Transrestia

time I just "had" to give expression to my femme- self. To make a long story short I told my wife after about 8 years of marriage and one child and was divorced on the advice of a psychiatrist who told her I was a homosexual. I was not and I am not. A second marriage followed several years later and was very happy and helpful from a transvestic point of view but ended a couple of years ago for other reasons. But it was after the first wife had run me thru the papers and exposed me that I felt that I had then "lost all". Since this was the case I could afford to give some time and thought to help- ing others whom I knew existed and whose lives, in this department anyway, were almost carbon copies of mine. Thus I began to publish the magazine TRANS- VESTIA 8 years ago. It was and is dedicated to help- ing the reader to know 3 things: (a) that he is not alone in his feminine feelings, (b) that he is not a homosexual because he has such feelings and inter- ests, and (c) that he is not psychopathic or "sick" by virtue of them. I tried to find means thru self expression and through reading of others lives and feelings to enable the readers to acquire understand- ing of their condition--what it was and what it wasn't and through this to achieve self acceptance and to stop castigating themselves for having these feminine interests and finally because of this acceptance to acquire peace of mind about the whole thing.

Much of this could be done through the magazine itself by means of case histories, true experiences, articles of opinion and fiction. But reading such things behind locked doors was still not the ulti- mate in the achievement of acceptance and peace of mind. Humans are gregarious animals. We do not like to live isolated and alone, we like to be with people and part of groups, to say our piece, to be heard and seen. Moreover, the femininity that our people wish to express is the femininity of the socially active woman, not of the Cinderella type scullery maid who never gets out. Femininity in our culture is a vis- ible and projected thing and the femmiphile wants

85