RANSVESTIA

activity. So he decided to end it all. But at least in death he could be the girl he wanted to be.

So the purpose of this little piece is to point out that whereas in the "TV dark ages" when there were no magazines or books serious or fictional devoted to the phenomenon of cross dressing, and when there were no groups where one could go and meet and talk with others or correspondence clubs through which one could share one's inner yearnings with understanding others, collecting clippings and photographs was about the only way one could relate to others. Today the situation is different. If I do say so myself I was the instigator of the whole thing in that I started to provide a magazine about FPs, then stories about fictional hero-heroines, then serious books about the subject-The Wives book, the How to be a Woman though Male and then Understanding Cross Dressing, and finally a social organization for such people. This gave the isolated closet cases something to compare with and to write to and meet others. Then in the late 60's when society itself began to become more tolerant of all sorts of previously taboo behaviours there began to appear other people's efforts in the way of magazines and education. Some of them were clean and helpful, such as Tumabout, published for about nine issues in New York. Others were plain and simply sex oriented and sick-type material. A characteristic one is that crumby magazine published in Pennsylvania which stole my copyrighted name, Transvestia, and tried to claim it was not plagiarizing my name because they put the word "international" in front of it. It is one of those sick magazines that show a lot of young males in lipstick, heels, brassieres and garter belts with their male organs in full view.

But regardless of type, they all contributed to more openness about most anything. Then when women's liberation got under way and women began wearing pantsuits and short hair and leaving off makeup, etc., judges all over the country began to declare laws against cross dressing unconstitutionally vague because it was no longer possible to say what kind of clothing belonged to which sex. So this too opened some more doors.

the

The end result of all this is what I said at the beginning general attitude of cross dressers themselves has changed as has the society around them. In earlier days TVs, homos, and TSs were ranked in that descending order. Today the order is TSs, gays, and TVs due to all the publicity about transexuals and the activities of Gay

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