RANSVESTIA

My strategy was soon worked out. When someone called me to speak I would agree and asked them to write me a letter inviting me to speak AS Virginia and dressed as a woman. This letter I would always carry with me when I went out and I was, therefore, either always just going to the lecture or returning home from it; and one way or another I could go shopping or whatever I wanted to do. But one thing I did everytime, was to go to the police department of whatever city I was in and ask to see the chief, assistant chief or captain of the vice squad. When I got to them, I showed them the letter by way of explaining my appearance and gave them a brain washing on the subject and I finished off by giving them some of the pamphlets for their officers. So, although a limited number of people were in the audience, whether at the Service Club or the police station, I hoped that the pamphlets would be read by others and thus spread the information further afield.

It was from these appearances before men's clubs (I only did one women's service club. It was a great success but there aren't many of them) that I learned one lesson; namely, that people go by what they see not by what they know. This was brought home to me particularly by one man in one of the clubs. When I finished speaking, he stood up and said he had a question. I said, "Go ahead." And he said, "Well, ah, that is, ah you said you'd been married?" "Yes." "And, ah, ah, you had a son?" "Yes." "Well, ah, what I want-well, I mean, ah, I don't underst-I mean, ah, ah, ah, well, Who had the baby, you or your wife?" I'd already told him I was a male, been married and had a son but he could only see a woman talking and since women have the babies it became the main problem to find out which woman was the mother. It was good for a laugh but it taught me a lesson. If you can make them see the right thing, they'll act and think accordingly in spite of what they may know about you.

Now back to the aftermath of the trial. One of our readers was an attomey and worried that the spreading postal investigations might get to him. He wrote to a friend of his, another attorney who had at one time been Solicitor General for the post office department. That gentleman wrote back to him and also to me and among other things said that it was unheard of to prosecute on a first offense, as they had prosecuted me on the basis of a single letter. And the more I thought of the DA's remarks the more I was convinced that they had just used

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