RANSVESTIA

social pattern so aptly described in the quotation. But my point is that we had already found it in some degree in ourselves. We unknowingly recognized that femininity-as we saw it around us as kids was part of us too. We were subconsiously prepared for its "discovery" that first time in panties or girdle or heels or whatever we started with. It isn't that clothing really has any virtue in itself in spite of all the raptures FPs go into about "soft cool silk” (who wears silk today), or the “froth of lace at the hem," etc. It is what it represents. It is part of the "uniform" if you will of those persons who are entitled to express femininity and the only way we can feel even moderately comfortable with our own femi- ninity is to wear some part of that uniform. Then we discover that, "when in Rome, you (can) do as the Romans do," to slightly alter the old saying.

The quotation further applies to us as we grow up because we begin to play the game in exactly the same way only sometimes with even greater gusto because we guiltily realize that we have "met the girl with- in" and knowing that this wasn't according to the rules of the game we have a guilty secret that must be kept from others at all costs, and we seek to prove" that there isn't anything feminine about us "He wants to make sure that she could never be more masculine than he" so... "He therefore seeks to destroy the fmininity in himself" (purges and denial). "He denigrates her femininity which he really envies — and be- comes more aggressively masculine." Did you do that? I did. Charles be- came a pretty aggressive and feisty little guy. I say "little" because when I was in high school I was shorter than many of my peers and more bash- ful too and compensation in the form of athletics, wit, argument, reason, and aggressiveness took place. I must admit that they have stood me in good stead, but I wonder what kind of a different person I (or you) might have been if the society into which I was born had been playing a differ- ent kind of game or the same game with different rules.

All this is a way of saying what I've said before in other ways, that FPia is not, hereditary, not biological (except possibly in very special conditions such as chromosomal or hormonal irregularities which account for only a vinishingly small number of FPs) and, in short, not consti- tutional except in the sense that some of us are apparently born with a potential for greater perceptiveness and sensitivity. I suspect that the thing that makes a cross-dressing experience of some kind turn one boy into an FP and leaves another untouched, depends on these fac- tors. The potential FP perceived more significance in the experience of putting on the dress or whatever, and was more sensitive to the meaning