject of "Sex and the Law" before the convention of the American Civil Liberties Union of So. Calif. at the Coronado Hotel in San Diego. I drove down on Friday afternoon the 22nd to be there for the welcoming cock- tail party that evening. I went as Virginia of course. I didn't see anyone I recognized so I took a table by the door and waited. Pretty soon another single lady arrived obviously alone so I invited her to join me. We talked for some time and she commented about the interesting program which was coming up tomorrow. Various suggestive questions had appeared in the program announcement such as "should men be allowed to dress in women's clothes", etc. I had told her that I was to be on the Sex and Law panel and she commented that the questions that had been posed were very interesting and challenging. I talked along with her for some time and eventually told her that I was the one that would be handling that part of it and that I was actually a male. This lead to lots of questions the rest of the evening while we walked around the hotel grounds. When she was about to leave the next day she came up to me and thanked me for the privelege of having talked with me at some length as well as hearing the panel talk and said that it had, among other things, given her a greater appreciation of her own femininity. That was the first splash. She would make her own little waves as she told others about the experience.

Saturday we gave the panel discussion twice, The panel consisted of the chairman, an M.D. talking on abortion, the editors of ONE and of TANGENIS, two homophile public- ations, a woman who was a member of the Daughters of Bilitis the lesbian organization and lil' ol' Virginia representing the Transvestite world. On both occassions I spoke last and succeeded in stirring up more interest than all the other speakers

in the morning and again at 2PM.

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