Personally I don't find the phenomenon either upsetting or surprising. I have been saying for years that the urge to wear feminine clothing was NOT for the clothing itself but for what it represented, i.e. femininity. which in turn comprises all those traits, behaviors, expectations, oppor- tunities, and outlets that are prohibited to masculine persons. When you fly to N.Y. on a plane, it's not the plane that's important, it's the des- tination. The plane is only the means to get there. So it is with feminine clothes. If women are wearing pants and boots and still retain the mysti- cal quality of femininity (i.e. non-masculinity) then the FP will have to follow suit to arrive at the same goal. While I doubt the gals will ever adopt the jock strap it looks like they are going to take on everything else but and the FPS will follow on behind until, having gone full circle, they suddenly stop short in front of the mirror and — what do you know! There's brother again. We'll have to change the term from "dual" per- sonality to "reunited" personality and no longer have to put up with the arbitrary subdivision of ourselves into masculine and feminine. At last in the long line of development of our species we can start to really be fully and totally human not each of us a walking half of a never united whole.

I clearly remember when a friendly woman who ran a dress shop and knew me as an FP first suggested that I buy a pair of stretch stirrup pants, remember them? I was practically insulted at the suggestion of Virginia wearing pants — Charles could do that all day and had to. But I also remember my surprise when after putting them on and checking myself in the mirror and out on the street that I felt myself to be just as "feminine" (whatever that word really means) in them as in my dress. This, of course, fortified my understanding that the clothing was not an end in itself as so many FPs seem to think but was the means to an end the end of regaining my rights to those parts of myself which society, in raising me in a masculine fashion, had taken from me. That's really what FPia is all about and my life the last four years has proved it to me be- yond any doubt. I have been exploring not the world but the inside of my own head. Being full time I can do it more thoroughly than you but essen- tially you are on the same trip, meeting, getting acquainted with and ex- ploring your own long lost other self. Looked at this way there is no need or room for guilt, fear, and shame, just pride, pleasure and a sense of completeness. Let us therefore rejoice in having discovered the key to the rest of our SELVES.

Peace and Love,

Virginia