RANSVESTIA

started off by saying "all the people on this side of the table are males." They didn't understand at first and thought I was trying to be funny but when the laughing stopped I explained how it was true and went on to tell them about the TV shows I had scheduled on the way home. They asked about a dozen questions and the subject was finished. Later that evening I spoke to one of the women in the lounge and commented on the small number of questions. Her reply was, "You have been a woman to us all week, Virginia, and you still are," and that was that. It only went to show what I have so often said, if you can accept yourself other people can accept you, too.

I had a really full month before I got back to L.A. I did television or radio shows in New York, Hartford, Boston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, Houston and Denver. In the middle of that I gave a seminar to the staff of the Masters and Johnson group in St. Louis. At this late date reading the summary at the end of my editorial report on this trip in TVia #59, I can't believe that I did it. It said, "I was gone 90 days (about 30 of it in simple European sightseeing), traveled about 24,000 miles, visited 37 cities in eight countries by means of 25 plane flights on 17 different airlines, plus eight trains and one ship. I gave 14 television inter- views, nine radio shows, six newspaper interviews, three magazine interviews and took part in three seminars, read one professional paper, met with 17 different TV groups and saw 180 different individual TVs. It's tiring even to read about it. Has anyone else ever even approached that amount of effort for the TV cause even over a cumulative period of a couple of years instead of being crammed into about 60 days? I said earlier that I was not going to be shy and retiring about myself and I'm not. I am free to say that I think that is a hell of a lot of effort on the part of one person for one cause in so short a time—about 60 days. I'm proud of that and let my detractors come up with anything even remotely comparable to it.

Another interesting thing happened during 1969. While I was away on that three-month trip around Europe and the U.S., Chevalier was managed by Mary, whom I have mentioned earlier. Mary, like many another FP, was enamoured with the idea of surgery and we had discussed and argued the point many times prior to my going to Europe. Always she had the same plaint, one used over and over again by those opting for surgery "But, Virginia, you just don't understand, just living this way I won't be real." I gave her all the simple, logical arguments against surgery-over and above the pain,

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