I'm sure that you have seen an ad or two (or twenty) for one of those 900 phone services. They usually have neat names like 1-900-HOT-HOTT, which is a real number that a teenage neighbor called twice on my garage phone before I caught him. I never could understand why someone would pay $25 for the first four minutes of talk when for a smaller monetary investment you could go to a bar somewhere and buy some floozy a few drinks and get the talk live, or possibly something more if you have a golden tongue. Now get your mind out of the gutter, or wherever else it strayed, I'm referring to the gift of gab.

So anyway, here I am righteously denigrating these mnemonic numbers when I see amongst a page full of offers of telephonic bliss in any form you can think of an ad for 1-900-DRESS-UP, promising to fulfill any crossdresser's dreams. So to prove I 'm as human as any Presidential Candidate, I did an immediate flip-flop and decided there might be something worthwhile here after all.

I didn't want any record of my folly on my phone bill, so I quickly put on my best blouse and skirt, made a short stop at the bank, and searched until I found an isolated, old fashioned phone booth complete with door. With my purse filled with my life savings in quarters, I sat down and dialed. It was an old fashioned phone with a real dial that you have to spin around, so when the artificially pleasant voice mail system droned on about pressing 1 for lingerie, 2 for leather, 3 for bras and girdles I gave the round dial a dirty look and clobbered that ancient piece of technology with my coin laden purse.

Maybe it was dumb luck, or maybe the inner bowels of the phone system took pity on me, but Ma Bell reacted with a symphony of beeps and bloops, and suddenly I was overhearing someone else's conversation, but apparently they couldn't hear me. I swear on a stack of Lane Bryant catalogs that every word that follows is an accurate transcription of that conversation and the absolute truth.

SEXY VOICE: ...meet a girl like you. You must look so pretty. What are you wearing?

BASHFUL VOICE: A new green satin blouse with a high ruffled neck and a plum flowered skirt, yellow stockings and pink pumps with 5 inch heels.

SV: (In an uncertain tone) Oh yes, honey. It sounds wonderful. (Sounding a bit more sure) I like thinking about what you have waiting under that under that skirt for me. Tell me all about it.

BV: (Sounding excited) I do have a charming black lace slip with little flowers around the bodice and hemline. It makes me feel so… so… feminine.

SV: You can't begin to know how that makes me feel. Tell me darling, If I were to slowly lift that slip over your knees just what would I see?

BV: Well, I am wearing a perfectly wonderful pair of powder blue bikini panties with lace and the most darling bows. Isn't that exciting?

SV: It sure is, I'm drooling at the thought. But I was thinking more of what you have under the panties, as nice as they might be.

BV: You must mean my garter belt. Do you know how hard it is to find a real garter belt these days, with pantyhose and all the rage? I spent just hours and hours shopping for one and finally found a red and black frilly one that...

SV: (Muttered) Yeah, about as hard as it is to get you to understand where I'm going! (Louder) It sounds wonderful to me, dearie, but what I had in mind was a more personal endowment.

BV: You must mean my breast forms. With those babies I'm endowed like you wouldn't believe. They're real silicon filled and wiggle like Jell-O when I walk. Move over Dolly Parton, there won't be room enough for the both of us in a small room.

SV: (Starting to sound peeved) what some people will pay $3.95 a minute for. Look here, tiger, let me put it bluntly, can you get on with things here. How they hanging under that dress?

BV: By my bra straps, how else? Although I have to admit I get there ruts in my shoulders from the straps. Do you run into that problem?

SV: No, I seem to run into brick walls, or maybe brick minds. Honey, all this is turning me on something awful, cant you tell me how hot you're getting?

BV: Yeah, my slip is sticking to my back, it must be 90 degrees out today. I think...

At that point Ma Bell must have developed a conscience, for in another symphony of beeps the conversation faded out and the phone demanded 25 cents for the next 3 minutes, so I gathered up my purse and went home, wondering if someone will start a 900 number that really deals with what crossdressers want.

