RANSVESTIA

were about like those of the proverbial snowball in the nether regions. So I tucked my fantasy back into the same little closet that I kept my terrible secret of cross dressing in, and went about my business.

Eventually the business flourished, eventually I got married to an understanding girl and Virginia was able to come out whenever it suited her and things were on the up and up, so the idea of surgery was not only forgotten but contraindicated. I was happily married, making a good living with the business, could dress whenever I wished, so the heat was off. Well, over the years thinking back on it I realized that I had been lucky to be broke when Christine first made headlines as it prevented me from doing something that I am sure I would have regretted later. It is the only time in my life when I was glad to be broke. Having some money is definitely superior to being broke. So you see what I mean when I say "I have been there"-not to the surgery but through all the fascinating fantasy that goes with the idea, so I know whereof I speak.

Well, for those of you who don't know, let me briefly mention that after I sold the business and got divorced about 10 years ago I was in a position to run my own life the way I wanted. At that point I had the freedom and the $5,000 and could have arranged the operation very easily but I didn't have any urge to do so. Since I was free I decided that I would live the rest of my life as Virginia and I have done so full-time since then. Fortunately, all the lectures that I had given to service clubs, medical schools and elsewhere about sex and gender had made the differences between the two so real to me that I could easily decide that I would settle for the gender change and forget the sex change. I did that, and as most of you know, I've lived happily as Virginia for the last 10 years, traveling all over and doing most everything that any other woman might do.

When you get right down to analyzing it there are only four reasons for wanting sex transformation: 1) it makes it possible to have inter- course with males in the biological way, 2) for a very small group that have for years resented the presence of penis and testicles for some reason, it finally solves that problem. But please note in passing this point that while the number of males who truly hate their penis is very small, the number of so-called "transexuals" who say they do is almost equal to the number that say they are "transexuals." That is, it is one of the things one should be prepared to say with conviction if

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