Transvestia

fectly heterosexual men who enjoyed the feminine side of their nature in dresses. She looked surprised and

I said, 11 come with me". I took her over and intro- duced her to my TV friends and the wife of one who was there and left her to get acquainted while I con- tinued my poll. Later I sat beside her during the costume judging and asked her what her thoughts were by that time. She replied very seriously and thank-

fully, "I think you caught me just in time."

Subsequently I have met this person several times as a man, found that he likes girls as well as the rest of us, likes dancing with them, etc. He is now a mem- ber of F.P.E. I cite this interesting case as a per- fect example of how individuals thru ignorance feel that they must be homosexual, begin to run with the gay crowd and would certainly sooner or later be se- duced into gay life. The homosexual thinkers and the psychiatrists would undoubtedly say that such a person was a "latent" homosexual anyway and dismiss the whole matter. This conveniently overlooks the fact that the gender interests of the person led him, through ignor- ance of the fact that gender variations and sexual var- iations were not the same thing, to go to, with and in- to the only group that seemed to offer understanding and so be swept into the homosexual world.

It is one of the unhappy aspects of minority group activity that they are almost always intolerant of other minorities--sort of a compensatory action I suppose. It is no less true of our group. Many of our members are very intolerant of homosexuals and I'm sure will be upset by this column (so I'll probably get some feedback at last). Because of our own inner guilt and because of our ignorance of my constantly reiterated statement that "Sex and Gender are NOT the same thing", we are in some ways worse than the reg- ular heterosexual crowd in our denunciations of the homosexual community. As I said in the first sentence fear is bred in us through ignorance of what homosex- uality actually is (and what it isn't which is even more important) and this in turn leads to distrust, condemnation and ostracism from our social contacts. I don't think this is either right or wise.