I have recently been educated. After all these years of simply wearing frilly clothes and thinking them feminine, I have finally found out the secret of how to be a real woman. And all because my car is a clunker that just passed 100,000 miles...

It happened this way. As soon as the odometer turned over, every time I got in the car something else major broke down. Within three weeks I replaced the rear main seal, the fuel injectors, water pump, catalytic converter and both front brakes. As a result, I have spent many hours whiling my time away in the waiting room, and after my third or fourth visit had read every copy of Automotive News, Sports Illustrated and Time on the coffee table and was forced to start reading the (gasp) Women's Magazines.

In between the ads for makeup, Wonder Bras and scented personal hygiene products, articles appeared advising the proper and feminine way to do almost anything, from being a perfect working mother to spicing up your love life. But the best part were the quizzes. With only a few strokes of a pencil I was able to rate every aspect of my femininity from my efficiency in housework (not too bad), taste in lingerie (exceptional) to how good I make my man feel in bed (I plead the 5th).

I realized that I had never seen a quiz that helps a crossdresser asses their femininity, so I am determined to rectify this oversight. After all, this could lead to insights every bit as vital to your feminine persona as those gleaned from any real Woman's Magazine.

For each question check the box that best applies.

1) The best way of removing your beard is
A[ ] Electrolysis, if you can afford it
B[ ] A good sharp razor after a long hot shower.
C[ ] Epilady. Some people have to prove they are men in order to be a lady!

2) The success of your makeup job is measured by:
A[ ] Your smooth, flawless blushing skin.
B[ ] Percentage of blue shadow showing.
C[ ] The pound.

3) The beauty of your wig is measured by:
A[ ] Realistic look and feel, matching your facial shape.
B[ ] Percentage of teased hair.
C[ ] The yard.

4) The femininity of your bustline is measured by:
A[ ] The quality of breast forms and bra, conforming to the rest of your body's shape.
B[ ] The percentage of hair in the cleavage.
C[ ] The inch.

5) Your undergarments are chosen for:
A[ ] Quality of construction and delicate femininity.
B[ ] The percentage of lace adornments.
C[ ] Tensile strength in pounds per square inch.

6) The stylishness if your hemline is measured by:
A[ ] Current fashion in light of your body and age.
B[ ] The percentage of leather in the skirt.
C[ ] Inches above the knee.

7) The best stockings to wear are determined by:
A[ ] Your clothing, leg shape and color.
B[ ] The percentage of leg hair you shave.
C[ ] Fishnet openings measured in millimeters.

8) The proper shoes for your outfit are dictated by:
A[ ] Color, the occasion and your overall height.
B[ ] Percentage of gold accent.
C[ ] Heel height in centimeters.

9)The appropriateness of your purse is ascertained by:
A[ ] Its demure size and ease of transport.
B[ ] Percentage of your worldly goods it will hold.
C[ ] Capacity in cubic yards.

10) Your femme name is chosen for:
A[ ] Simplicity, charm and femininity (Angela)
B[ ] Resemblance to your home name (Georgia)
C[ ] Number of syllables. (Angela Mary Felicia Louise)

11) Your favorite fashions are determined by:
A[ ] Current fashion, body size, age and good taste.
B[ ] Percentage of spandex in the construction.
C[ ] What's on sale for under $20.00.

12) Your favorite reading while attired en femme is:
A[ ] Great classics of literature.
B[ ] Bodice rippers. (As long as it's not your bodice being ripped.)
C[ ] Penthouse Letters.

13) Your favorite household activity when en femme is:
A[ ] Eating bon-bons and watching the soaps.
B[ ] Cooking, sewing and writing letters on pink scented paper.
C[ ] Cleaning the toilet and washing the dishes.

14)When traveling en femme you always carry ___ for use if stopped by an authority figure.
A[ ] A smile and your correct identification.
B[ ] An involved and outrageous story.
C[ ] Suicide pills.

