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If magazines like this had been available when you were younger, would you have been interested in reading them?
When I was a kid, books of this kind were only sold in "specialist" outlets, which were off-limts to anyone under 18. However, even if TG magazines had been available at the local news agent, I probably wouldn't have had the nerve to front up and buy one (even under the counter).
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Cover
The cover would have to be less sexy. It would have to look wholesome.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Early 1980s
Separating my own conflicting gender feelings, that I felt extremely guilty about, I did not know that Gender Dysphoria existed until the early 80s. A counselor had assigned me a book to read called, "Co-Dependent No More", and then as my wife and I talked to her, suddenly she looked at me and said, "You are a Woman. You need to be living as a woman." Her statement was very upsetting and being conservative Christians, we "prayed that away". for 20 years and then it all fell apart. I did not realize that many people saw me as gay or a woman. I was never gay.
Better Than That
We had Montgomery Ward, JCPenny, Sears catalogs. Didn't come anymore explicit than that unless it was Hustler or Playboy which I never saw until I was in college. I believe Fredricks of Hollywood was somewhere between grade school and college? I ordered several items from Fredricks after I was in college.
Hugs Transfemme
Barb
Life is ever changing for ourselves, everyone around us, and the world as a whole.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Yes, Before Feminism
I remember those Catalogues. Then there was 'Cosmopolitan' Magazine and so many others, for women only. It was all thinly veiled pornography, in my opinion. The advent of Pantyhose seemed be the harbinger of the end of it all. I remember my mother being upset and spanking my older sister when she did not wear stockings and a panty girdle to High School. In those days girls were not allowed to wear pants to school or to town. My sister had 'Peddle Pushers for in the fields.
Circa 1970 in San Francisco...
...during the summer, I'd head down to the Main Library in the Civic Center and read and re-read Benjamin's The Transsexual Phenomenon and Stoller's Sex and Gender -- I didn't feel comfortable about taking them to the checkout counter, let alone checking them out. (Actually, the checkout counter was the real stumbling block. I told my parents as a young teen that I had an interest in "boy-to-girl stuff", though my brothers didn't know.) Afterwards, I would walk down Market Street to a five-and-ten type department store -- Kress, I think -- that sold pizza by the slice, before taking the streetcar and a bus home.
Anyway, the point of this recital is that on the way there, in one of the triangular corner buildings on the other side of the street, there was a liquor store with magazines in the window, including a transvestite one with a black-and-white cover. I've forgotten the title. I never went into the store, though, or saw the inside pages. I was under 21 (and a non-drinker), so I didn't have an excuse to walk in and buy something else so that I could look. (I'm pretty sure they were behind the counter anyway.)
Eric