আছ

COVER

GIRL

1988- "Fiona" = John

at Conol's wate

Almost exactly twenty-two years ago I appeared as Cover Girl on Tvia No. 8. When I look at the photos and read the text I can only wonder at how much I have changed and devel- oped from the timid girl fresh from her first wild adventure of walking around the city block at night. I was twenty- six years old, but effectively just emerging from a long a- dolescence. Even my femme name (Joan) had not been chosen by me (you don't need a name if you have no one around to talk to) but had been given to me by one of the friends I had recently discov- ered through Transvestia.

Now, one hundred issues later, I can look back on a very exciting period of maturation, during which I have long since become Fiona, have married, and have lived and worked in Canada, the United States and Australia, sometimes spending long periods as my femme self, and have some quite incredi- bly wonderful adventures and experiences to look back on... adventures I would probably dis- miss as wishful tv fantasy if I were to read them as somebody else's account, and if I did not have my photos and souvenirs of most of my better times.

I wonder what I will be writing down when I appear as Cover Girl on issue No. 208, and whether I will have a blue rinse in my wig by then? This is 1983, thatll be about 2008 There is no doubt that one of the turning points in my life was the discovery of TVia. Until then I had been com- pletely alone, still uncertain of my status in a world which seemed to contain many cross- dressers who were quite unlike me, and none who seemed,

(comple ageon)

= John Cummings AKA "Katherine" Commings (name change, legally) Still working as academie

no SRS surgery get (Feb 1989) "Katherine's Diary" Pub, 1992 Post-Sungen

like me, to be heterosexual

males completely devoted to an

inner femininity which found expression in the clothes, cos- metics and jewellery typical of

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