15) When in the mall en femme and you need to speak, your voice is:
A[ ] Low, cultured and sexy.
B[ ] High, squeaky and terrified.
C[ ] You wave your hands and hope it looks like American Sign Language.

16) If read in public you:
A[ ] Smile and act as a gracious lady would.
B[ ] Panic and run away, leaving a high heel behind like Cinderella.
C[ ] Strip then and there, throwing your femme clothes in the nearest goodwill basket, pausing only to purchase a pair of masculine shorts.

17) When invited to a formal dinner party you:
A[ ] Choose a high necked, satin gown with some lace.
B[ ] Choose a low cut satin gown with tons of lace.
C[ ] Choose a leather mini with purple spandex top.

18) When invited to a casual lunch you:
A[ ] Choose a high necked, satin gown with some lace.
B[ ] Choose a low cut satin gown with tons of lace.
C[ ] Choose a leather mini with purple spandex top.

19) You are discovered en femme by a previously unknowing wife/friend/sibling. Your reaction is:
A[ ] Calmly educate them in the causes and merits of transvestism.
B[ ] Frantically explain your were trying on your Halloween costume. (In May?)
C[ ] Leave immediately and start a new life as a lingerie salesman in Fairbanks, Alaska.

20) If you purchase a specialized "transvestite clothing catalog" you can expect:
A[ ] The same stuff you could buy in any women's wear catalog, but at three times the going price.
B[ ] A full mailbox from all the trash pandered by those that bought your name from the mailing list you are now stuck on forever.
C[ ] They still don't have anything big enough to fit you anyway.

Scoring: You really don’t want to know, do you?

We're a creative bunch, those of us males who like to wear women's clothes. I've never seen a bunch of folks so intent on inventing new words to describe every little nuance of just why they do this or wear that. My sisters seem to have an endless capacity to transform every Greek or Roman root for two into some new combination of syllables that exactly describes their motivation for putting on a dress. Perhaps this is done in an effort to communicate just exactly who they are, where they're going and their political stance as they travel, but I rather suspect it has more to do with being able to put a label on the other person for our own comfort. I find it all very confusing.

Perhaps we gender benders should take a cue from a those whose sexual orientation has been so much cause for comment. They seem to be satisfied with simply "gay" and "lesbian", a sexual segregation which perhaps makes sense. With just these two descriptions they have created some great acronyms, yet the simplicity of the labels speaks for itself. Personally I'd be satisfied with "man-in-a-dress" and "crossdresser" is good enough for me. I really don't need to have some esoteric combination of "trans", "bi" or "tri" grafted awkwardly to some classical root stock to let the world know I (1) wear dresses for the fun of it, (2) have no interest in rearranging my bodily plumbing, (3) know all too well I don't look feminine in the least and don't care and (4) do not take part in group activities involving farm animals, small children or occult trappings.

It seems we are trying to pack more and more information in a simple word. why I even learned that The Transsexual Menace sees a political statement is spelling Transsexual with one 's'. I'm sorry to disappoint you, ladies, but I hadn't even noticed the deliberate misspelling until it was pointed out to me, let alone its political import

But where there is a need some Red Blooded American Entrepreneur will find a way to make a buck, and I am no exception. A while back I invited the world's fashion mavens to make me their poster girl for their next clothing line, but the silence has been, well, silent. In fact you could hear my slip rustling and the elastic stretching in my bra straps for all the response I've gotten. So there is only one thing to do, I am announcing my own line of TV fashions that not only will flatter your figure but will provide anyone in the know with an exact label for your brand of crossdressing.

I have applied my vast electronic knowledge to create set of earrings with a powerful miniature computer inside. This computer will constantly scan the apparel of anyone within 100 feet of you and, when it spots someone wearing one of Ricky's TV Fashions, will discretely whisper in your ear the information coded into the dress pattern. Rest assured the thing will only talk to you and not accept voice commands. We are conspicuous enough as is without having someone walking down the street whispering in their own ear to attract attention.

