Letters to The Editor

Dear Virginia;

I want to thank you for bringing a whole new world to me via Transvestia. I had thought that for the last year, since I have been living alone, that I could ask for no more--that my cup runneth over, but you have increased my happiness immeasurably. have only recently discovered TVia and can hardly wait for the next issue to come out.

I

I am what is charitably called a mature male (legally anyway). I became aware that I was differ- ent from the other little boys of my acquaintance when I was about four years of age and was told that my liking for dolls and tea things was unbecoming in a young man. I couldn't understand why anything so much fun was to be considered wrong but I did under- stand the cruel affects of ridicule and so my feminine nature went into hiding for the most part. On the sly, however, I continued to play house with a girl cousin who seemed to enjoy my company very much. She would put a frilly little apron on me and let me have her best doll to play with. Even then though, I seem- ed to have two natures wrapped up in the same skin and enjoyed toy soldiers and guns as well as other little boys. As I grew older I found myself being envious of the girls I played with--their cute little frocks awakened longings in me that I could not de- fine. I can't yet. I was about twelve when I was strangely stirred by watching a girl apply her lip- stick. I ran home after school and, finding the house empty, went to my mothers vanity and awkwardly put lipstick on. The act thrilled me but at the same time I was furiously ashamed of myself and washed my lips immediately. The next time I did it I was a little less ashamed and wore the lipstick a bit long-

er.

Gradually I became more bold and began to put on items of my mothers' underclothing from time to time. When I was about fifteen I was almost exactly the same size as my mother and could wear all her things,

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