RANSVESTIA

plained that while she was actually scheduled for the operation, she fortunately discovered her true feelings about her sex, cancelled the change and is now happy as a "butch." Peggy briefly outlined her feel- ings on why she wanted the operation and Kim spoke on why she liked to dress explaining that she considered herself more as a transexual than a drag queen but either way she was considered a homosexual by all. I tried to explain the hetrosexual cross dresser, our feelings of relaxation, our sexual identification object, that we were usually married, had chil- dren and maintained our marriages and my actual elation over having full day away from my work and out in society as a girl. Sandi told of her dressing as an admitted homosexual but did not explain why she dressed. This was partly due to her being the moderator of the panel and our lack of time to do any real in-depth talking about our subject. Inter- estingly enough, Sandi did make a very vocal complaint that of all the suppressed minorities, the cross dressers were the most suppressed and our allotted 20 minutes was ample proof of our need for greater under- standing.

The other panels in the afternoon moved through their topics and of these I was especially moved by a young man whose topic was “Gay Youth in School." His description of life in a heterosexually oriented high school wherein he realized he was gay but could not admit it to anybody, had to keep up pretenses, pressure applied by all to have dates and participate in social activities; all very much reminded me of my own experiences in high school. His defence to all of this pressure was to put all of his energy into music and art. While this was not exactly ideal from his own personal point of view, it did enable him to finish. school and not be found out. My own solution was to stay on the peri- phery of sports as a student manager and to study photography both in and out of school. Thus I got through school and nobody (including my- self) could say that I had any abnormal problems. Needless to say, high school was something to get away from and forget if possible.

Upon completion of the afternoon panels, the rap groups were re- formed. This time one-half of each group switched to another group so that the sexes were now mixed. I joined the same group that I had been with that morning and found that the girls were a little uneasy (possibly even hostile) in my presence. We did, however, exchange quite a bit of information and some questions were asked of me as the group came to accept my dual role. Quite a bit more about FPE; our goals, parties, educational interviews, etc., were explained and seemed to be well received.

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