With my line of clothing and accessories you can make a political statement a the same time you make a fashion statement. When the whole world is on line, there will be no need for any more new words in our community.

I did have a bit of a problem in getting the proper way of encoding the information, though. Since the accepted Fashion Wisdom is that vertical stripes make you thinner, I tried a variation on the supermarket bar coding at first. It worked well, with the earrings successfully translating the encoded message to my squadron of testers as I wandered around the mall. I had to abandon it after going to the grocery for a head of lettuce when the supermarket scanner flashed my weight on the checkout screen and they made me pay $7.99 a pound before I could leave the store. I was very lucky that the scanner read the runs in my stockings as a half price coupon and what with coupon doubling I got off lightly. I did look kind of funny doing high kicks until the scanner read my leg properly.

My next idea was a small radio transmitter with the antenna woven into the fabric of the dress, After all, what CD could resist the urge to buy something so functional in gold lame? Again it worked, but every time I got near one of those cute electronic kiosks for the lottery it flashed my bra size and gave my odds against passing as over a billion to one. Two ladies did place a bet on me, as they were the best odds they had seen in the lottery for some time. I finally settled on a fractal pattern with the outfits coming in complete Mandlebrot sets. No one seems to have used that for a commercial information system and all those lovely pastels make a really nice pattern.

So keep your eyes open, soon you will be able to cruise the malls without that agonizing guesswork when you see someone who might be a sister but you really don't want to ask for fear of being foolish in a public place. The next time someone invents a new word for transvestism, refer them to me so I can encode it quickly and spare you all the trouble of having to decide it it's as dumb as all the other words we have invented in the past.

I am a model of restraint, I think. You couldn't tell it by looking at me, unless you measure the tensile strength of my corset strings, but you couldn't see that either. In the latest of my temporary jobs I have ended up in yet another machine shop, building yet another machine. With each of these jobs you meet a new group of men - not people, they're exclusively men.

So I was a bit surprised to notice a woman machinist, I think. It took me a while to notice her, after all baggy work clothes and protective coats have a certain sameness about them. I will admit I was curious about the gender of this person, so I covertly took inventory. The result was pronounced androgyny, something even more rare than outright misogyny on the shop floor. An earring in both ears, short hair, slim build, no discernible hips, slightly feminine mannerisms (I know a machine shop is not exactly the best place to observe this), no beard shadow and no makeup to hide one. The matter was settled at lunchtime in the lineup to punch out. Without the coat well defined breasts were visible, but casual conversation revealed a rather low and pleasant voice and the time card revealed a distinctly feminine name.

I know that I shouldn't have been so damned interested in assigning a sex to her, that as one of amorphous gender myself it shouldn't matter to me. Yeah, about the same way the color of a person's skin shouldn't matter. Face it, I grew up in a culture that makes a big deal of sex and skin color, and which lays great store in those differences. One of my greatest complaints against the persuasiveness of racism is that I will always be aware of a person's skin color before I am aware of them as a person. Over the years I have had acquaintances with skin tones other than my own, even a friend or two, but no matter how close or casual the relationship that cultural barrier was still buried in my mind. As much as I dislike it, it will be there as long as I am alive, an unwanted but real vestige of a sick culture.

So why should I be so surprised at myself for wanting to assign a gender to a casual acquaintance in the workplace? Part of it was that cultural need to define, part was my insatiable curiosity and part was a hope that here in this bastion of male chauvinism a possible TS could work without harassment. The worst part about the string of temporary jobs I have been working is the pervasive macho attitude, homophobia and crude sexual humor that seems to be a part of the very atmosphere. As individuals they are nice people, but as a group their consciousness needs raising, and it would take more than the 5 ton crane overhead to do it. In this atmosphere I would have expected a TS to have suffered verbally if not physically, but nary a word was spoken, no hints were dropped. No comments, to her or me or anyone else.

