LIBERATING THE WOMAN IN ALL OF US — a review of Chevalier Publications

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by Gordon McShean

Editors Note: Mr. McShean was the Chairman of the American Library Association's Task Force on Sex Related Media. It was he who arranged for me to speak to this group during their convention in Las Vegas in June. He subsequently wrote this review for their Journal. I thought it might be interesting to TVia readers to see how the field of FPia comes across in an outsiders eyes.

Those who attended the program of the Task Force on Sex Related Media (SRRT) at the American Library Association convention in Las Vegas this year came away happy at the discovery of another dimen- sion of women's liberation.

A reading of some of the publications of Virginia Prince, that even- ing's speaker, brought that discovery back. In THE TRANSVESTITE AND HIS WIFE one contributor wrote "Most transvestites feel that you real women have much the best of life, due to your ability to live without the need for intense competition. [We] adore you real women, love you and revere you, cherish and idolize you, respect and envy you, just because you are what you are: women, beautiful, gen- tle, soft . . . " (p. 86). There are doubtless women who would object to the male transvestite's characterization of them, but an off-hand rejec- tion would be wrong. This movement seeks not to impose these quali- ties on the female, but to allow their expression in the genetic male.

Chevalier Publications and the Foundation for Personality Expres- sion, creations of Virginia Prince, seek to explain the phenomenon of the male heterosexual cross-dresser to society and to those who find themselves motivated by the compulsion (one estimate says that there are more than a million in the U.S.). A chatty magazine, TRANS- VESTIA, is published every two months. It describes itself as being

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