RANSVESTIA

men should try them. He says they're more comfortable than pants which he no longer wears and they make him a lot more attractive to women.

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Women and skirts are major topics of interest for the one-time construction worker who returned to college in hope of becoming a social worker.

He vehemently rejects being labeled a transvestite.

"Hey, man," he said when asked about his sexual preference, "I'm a macho dude. You can ask my girlfriend."

Cushing really does enjoy skirts and females, although he is the first to admit that his predilec tion for what is usually considered women's attire has its drawbacks.

The fact that he wore skirts "in the closet" for years was a factor in his first divorce. His second marital breakup came because "her folks couldn't understand. They thought I was a homosexual.”

Today, although he's ashamed of his tiny wardrobe, which consists of only a half-dozen outfits, he wears a skirt to class each day. He is so much a part of campus life now that his presence hardly causes a stir among other College of Marin students.

Dressed in a shin-length blue denim skirt with a fly in the front. Cushing told of his one-person crusade against male clothing ta- boos and his belief that men are greater victims of sexual stereo- types than women.

“Being a îñale. I'm denied the right to wear skirts," he said. his voice rising as he became excited. "I love to wear skirts. They're

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comfortable and I like to show off my legs."

The trouble is, he admitted, that when a man puts on a skirt. he is immediately thought of as a transvestite or a homosexual. Wom- en can wear pants, he observed, but men are forbidden in our society to wear skirts.

"I don't impersonate women," he said. "I'm just plain Bill."

Since beginning his first semes- ter at the college in September, Cushing has run into a wall of discrimination that threatens to wreck his educational plans.

Cushing is required, in addi- tion to attending classes, to spend at least five hours a week as a volunteer with a Marin social serv ice project. So far, he said, he's been turned down by some 25 agencies such as Headstart, the House at San Quentin prison. Planned Parenthood and various telephone hotline projects.

When he walked into the Head- start program. he said, a woman staffer turned down his application as a volunteer. “We might be able to use you as a secretary,” he quoted the woman as saying. Later, other staffers said he wasn't quali- fied for that job because he would freak out the public.

Several agencies suggested that if he put on pants and a sport coat they would accept his services immediately. When he argued that women can work in pants or a skirt, another woman volunteer told him: ·

"You men haven't gotten that far yet."

Cushing said he refuses to bow to this kind of sexual clothing stereotyping. He is now hoping to