"You should have been a girl....those eyes.

Transvestia

those

lips." His tone unnerved me so much that I avoided him for the rest of the semester. However, I was thrilled by the knowledge that I looked so much like a girl because at that time I was still dreaming of someday becoming one.

When my sister was twelve or thirteen years old she began to develope physically, which meant the addition of bras and more tailored clothing to her wardrobe. During one of my almost daily visits to her room I discovered a yellow bathing suit which she had gotten for the summer. Just a few seconds after I had pulled on the suit I knew that panties would no longer be the only article of "E....'s" clothing which I loved. That same day I put on the first skirt I had ever worn. I couldn't stop then, and very soon I was wearing my first complete fem- inine outfit. It seems strange now that the rest of that day is not clear in my memory, but I believe that the experience so affected me that details of it are lost is the first stages of the happiness and frustration which were to be a part of my life for the next fourteen years.

When my sister entered her teens she discovered boys; a situation which affected my life in two ways. "E...." spent more and more of her free time away from home which gave me more opportunities to spend my time in her bedroom. Also my mother found her- self with less time spent with her daughter and more hours alone with the son who was supposed to have been her second daughter.

I tried extremely hard to gain the mother love which I thought was lacking because of my unfortu- nate placement in the world of men. I sought her affection through developing as well as I could the skills of a girl. I tried to learn to embroider, knit, sew and cook among other things. However my fingers could not master the details of these fem- inine hobbies, and of course this drove me deeper

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