RANSVESTIA

lems of being caught in the “act.” This has always been a continuous thing for me, even during the periods where I was in the service, and completely unable to indulge the feminine spirit within me. I have always had con- tact with some form of femininity, whether in observing, touching, or just fantasizing, To relieve a few of my anxieties, I had turned to stories, and would write myself dream episodes, similar to the fiction of TVia, reading them over and over and over again, trying vicariously to assume the life that I was missing. I have gone through successive identity crises. and had never really made any attempt to name myself, or to build any sort of identity around the names that I used for writing. Even the first story of mine that Virginia published “The Games People Play"—was just given the name of Karen as a suitable title. At this time, I certainly did not think of myself as Karen, at all.

As far as childhood goes, I remember little about dressing except want- ing to be a little girl instead of a boy and praying to God to change me. I dressed when I had a chance, somewhat regularly, and even at that age studied girls to see what they were doing. I was never caught by my mo- ther, but I continued dressing right up through college, usually for only short periods of time (right on and right back off). I fantasized constantly, but when I had the opportunity to dress in public, for a school initiation, I balked and didn't do nearly the job I could have.

I responded to my instincts by being super masculine and berating feminine things, even while secretly longing almost constantly. College was the first time that I ever admitted to a girl that these were my inter- ests, and although I was in patient hands she didn't have the maturity to handle the situation. To assert myself still farther, I joined the Mar- ines, and was quite successful, getting to the position of first lieutenant. I disagree with Virginia here in that this showed that I wasn't basically a feminine person. I suffered greatly doing things that I had no desire to do and was tortured physically as well. Many women have stood up under even greater stresses, look at child birth for example. When you are stuck in something there is no avenue of escape, especially in the service. You must do what you are told or go the route of punishment and the brig. Having no desire to go to jail, I did what I was told. (Ed. note: I think there must be some misunderstanding here—when Eileen was flirting with the idea of sex change, as she indicated, I told her that being able to per- form as a Marine 1st Lt. showed that she was not inadequate as a man, which is one of my criteria for considering someone to be a transexual. Certainly she had a lot of femininity within but could not have operated as a Marine officer unless she in addition had an adequate masculine

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