along with all the Chevalier activity was just too much I asked Fran if she would accept the job of Executive Secretary of FPE and to in fact run it. Happily for me, and most happily for all the members of FPE, she accepted. She has done a magnificent job ever since and every member of FPE owes her much appreciation as she has devoted many hours and much effort to organizing, detailing, corresponding and general handling of the sorority. In addition, as its members know, she undertook to publish the Femme-Forum, the official house organ of our sorority. She, in all practical senses, IS FPE. While as founder I retain the title of President she runs it and does a great job. Although mail intended for her is sent to the Chevalier address, this is done solely as a security measure for her. I simply forward it all on to her about once a week.

FPE has not from its inception been an organization which solicited membership. It was the idea from the beginning that FPE was to be a group that a girl wanted to get into when she thought she was ready and able to be a femmeperson in the presence of and in association with others of the same persuasion. So we have never urged anyone to join or conducted any membership campaigns. It is a group made up of those who seek membership on their own. It is also a group of persons who are heterosexual and who are not interested in the bondage, humiliation, punishment, masochistic scene -- people whose only variation from so- called "normal" behavior lies in their urge to express their inner feminine personality.

Since there are those in these other categories who, misunderstanding the nature of the organization, might seek membership it was long ago decided to require prospective members to have read at least 5 issues of TVia. Since it is available on newstands there was no sure way of knowing whether they had so read these issues so it was made a requirement of membership that an applicant had to show on the rolls of Chevalier for at least 5 issues before an application could be requested and sent. These do not have to be in advance. Back issues serve the same purpose. There is the additional factor that anyone willing to spend $20 on reading material must be seriously interested in the material he is buying. We have had, over the years, a lot of persons who would buy one issue and then no more based on some advertising that we did. My conclusion from this was that they were drag queens and imagined that TVia was for that type of person. When they found it was not they did not spend any more money. Thus the willingness to invest the $20 became not only a criterion of interest but more or less guaranteed

71