RANSVESTIA

Well, in the course of this the newspapers got into the act and my name, business, profession and everything else were spread out not only for the dear citizens of L.A. to see but it got on the AP wire too. So there I was, with my "secret" of many years standing blown up and out into the world. So what to do. Do I slink away in shame from it all, or what? It happened that by this time I had met the woman who was going to be my second wife and we had been going to the Wednes- day night dances down at the church where the first wife and I had met. There were still many members who had known me and the first wife for a long time. So I decided that the best thing to do when you get thrown from a horse is to get back on and ride RIGHT NOW, so we went to the dance the next night after the papers had printed my "story." That is, I faced the music, held my head up and in effect said "so what if I am a TV." I learned a lot from that, principally that expectation is worse than realization and I have counselled everyone ever since to avoid exposure if possible but be ready to face the world with dignity and self confidance if it comes because it won't be as bad as your expectation makes it. This is so much more true today than in 1950 since the world is much more tolerant than it used to be.

Christine Jorgenson's story hit the papers in 1950 and I like every other TV around read it with beating heart. Here was somebody who now could wear her dresses and other feminine things whenever she darn well pleased without having to hide and live in fear. She had it made in my opinion. It wasn't too long after that that Charlotte McCleod appeared on the scene and then Roberta Cowell and her life story was serialized in Life magazine. I was very envious of these people and I believe that if I had had the money at the time I would have taken the boat to Europe. In later years I was very thankful that I was broke because it gave me fifteen or so years to think about the problem and to come up with the awareness that sex and gender were not the same and that it was a gender change that I was interested in and not the ability to have sex with a male so surgery would have been a very expensive, painful and dangerous trip to take to a destination I didn't want to go to.

As I indicated just previously I had by this time met the woman who would be my second wife. She was an English girl who had arrived in this country almost penniless, since the British Government would not allow citizens to take more than $200 out of the country with them because those were the days of austerity. So she took the first job she found advertised which happened to be that of house-

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