Transvestia

assigned a male status at birth grew up to be per- fectly ordinary masculine little boys. Not males

mind you, that is along with female a sex word de- noting the genetic and anatomical condition of the individual. Masculine and feminine, boy and girl or man and woman are gender words--indicating the psych- ological and sociological aspects of living. So also true genetic males improperly designated as female at birth may be brought up as such and learn to be feminine and proper little "girls". Were it not for the intercession of menstruation or the lack of it at puberty, such mis assigned individuals might go on well into adult life. As it is, discovery of the error in the early teens poses a problem for such persons so extreme that many suicides have resulted from it, and very severe emotional disturbances in those who did not attempt this way out.

So we can learn from the studies on these un- fortunate people that all persons have both potent- ials at birth and it is fortunate that nature does not make more mistakes than she does or there would be even more of such confused people. However be- cause it is necessary in learning to be of one gender to learn NOT to be of the other, one has to learn to deny, destroy, or at best to repress those aspects of ones self that are socially inappropriate in the culture one lives in. But we aren't all turned out of the same mold all equally strong, equally ag- gressive, equally gentle, compassionate, perceptive, sensitive, artistic, or whatever. Some of us have these traits more strongly rooted and more fundement- ally a part of ourselves than others. This is great if the deep and strong traits are those currently looked upon with favor in the culture we live in as appropriate to our sex. But what if we have some pretty strong motivations and desires to express ourselves, to relate to our environment, to handle our various experiences in ways which do not happen to be culturally acceptable in the society we live. in at the time we live in it. Social customs change too you know--lace hankies and beauty spots were just the thing for men in Revolutionary times in