RANSVESTIA

etc. They are very friendly. How can this be? Largely because there are a lot of gays who live in town-the hotels are operated by gay men, some other shops seem to be run by gay women. Because the gay population is large, well known and has been part of the town for years, they tend to be more acceptant of other kinds of people. There were no incidents that I heard of during the five days I was there, though I did hear that some high school kids had pulled one of the girls' wig off a day or so before I got there. But the townspeople that I met were very friendly and very interested.

One interesting observation: most FPs worry to some extent about whether they will be read and keep a sharp eye on other people in the vicinity to see whether it has occurred. From force of habit, the FPs in Provincetown would go out in the street and start to run that same check up. After a little time when they found that people didn't seem to care about them even though they knew that they were FPs, the whole problem of what one was wearing became trivial, and it became possible for maybe the first time in their lives to simply be a person without much concern about what they were wearing. In other words, since others didn't make something of it, neither did the FPs. This was a very awakening experience for a lot of them and it could only take place in a town like Provincetown.

So while DREAM has the "class" and the classes, the Fair has the casual and the acceptance and openness. In short, you won't "learn" as much at the Fair as at DREAM, but you will have a more open, real- life experience at the Fair than at DREAM. If I were to give you advice and figuring that very few of you would have the time and the money to do them both the same year, I would suggest that you do the Fair one year and DREAM another. It doesn't make much difference in which order.

I should also point out that although I have no previous acquain- tance with Ariadne Kane who is the principle person behind the Fair, Betsy and Linda who are also on the Board of Directors of it and who helped get it underway in the first place are both long time friends of mine. Both were active in the original Gamma chapter of FPE in the Boston area. So I have long time relationships with people active in both DREAM and the Fair and I have no reason to favor one over the other. They are both great, and I'm very pleased that such opportunities exist for our people on both coasts. So although East may never meet West, easterners can come West to DREAM and westerners can go East to the Fair, and I hope you all will in due course do both.

91