Good Grief, can it really be? Charlie Brown and Snoopy have just turned 40. I mean, it was a shock when I recently turned 40, but how can Snoopy be 40? Even if you count in dog years it seems incredible. I mention this because I have had an image of Snoopy in my mind lately. The image is the one where old Snoops is clinging to the roof of half a doghouse, the lower half having been swiped away in one snarling swat by the cat next door.

This image was conjured by the behavior of some of my sisters. While most of us who are part of the crossdressing community strive to create a feminine identity based on harmony and friendship, some of our sisters seem to have developed their feminine identity from Dynasty or Dallas or some other damn fool adolescent fantasy of power, sex and money. If we are going to emulate the feminine to satisfy our inner needs, why the devil do we have to pick the catty, bitchy side of that nature. Could it be a way to let off some of the macho steam pressure that has built up inside? Perhaps this nastiness is how some GG in the CDs life behaves, or perhaps it's just fun to be nasty.

I have wondered on and off about this for some years, but in a very detached way. I read of chapters torn apart by infighting, and sisters making fools of themselves both in public and private. But I suppose it had to happen eventually, and I ended up on the receiving end a while back.

As one who is compelled to put my thoughts on paper and show them to the world, I expect critics, after all maybe the critic has the same need as I do to flaunt our words in public. The funny thing is that I agreed with almost every point this critic made about what I had written, she was obviously informed on the subject. What rankled was the tone of the criticism, the catty, hair pulling nasty image of femininity that was presented reminded me of the old Lucy show where such cat fights were portrayed as the essence of femininity.

I guess it's human nature, divorced from notions of male or female, that we need to feel superior to someone else. But please, stick to the higher ground. Go ahead and feel superior if you have to, but superiority is not achieved by chopping the doghouse out from under the dog next door. Use your superiority to build your own house and stay in it if you can't be kind to your neighbor.