RANSVESTIA

Please try to understand this. NO cop out and I am not joining Gay Liberation. Just had to say this.

Joe

Can you believe that? How do you manage to NOT be homosexual when you want a hole so that you "can satisfy a man the way a woman does"? It would appear that the answer lies in the second clause-"the way a woman does." Since the way a woman "does it" is vaginally it must be in contradistinction to the way gay men "do it, namely orally or anally. "I am thinking of getting just the hole so I can be happy." Paraphrased that means that "I want a man but I want him in the orthodox way." You see this writer hasn't the slightest idea of the difference between being a female (the hole as he puts it) and being a woman-the social, behavioral, personal person.

But the principle point he misses—and one which great numbers of others miss, too, probably including some of you who will be reading these words—is that homosexuality exists in the head before it is manifested by what is done with the genitals. If you are a chromo- somal male (with or without a penis and testicles and you yearn for an orgasmic relationship with another person who is also a chromo- somal male, that is a homosexual orientation whether or not you ever get around to putting it in practice or not. It is sad that people think of homosexuality as being solely a genital matter—after all, you have to think about anything in your head before the body gets instruc- tions to act.

It is this failure to understand the reality of the difference between sex and gender that leads a lot of people into surgery because it enables them to deal with the whole idea of a sexual experience with another male without feeling guilty about it. While I am all in favor of learning how to handle guilt, it just seems to me that surgery is an awfully dangerous, painful and expensive method of doing it. Wouldn't it be much simpler to just face the truth honestly and openly?... I think I'd like to have a sexual experience with another man! Well, O.K. if that's what you want, O.K., go out and have it. Accept that as your nature and don't feel badly about it. Gays have as much right to exist in the world as straights. But to go and get yourself all cut up, go through some monumental pain and pay a big medical bill just so you can say "I'm not gay, see, I have a hole between my legs so it's all right for me to make it with a male!"

82