Transvestia

fine in my own way, the major difference between TS and TV; "It is evident that the request for a con- version operation is typical only for the transsexual and can actually serve as a definition."

The book is like a textbook on the subject of Transsexualism. Each chapter deals with a specific aspect of the problem. This is a tremendous advance over most other publications which mixed TV, TS, and homosexuality into a common entity on two or three pages of one chapter. For the first time a true picture of what is involved in going through the change is presented, whereas most of the "true" life stories that have been published are eighty percent fiction.

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A variety of possible causes for TS are brought forward by the author. These include genetic, endoc- rine, and psychological explanations. None of which have been proven as THE cause, but all have proven facts to support them. Most of the doctors in this country who are active in the field of sexual anoma lies try to ignore all except the psychological causes. They like to call it a character disorder subject to psychotherapy. However, there is not a single reported cure of TS due to psychotherapy, and the wiser doctors admit that it is beyond the means at their disposal. This leaves the genetic and en- docrine causes, which the European doctors feel are the real basis of TS. The psychological factors re- sult from the physical factors.

Approximately 40 percent of the cases that Dr. Benjamin studied were sexually underdeveloped, which would seem to point to a constitutional factor in many cases. In fact, the statement is made that condition- ing and other psychological phenomena are major fac- tors only when falling on fertile ground: i.e.; an underlying predispostion. One of the more interesting Some psychological factors mentioned is imprinting. researchers feel that a child identifies with the wrong parent at a very early age and has a wrong sex-

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