RANSVESTIA

both the habit of the word transvestite and the prejudice in the shrink fraternity to name things after behaviors, i.e., exhibitionists, fetishists, sadists, masochists, etc. The last two are named after people whose behavior became so well known that it became the name of the be- havior. To name things after the reason why people do things is foreign to their nature most of the time. Of course, when the first sorority was founded it was named PHI PI EPSILON in Greek which was FPE in English and Foundation for Personality Expression was chosen because it too had the initial "FP." So we are all femmiphiles and our "condition," if you will, is "Femiphilia”—words which I would much rather have applied to me because they describe me rather than to be lumped together under the heading "transvestite" and "TV" with all the other types who by current usage are also included therein. When I see some of the slick porno magazines presently on the stands and see the pictures, stories and ads using those terms it makes me want to turn and run and put as much distance between myself and such people as I can. I don't want to be part of that bag and I suspect great numbers of those who read these words, don't either. Enough of this. Let's get on with the story of Virginia the "FP."

1968 was significant for other reasons. Early in the year I had arranged for one of my FP friends—whom older readers among you will remember as Mary-to come to work for me at Chevalier to take the burden of the recording, filling and mailing orders off of my hands. As a man he had worked for one of the big aircraft manu- facturers in the area and had a responsible job and a good set up with them, but he, like the rest of us, wanted to live as a woman. To do so he would have to have a profession or way of making a living as a woman. His father had been a watchmaker and he had learned that craft too which was what had gotten him into some of the precision work for which he was fitted both by training and temperment. But the field he wanted to go into, which was electrolysis, was also precise and painstaking. Moreover, it was a profession that had more women in it than men so it seemed ideal for his purposes.

There was, of course, only one problem, one we all face-money. He would have to go to school to learn the technique and this would not only require tuition money but "he" couldn't be earning a living while "she" was in school. So I suggested that he take the bull by the horns (and tear them off and become a cow) and start to live full time as Mary, go to school that way and, that by working for Chevalier she

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