HISTORY

GETTING ME TOGETHER

Janet 43-0-2

My first indication that I was dissatisfied with my masculine sit- uation was when I was nine years old. I had been placed in a boy's school while my mother was being hospitalized for T.B. In the spring like most schools there was the tradition of putting on a play. A boy in my dorm, whom I particularly admired because of his athletic, schol- astic and social accomplishments, had been selected to play the lead in the play. While in the audience I experienced a warm excitement and fascination at his appearance. The queen stood on her throne in a white party dress and shoes, governing with wisdom and benevo- lence all the animals in the forest. I remember sometime later ask- ing how it felt being dressed as a girl. I don't remember his reply, only my question.

I stayed in that boarding school for two years and I was eleven when my mother was well and strong enough to have me with her again. There we were, my father and mother, both alcoholics, and my younger brother and I.

My room was off the attic in our house. It was full of things that attics should be filled with and on rainy days it was filled with a young boy with a strong need for more experiences in life. One of those experiences was a trunk full of old clothes. My desire to dress in women's clothes was only exceeded by my dreams of being accepted as a girl.

Graduating from high school, serving three years in the army, at- tending four years of college, getting fired from my first job after a year, getting married, having a son and becoming a successful in- surance man was the story that everyone knew. But what they didn't know was the hours snatched in privacy trying on my mother's clothes. How I glanced out of the corner of my eyes at the store win-

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