hardly aware of the inconsistency of Charles anatomy with my own self-feeling. Those structures are merely a part of the body I live in like my ears or fingers. The physiology functions on an unconscious level anyway. Mentally all of Charles experiences, knowledge, intellectual curiosity, decision-making ability and thought processes are still available, still available, they have not been destroyed and can be called on any time they can prove useful in Virginia's life.

My change has not been one of sex but one of gender and while the foregoing article emphasises the ever-newness of the back and forth change I have found another kind of ever-newness. It is bigger, deeper, and more encompassing. Perhaps an analogy might explain it. In the early days of the last century it was probably quite an adventure for young bucks who lived on the east side of the Mississippi (or any other large river on the frontier) to paddle over to the "new" territory on the west bank for a day or two and explore it for a mile or two. This experience could be repeated frequently and was always an adventure and (if done at different locations) always new. But consider the Lewis and Clark expedition which crossed the river and kept on going deeper and deeper into an entirely new and unexplored land. Where every day a new experience, a new vista, and new botanical, zoological and geological knowledge awaited them. They didn't get bored. They enjoyed an ever-newness too but on a continuous basis.

This is how I view the change that a few others and I have made. Living a woman's life (not a female life) is an always new, always fascinating, always unfolding experience. But note! Its novelty, fascination and unfolding exist because I was born a male and raised as a boy and learned to be a man with all that that implies. Had I been born a female and raised as a girl there would only have been the newness inherent in anyone's life the newness of getting older (and hopefully wiser), the newness of tomorrow. No it is precisely because of the Charles in my background that makes my present life new and fascinating. Furthermore I think that because Charles is, so to speak, sitting in the back of my head (in the form of stored experience, knowledge, attitudes etc.) and peeking out of my (Virginia's) eyes along with me that I can get a sort of psychological stereoscopic view of life. That is, seeing events from two points of view at the same time. This is kind of like seeing life in 3D –

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