Transvestia

This is a difficult position under the best of cir- cumstances but a terrible one for the misguided TV who thinking that sex change surgery is the be-all and end-all of life succeeds in achieveing it. When circumstances force the bitter truth of his error back on him it is a shattering condition. And don't think it hasn't happened. So a request for surgery does not necessarily mean the individual is a TS.

I would like to mention one criterion for ser- iously questioning the validity of the transsexual claims made by a person. If a male has married and even more if he has been a father, it is evident that built into his brain somewhere was the usual instinctive attraction toward the female and more- over all of the pathways, physical, physiological and emotional that enabled him to carry out inter- course and make a female pregnant were in working condition. While I do not doubt for a minute that there are true TSS and that they deserve surgery and every consideration, I am strongly of the belief that these persons do not in general have the usual male interests, attractions and abilities in full complement and in good working order. This is not to say that males who have been fathers have not achieved surgery and some degree of adjustment as women. Heck, Virginia has achieved considerable adjustment as a woman without surgery so that doesn't prove much to me. But I think any male who has been a father is much less likely to be a TS than one who has not. After all, lets face it, by definition if you are able to carry out all the normal male act- ivities which implies psychological as well as phys- ical you are a functionally normal male. How then could you be the "woman trapped in a male body," always referred to. Were this the case you would have reacted as a woman not as a man and been unable to impregnate another female. I have carried this discussion out with several TVs who were contemplat- ing surgery and so far they have agreed that I was probably right and are adjusting to a TV life rather than a TS one. Think it over, it's vital to those of you thinking surgery. Virginia