Transvestia

what you have and add to it, giving an ever increas- ing, ever broadening (no pun intended) view and ex- perience of the human condition. This is what TVism can and should do for you. You've got your own quota of male-masculine human experience. The only thing wrong with it is that in our culture it leaves you an incomplete human being. So what do you do...being a TV you add femininity to it. You can't add female- ness without subracting maleness and since you lose as much as you gain (really more since one you've had all your life) you really don't make any progress in human experience. If, on the other hand, you add femininity to your stock of experience you are richer by that amount. I can certainly speak from experience here in that by retaining the male-masculine portion of my total humanity and adding Virginia's feminine experiences and expressions to it I surely enlarge my total experience of human existance greatly. The only thing that the TS can do that I cannot do is to receive a male penis vaginally. I will admit that this may well be a great experience and one which I will never have. However every purchase has its price and when the price asked is too high for the value received I don't buy. And in this case I feel that what one has to give up of total human exper- ience to gain this particular special experience is just too high a price.

While I agree with most everything that Susanna has to say in her column I will take exception to one thing she refers to and that is the matter of what she called "incipient" TSs. I'm not sure whether she really feels there are such or is merely throwing this in in her stated effort to be impartial. For my part I feel that true TSS are a breed apart mot- ivated by conditions whether of heredity or environ- ment (nature or nurture) which have set a life pat- tern for them that is characteristic of the breed and for whom there is simply no other solution. I'11 broaden it to assert that each of the three behaviour patterns often confused by both lay and professional people because they have some symptons in common,

84