We thought of several practical things: we both had had adequate jobs as men and had accumulated a little money to see us through the change; we both in our own ways had done things by easy stages so that it was not an all or none overnite decision; we both covered our economic futures so that we knew that we could make it financially, we both knew that we were basically not homosexual so that while we might have men friends we were not interested in male friends; and finally neither one of us were dreamers picturing ourselves as wives with husbands, adopted children, and vine covered cottages and so on ad nauseum. But somehow those differences between ourselves and the others we were thinking about didn't really seem to basically explain things. They were true enough but they were somehow superficial. Finally an idea hit me which I think covers the situation rather fundamentally and I pass it on for your consideration.

There is a great psychological difference between running toward something and running away from something. In either case you phys- ically end up in a different place from where you started, but your own internal attitude will be different. Running to brings you there with a feeling of satisfaction, accomplishment and anticipation for the exper- iences of the future to be had in the new place. Running from something brings you to the new location with feelings of relief and possibly tran- quility but these are backward looking to where you have been and from which you have escaped, not forward looking with wonder and fascination about that which lies before you.

Now apply this analogy to the matter under discussion. All FPs start as males and men, of greater or lesser success in each area to be sure, but nevertheless that is where they are. Now everybody has problems of var- ious kinds, financial, social, domestic, personality-wise, relatives, past experiences which still exert their effects, sexual, and psychological such as ego, adequacy, compatibility, introversion, identity and such. You can run out on your wife and relatives and you can leave debts be- hind and get "lost" but those problems related to you as a person, that is internal as opposed to external, can't be run away from. Some will be lessened, a few even wiped out by the change, but most of them will be right there where they have always been, ready to plague the "new wo- man" in her new world. Only now, instead of having to cope with them in an environment (masculinity) that "he" knew something about, "she" has to cope with them in the midst of a whole new environment (femin- ity), which is a lot more than just clothing and make-up, and which has its own expectations and limitations. So here comes the "new girl" (with or without surgery) arriving at "school" in her new dress and hat and

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