RANSVESTIA

However, I have no hopes of changing the mind of anyone who has already made a personal committment to himself to have the surgery. Many years of trying have taught me that only a tiny percentage of such people have any interest in any point of view on the matter except their own. The old statement, "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with facts" is only too appropriate. Actually I have a feeling that on a deep level they don't want to listen to other opinions because if they did they might have their minds changed by having to agree with that point of view and if they did then the whole beautiful fantasy about their becoming women would collapse like a house of cards. After all, nobody ever denied that FPs and TS's were the world's masters at wishful thinking at wishful thinking and high powered imagination.

But as I say I don't expect to have much effect on those who have already made an inner committment. However, there are a lot of the rest of you out there who have not yet made such a committment but might come to that point in a year or so. I'm trying to practive preventive medicine as I have found that once the virus of surgery has taken hold there is small chance of turning anyone back. I'm hoping that some of you who read these lines and who might by toying already with the surgical idea or who may start to toy with it in the future, may be induced to look at the whole matter not as a "hole" matter (forgive the pun but I couldn't miss it) but in a different light. It your economic, domestic, or other circumstances ever come to the point where you could stop living the life of a man and you seriously consider living as a woman, then do so. What you have to remember is that being a woman is not a matter of self assertion. We have all gone thru the stage of getting all gussied up in our prettiest dress, heels, wig etc. and looking in the mirror and saying, "I AM a woman!" As though that magic assertion would bring it about. No, that's not what does it.

What really would justify one's claim to be a woman is made up of two factors, one internal and one external. The internal one is complete self acceptance. If you are unable to deal with yourself on a completely genderal level without reference to anatomical configura- tion you are never going to really make it. Those who have to have the maleness removed and the hole constructed as a means of bolstering up their self concept and self acceptance are only kidding themselves. If you have to figuratively hold your dress up and pull your panties down so that you can (again figuratively) say, "See, I am

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