TRANSVESTIA

ly following their decision to renounce manhood for womanhood the tendency is to go as far into the feminine direction as possible both as an escape from and a flight into. However, as they mature in the new situation, most of us come to realize that our masculine past is still alive and well in the back of our head and actually provides the cere- bral mechanisms and experience on which we must build since we have not yet acquired much of the opposite kind. So, in effect, we return partway back along the gender axis to the vicinity of the midpoint. In passing, may I ask how many of you understand the meaning of the word "gynandry"? I though so, quite a few do not. I prefer to use this word to describe myself rather than androgeny because that word means man and woman in that order and is another of the chauvinistic pairs like, he/she, his/hers, Mr./Mrs., boys/girls, men/women, etc. Since to me femininity is more important than masculinity I feel it should have pride of place and I put it first, thus gynandry simply means woman/man or adjectively femininity/masculinity. It's only companion pair is ladies/gentlemen.

Finally there is the third class of "trans" people-the so-called transsexuals. These are persons who wish to not only change their gender, that is their lifestyle, but to have a surgical alteration of sex at least to the extent that modern medicine can approximate it. Such people are transcending two barriers at the same time, that of sex as well as that of gender, and for some of them the third one of sex object choice, too. There are really three subclasses here, depending on the previous history of the individual. At one extreme are those males who have been practicing homosexuals prior to surgery. They are chromosomal males seeking other chromosomal males for sexual outlet. Feeling that they can play the passive feminine role more effectively and legitimately after surgical alteration, they seek it out. Now they consider their relationships as being heterosexual which may get them off the moral hook since males are by definition, persons with penises and they, no longer having one, are no longer genital males and copulating with a penis and their newly acquired vaginas makes it to them heterosexual. They overlook the fact that sex originates between the ears not between the legs and originally they were oriented toward people with penises for their sexual pleasure. Since they still are, they really have not changed their sexual orientation. Since sex is the biggest motivation for change in such people, many of them were and remain prostitutes.

In the middle there are those who were largely asexual prior to

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