taken from the title of the Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, one of the most famous transvestites in history. He was a soldier of the King of France, Louis the 15th I think, and, after appearing at a masquerade ball as a girl and fooling the king, Louis got a clever idea and sent him off to Russia to the court of the Empress in the guise of the niece of the French Ambassador. As a Mademoiselle he was able to get the ear of the Queen without having to go through the Prime Minister who kind of ran things to suit himself. History doesn't say what else he was able to accomplish with the Queen, but as just two girls they hit it off fine and the Queen got quite a kick out of it, what with getting diplomatic messages directly from the French king right in her own boudoir. An- other interesting thing was that after d'Eon returned to France the king found it expedient to settle a royal pension on him but also to order him to remain in the role of a woman the rest of his life, which he did. Because of this way of living the great British sexologist Havelock Ellis named the phenomenon of non-homosexual men dressing in feminine things, 'Eonism' after him."

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"But I got off the subject of your second question - why do they do it? It is rather difficult to explain, but all men have a certain amount of femininity in their makeup, just as all women have a certain amount of masculinity. Society in these times does not care much about what a wo- man wears or does look at the fashions for slacks, trousers and flat shoes etc. therefore they are able to express some of their masculinity in their clothes. They have also invaded masculine fields in work and schooling and about everything else. But let a man show an interest in something feminine and he has had it. As a result a man can't show any feminine characteristics, traits, interests, etc. while dressed as a man and feeling himself a masculine person. But when he adopts feminine attire he, in effect, becomes a feminine person and is entitled to display feminine mannerisms, traits, interests, activities, etc. This behavior pat- tern is one of gender and not of sex. Such people should not be called 'sex deviates' or 'sex variants' because sexually they don't vary from the normal. If anything, they should be thought of as ‘gender variants' be- cause they switch from the masculine to the feminine gender and merely want to be allowed to look like, act like and do things that women do in our society. To be treated like a woman and accepted as one in public. To just get lost among women, so to speak, is about the greatest thing that can happen to a transvestite."

"You mean they get a thrill out of somebody holding a door open for them or lighting their cigarette or something like that," Tom said.

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