RANSVESTIA

As it was, having been bom a male and raised as an ordinary boy who then somehow discovered the reality of my own inner femininity, I was in a position to fantasize about this never-never land of woman- hood and so see it through the eyes of a boy and young man. So I, like you, could and did build it up out of all relation to actuality. Thus, when I decided to emigrate to this new land of permanent femininity, I had something to compare it with. I was better able to appreciate it, better indeed than anyone who was "born to the pink," as it were. Thus the last 10 years have given me an unique opportunity to integrate the masculine and feminine sides of my total self and to be able to use one or the other in some given situation as I might decide at the time was appropriate.

Realizing that I now have my options back-I have all the choices open to either a man or a woman-I feel that I am a much more "together" and unified person than I could possibly be as either a man or a woman. I long ago got over the super feminine attitude that some FPs feel it necessary to adopt when they are out in the world. Gradually I got so that if there was some attitude, behavior or task to do that would more generally be assumed by or performed by a man I would do it without a second thought. "Charles" is alive and well in the back of my head. All those attitudes, experiences, skills and strengths that he had, I have still. Nothing can be forgotten. So although I prefer to present myself to the world in feminine clothing, hairdo, nail polish and lipstick in order to elicit from that world the kind of treatment and response that I wish, internally I don't have any specific feelings of womanliness or manliness. Rather I just am aware of my personhood and of my having access to all of my human potentials rather than just one half or the other depending on whether I am living a masculine or a feminine role. This is a great state to be in. I feel whole. At this point, I can't help but come up with an appropriate pun. While I feel whole, transexuals feel hole.

While that is a pun, it is a peculiarly appropriate one because it is largely true. What I mean by that is that the transexual allows his/ her identity to originate between his/her legs rather than from between the ears. To them woman is equivalent to femaleness and as that state is primarily characterized by the vagina-a hole-their womanliness, their identity becomes fixated on their genitals. They ARE a woman because they have the hole and they couldn't be a woman without the hole because all women have that hole. So runs the basic logic.

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