RANSVESTIA

his results came to the attention of Dr. Benjamin who was then pre- paring his Transexual Phenomenon book and he used these results in the opening chapters of his book and credited them to Buckner whereas the work was actually mine. It was not his fault, though as he had no way of knowing. But those of you who have read his book found a series of small tables relating to various aspects of transvestic behaviour. These were mine. Subsequently I received more ques- tionnaires and submitted them to the same computer analysis so that I finally had 504 replies.

In 1964 the American Psychiatric Association was holding its convention in Honolulu and I asked one of my psychiatric friends what he thought about my reading a paper based on the information in the questionnaire. He replied with some amazement, "Why that would be like a paranoid schizophrenic reading a paper on paranoid schizophrenia!" That led me to a definition of one type of psychiatrist -a person who thinks that he can tell more about what is going on inside a room by standing out in the garden looking in through the window, than he could by opening the door and going in. In any case I decided to take my chances and submitted the paper and it was accepted, so I was in.

I packed up my paper and my things and took off for Honolulu- the furthest I had ever been from home dressed. I remember clearly my feelings when, after being shown to my room by the bell boy and paying him a tip he went out and closed the door. I went out on to the balcony overlooking Waikiki Beach. I looked down from the 8th floor and quietly began to cry. To think that I had finally made it to Hawaii and more amazing that I had made it as Virginia. It was too much and I had a good cry.

The convention itself had sessions in Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii both in Kona and Hilo. My paper was scheduled for the Oahu session and so I had only made reservations in Honolulu. I took the usual tourist trips around the city, to Pearl Harbor, etc. with other members of the convention and their wives. Then, came the day of my paper. It was very well accepted and several of my friends from San Francisco and Los Angeles were in the audience. I asked them after- ward how they thought the convention would accept me personally now that I had revealed myself and did they think it would be "safe" to continue around to the other islands with them. They said, why

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