(Ed. Note: This is a letter from a minister who wished to remain anony- mous. I received it a couple of years ago but filed it. Recently I came across it again and thought it would be appropriate to print.)

Dear Miss Prince:

Today a friend told me of the suicide of the husband of one of her friends. He hanged himself. But first he dressed as a woman. They found him, dead, in such woman's clothing as he had. It was all hushed up, of

course.

He was a wonderful man. He was a good husband, a fine father, a productive citizen, a well-educated and well-liked member of society. But within him evidently were woman-urges which our society says. should not be expressed or even had by a man. He stood it as long as he could. Then he took his life. I don't know if his wife knew or approved of his transvestite desires or not - probably not, because a transvestite with an accepting wife is not driven to suicide.

―

In a way, of course, he did not take his own life it was taken from him, by our sex-restrictive social ideas that only a male can be a man and only a female can be a woman. Part of him was both. Society did not let that part of him, and it proved to be a vital part, not just a spare appendage. The total life of him could not go on with that part killed.

This kind of suicide happens more times than is generally known, be- cause it is usually covered up. In my work I have known of more than several men and boys — sometimes in childhood and teen years found dead by their own hands, dressed in girls or womans clothing. Their last mute witness to the society they were leaving told the cause of their suicide - told it in death, as they were not allowed to tell it in life.

—

I showed my friend your Transvestia Magazine, and told her of the several clubs now organized in Los Angeles and elsewhere. If her friend's husband could have known of you, he would not have been driven to suicide. He would have found life for this part of him which demanded to live or else the whole to die.

Somehow, word of your work should be made more public. There are other husbands, fathers, constructive members of society, taxpayers, to be saved from suicide. And for every one who in desperation finally takes his life, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, who suffer it through - long years of deep agony, needless misery. Medicine goes to great lengths to relieve bodily pain which is much more superficial than this kind of pain.

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