before there is much awareness of the difference between maleness and femaleness or, if later when the facts of life are known, the envy is not aimed at her femaleness but at her girliness. At that age none of us realized that there was a difference between sex and gender (and un- fortunately a great many of us still don't). We are not alone because the majority of the population does not realize it and even a great many professional people do not. Of all people in the world TVs should rec- ognize the fact that you do not have to be a female to "be" a "girl", because a great many of us definitely feel ourselves to be girls when we are dressed even though we are perfectly aware that we are males. If a TV looks well enough to pass on the street it should certainly be clear to her that in society she IS a girl not only to herself but to everyone who sees her or has any sort of interchange with her. Girlness is set forth by the clothes, the hair-do, the shoes, makeup, jewelry, manner and general actions. When these are appropriate and in good taste everyone sees a GIRL and nobody pulls up her skirt to check out whether she is a female or not. Thus to herself and to the observer the TV girl in pass- ing is expressing her feminine GENDER and her anatomical sex doesn't enter into it. This should make it perfectly evident that sex and gender are not the same thing and are not necessarily tied together. I, myself, provide a perfectly good living proof of that. Although I am a male sexually I am a woman genderally. I look, dress, act, do and ex- press as all other women do and even though some of you cringe at the term I am therefore more properly described as a male woman because the first word describes my anatomy and the second my social appear- ance and behavior.

Now I'm not using myself as the example in any sense of bragging or putting myself forward but simply because many of you have met me and all of you ought to know me pretty well from my writing by this time. I think that I present a practical example that I hope you can understand better than an abstract and theoretical description, and your knowledge of me as a specific person should help in the process.

All right then, what of it? Well, exactly this—TVism consists in imi- tating and partaking of the gender qualities and prerequisites of girls and women, i.e. their femininity. All of you do it every time you dress and it's only a matter of degree as determined by your physical char- acteristics and your personal and domestic acceptance that separates one TV from another in this regard. All of you without exception I'll wager would like to be about 5'6”, weight about 125, have a pretty, more delicate featured face and not be burdened with a beard. At least that's what exists in your femme dreams. Naturally, in your man life

54