Ransvestia

ized that our condition is an integral part of our personality, we have accepted responsibilities towards others which we cannot shirk without causing harm. We have families, jobs, social and business obligations, and affiliations of various kinds which must inevitably clash with part of our personality.

To come out into the open, to discuss the problem with those nearest and dearest to us, to put our cards on the table, as it were, is probably the most honest and in the long run the most successful way of dealing with the conflict. "To reach a political solution"— to speak in the jargon of governments is better than to shoot it out. But, for fear of losing those we love in the process, many of us are reluctant to take the risk. Thus, we continue to hide behind the thick wall we have built around ourselves since our first and early venture into the wonderful fairyland of FP. As a result, we have lived part of our life in a self-imposed prison which we can enter and leave at will or at least as the opportunities arise.

I was born in Europe a few years before WWI, as the only son of well-to-do parents. I have a sister two years older, and one two years younger than I. My hair was almost shoulder length, blond and curly. I am told that at the age of five they dressed me in my younger sister's clothes and her in mine. Our nursemaid and my mother thought it great fun because I made a better girl than my sister. Apparently, I had not shared their opinion and am said to have protested and cried. I am also told that I was an almost unmanageable child, not all the time, though. When I chose to be pleasant I was more charming than most children. No-one could predict or explain my tantrums. They came and went without apparent rhyme or reason.

During the four years of war my father was most of the time at the front. When he came home on leave, I was in awe of him since I was not used to males in the family. Mother, nursemaid and two sisters were my normal company.

I revolted when taken to school for the first time at the age of six. It was a non-coeducational school and I remember being afraid of some of the boys. In spite of my aversion against this institute of learning, I was top of the class in prep school. At the age of nine I was transferred to a new school because we had moved to another suburb. The war was over, my father home again and I had a bedroom of my own while my sisters had to share one.