RANSVESTIA

and consider this from sound Christology: Jesus the Christ is Perfect Man and Perfect God in a tangible reality in His sacramental Humani- ty God becomes one of His own creations. If this sounds like a mouth full of theology, it is not meant to be. My point in using the sacramental definition and the unique dual nature of The Crhist is, as I see it, an analogy for psychic health for the heterosexual transvestite in an anatomical-gender frame of reference. Christ's sinless Humanity is perfectly balanced with his perfect divinity. As a meditation, consider the quotation from the opening page of each issue of Transvestia; by the way, the quotation from the Gospel of St. Thomas is not in the Canon of Scripture as set by the Church around 395 A.D. but was read by the early Church (as was also other works which came out of the life of the Christian community) and for that reason is worthy of sober con- sideration.

As a male (anatomically speaking) and a man in gender thought, word and deed, there is also my femaleness in psychic orientation. I can call her my sister and I do, complete with a name, Vicki, but even before she had a name there had been for years this strange and beautiful wanting to be able to identify with the female. For me at least, my FP is NOT a negation of my masculinity but rather enhances it in terms of orientation with the female, yet mindful of the important dis- tinction between male and female. I know from personal experience that the more I try to suppress my feminine (FP) factor, the further away I am driven from my total self! On the other hand, when I flow in the direction of accepting this feminine aspect of my personhood, even though the expressing of it may be limited to only being able to wear some item of lingerie, it seems to release an almost indescribable sense of emotional (or if you please) psychic balance. In my way of looking at it, if some degree of self-acceptance is tangibly realized through even a minimal wearing of some item of feminine clothing, with the resulting effect of inner peace, then, I must be doing something right. In a word, lingerie is a little "sacramental" for the everyday working man to allow his "sister" to live and work with and in him. Lingerie for the Underwearer is not a fetish but an outward and visible expression of the inward and spiritual her, i.e., lingerie is a tangible vehicle of feminine gender expression.

Granted, there is always a certain element of personal frustration at not being able to fully "dress' for us who live most of our time in the "underwearer" situation. Even, as in my own case, although my wife is aware of my FP factor, our family, social and professional situation is such that full dressing is extremely limited in terms of opportunity. But

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