is that of Queen Shinga of the Congo, (long before the Belgian regime). She must have been quite a dame, because she functioned as King, with all the duties, rights and fringe benefits attached to the job, including a harem of TV men. She used to sacrifice one to the gods before leading the tribe into battle. One doesn't know what the men thought of the deal they probably weren't asked. To be sure, no life insurance company would care to issue a policy for them.

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Something similar happened in reverse, and much more attractively, in ancient Assyria. The last King of the Assyrians, Sardanapalus, is said to have enjoyed sitting spinning with the ladies of his harem, dressed as a woman. We shall never know more than that. I like to think that the ladies welcomed him as a guest in their feminine world; it must have been pleasant for them to be treated as people and as women, rather than merely chattels, as was too often the case in those days. Accounts of Sardanapalus himself vary. Some say he was a weakling, others that he was a just and wise ruler. The Assyrians were certainly a ruthless, brutal lot, basing their empire on conquest and pillage. He seems to have been sufficiently humane and civilized to have reacted against that, and he chose his own very humane and civilized way of expressing his reaction. He has some other relationship with his ladies than simply bed. Which is as it should be.

In history we all know (or ought to) about M. le Chevalier d'Eon and l'Abbe de Choisy, but they weren't the only ones. Sometimes, of course, TV went along with a straight inversion, as with Julius Caesar, who was said to be every woman's man and every man's woman. It was thus with Henry III of France, in the 16th century, and Monsieur, Philippe d'Orleans, at Louis XIV's court. They were plainly inverts, and as such of no interest to us.

One would like to have time to do detailed research on real TV's like Lord Cornbury, governor of New Jersey in Queen Anne's time. He was fired "for cause"; one can imagine what a small community as New Jersey was in those days, it wasn't easy for a TV to “get lost”, most of all the governor. I'd like to know more about him. Maybe somebody will do a Ph.D. thesis on him.

Another historical character that I'd like to know more about is the French gentleman who turned up "en femme" at a masquerade ball, at the Court of the great Queen Christina of

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