RANSVESTIA

RESEARCII FUNDS NEEDED

Some of you are aware that Dr. Peter Bentler of the Dept. of Psychol- ogy at UCLA and I have published several papers dealing with trans- vestitites", that is FPs. Recently we completed a pilot study of 42 oper- ated male to female "transexuals". We found considerable substantia- tion for my frequent arguments about sex and gender being different and each providing its own motivations for surgery. We found that those who had been heterosexual and usually married before surgery were very ous aspects of sex and more in the

social aspects of womanhood than those who had been homosexual be- fore preoperatively.

This work is the first in the field that makes this separation and draws valid conclusions from it. However 42 is not a large enough sample con- sidering that it had to be broken down into 3 groups of 15, 14, and 13. We therefore want to repeat it on a much larger scale and feel sure that we now have the contacts to do so. However with the Nixon administra- tion cutting back on all research funds Dr. Bentler no longer has access to funds to cover secretarial and computer time nor postage.

Since I think this is a very important piece of work which may hope- fully shed an entirely new light on the whole problem of “transexualism” I very much want to repeat it with a statistically significant number of subjects so that the results can not be put down as not being important. The lives and futures of a lot of people could be affected by this project nd who

would like to contribute to research to make a donation for this purpose. This will not be to me personally nor to Chevalier though it will have to be sent to one or the other. It should be stipulated as a Research Dona- tion and all money will be accounted for and Donors listed when the project is concluded in the early part of next year.

I sincerely hope that sufficient money can be raised by this appeal to cover the expenses for the project which while not high cannot be af- forded out of one pocket. If you have been helped help others.

Thank you,

Virgina