RANSVESTIA

I hope you will forgive my using myself as an example of what I'm talking about, because I don't have anyone else to provide me with this insight. I was once asked by a psychiatrist friend of mine, why, since I'd already had electrolysis and had taken hormones and grown a pair of breasts, I didn't go ahead and finish the job, namely have the sex changing surgery. I replied that since there was absolutely nothing that I could do after the surgery that I couldn't do right now except lie on my back, spread my legs and allow a male to penetrate me an act that I have no desire for, why should I do it? It costs many thousands of dollars, it is generally very painful, it is very in- convenient for a long time afterward, there is a pretty high partial failure rate in which patients have to return to subsequent surgeries at additional cost and risk, and there is the basic risk attending all major surgery. If I wasn't going to get anything out of all that except the ability to do something I didn't want to do anyway, what would be the point?

My friend, replied thoughtfully, "yes, I guess I see what you mean. But what about a situation like your getting into an auto accident, being knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital?" I replied with a smile "You know that hospital they have a big problem. Because if they pull my blouse down they'll put me in the women's ward, if the pull my skirt up they'll put me in the men's ward and if they strip me they'll leave me out in the hall!" I always get a big laugh from students when I tell them that. But I hasten to point out that there is a big moral to the story. And that is that when I come too I'm not going to have to decide what I am by finding out the sex of the other patients in the ward. I don't care because I know what I am at the time of the accident and I'll know what I am when I wake up from it. In short I have managed to get my self image, my self identity if you will, out from between my legs and into between my ears. In short my identity as a woman does not either depend upon nor is it hampered by the state of my genitals. I am perfectly comfortable with the designation of "male woman" even though to most people that seems a contradiction in terms because they can't separate sex from gender.

So my final comment to any who may still be able to listen is, if you want to be a woman full time, then go ahead and be one. (Full directions are given in the book How to be a Woman Though Male) You will be one if you look and act the part for others and if you accept yourself as you are and don't operate inside some sort of guilt