RANSVESTIA

of the experience. "It got to him," as the saying goes, while to the less perceptive and sensitive boy the occasion was just that an occasion— on which he did something different for whatever reason, lived thru it and went on to other things without ever perceiving any significance.

Other than this vague and general biological base 1 regard cross dress- ing as a purely environmentally induced pattern and the significant thing in the environment is what forms the gist of the quotation given. Everybody is playing this game of denial and repression of half of him or herself. We knew that we were supposed to accept this state of affairs without question because, thats “just the way it is”. But we cheated a little. We didn't want or weren't able to deny all of the femi- ninity that was within us (once we found out it was there). We put on a good front, but we knew, yes, we knew! that there was more to our total selves than the rules permitted us to show. So we nutured the “girl within" over the years, letting her "out" as, when and to what degree was possible, meanwhile playing the boy-girl, masculine/feminine "game" pretty much like everyone else.

When the "hes" can be persuaded that it is not necessary to "play masculine" any more and when the "shes" learn to stop "playing femi- nine," the “game” will be called off and we can all regain possession of our complete selves.

Many of you who are disdainful of “womens liberation", a male chau- vinist attitude that is by no means unknown among FPs, might reflect on the fact that what womens lib is seeking when you get right down to it is a calling off of the Game. They are saying, "we are tired of "playing feminine" and we wish you men would not only recognize that in us but have the wisdom to conclude that “playing masculine” is a self denying activity too and that we are both losers. Women are working harder to "call off the Game" than men are several times over. Men are so essen- tially insecure that they can't visualize how they could operate if there

wasn't somebody to lord it over, to be better than. It has been the form of human organization since time immemorial and it had survival valuc for a long time. I doubt if human kind would be where it is today, in the good sense and I'm certain it wouldn't be in the mess it's in, in the bad sense, had it not been for the polarity of the sexes in the sense of gender. But while this dominant-submissive situation had its value in the past it does not have any anymore and it is time that we all grew up into com- plete people and stopped playing the childish game of MASCULINE/ FEMININE.

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