So anyway, my curiosity about visible gender has been satisfied, and I was tactful enough not to inquire about the subject of former gender or sexual anatomy. But I'm still curious. So Jennifer, if you work in a machine shop near an airport in New York, and really are a TS who reads this magazine, drop me a line and let me know, OK. Otherwise I'll put on my foundation garments and restrain myself.

Space... The final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise…

If you are a Trekkie I don't have to continue any farther, you can hear Captain Kirk's voice reciting those famous lines until, without a shred of political correctness, he proclaims:

To go where no MAN has gone before!

I have just received a report from a Star Trek convention held in Buffalo, NY where someone, perhaps one of our sisters, brought a whole new meaning to those noble lines.

For those of you who don't go to Star Trek conventions, you will find many of the participants attired in full, Official Star Fleet Uniform. You will also find some member of the original Star Trek cast making an appearance, and in this case it was Scotty. Or actor James Doohan when out of uniform. Scotty was happily posing for pictures with those in attendance, for a fee of course, he's no dummy and at almost over 70 has to think of retirement. So there he is, kissing the girls for the camera when he was presented with a dilemma.

A gentleman attired in Official Star Fleet Female Uniform joined the line. Remember the female uniform was designed in the 60s, and consists of a rather low neckline, mini skirted tunic and pantyhose. Patterns and fleet specs are available in the Official Star Fleet Technical Manual published by Ballantine Books, by the way. My reporter did not indicate if the person in question was wearing an Official Star Fleet Brassiere, but there was an instant wave of speculation as to what would happen when this Trekkie TV reached the end of the line.

As I heard this story the plot for STAR TREK XXXVII - WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE popped full blown into my head, and you, lucky readers, will be the first to hear it.

We open with the standard shot of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, but every living soul on board is garbed in the Official Female Uniform.

KIRK: Mr. Spok! (Pauses while Spok turns and does double take) Green blush, Mr. Spok?

SPOK: I am not a human, captain. My blood is green.

KIRK: (Recovering) Mr. Spok, I need answers. Why has the laundry computer started producing only female uniforms?

SPOK: Captain, I have thus far been unable to obtain an answer to your query. I am attempting to run a diagnostic and will report further when it is complete.

KIRK: Very good, Mr. Spok. (Pause) Oh, and Spok.

SPOK: Yes, Captain?

KIRK: I want to know who programmed the replicators to produce enough falsies for the entire crew of this ship on such short notice.

UHURA: Captain, I have a report of a Klingon on Deck B.

KIRK: Don't worry, that's just Sulu. He always had a fondness for leather and spikes.

(Communicator beeps.)

McCOY: Jim, I have a problem here. I have a rash of men coming into sick bay with 'female complaints'. Can't you get that pointy eared freak to do something with the blasted computers?

KIRK: We're working on it, Bones. Just be patient.

McCOY: Patient! I have too many patients. I already have 6 candidates for reassignment surgery so far this morning. Jim, I'm a doctor, but I'm not that kind of doctor!

SPOK: Captain, I have determined the source of the programming came from outside this vessel.

KIRK: Curious. Keep working on it.

(Hits communicator button.)

KIRK: Scotty! I need more power up here!

SCOTTY: Power Captain? We're docked in a space station for repairs. We aren't going anywhere!

KIRK: Not for the ship Scotty, for myself. The force field on this damn corset is about to let go. If I don't get more power the explosion will ruin my image forever!

SPOK: Captain, I have the answer. I have traced the source of the problem to the master computers of a giant entertainment company on planet Earth. It seems the crew of STAR TREK - THE NEXT GENERATION is tired of waiting for their chance to cash in on movies and have devised a remarkable plan.

Since most of our plots revolve around you making loud, macho noises and then seducing the female lead, they decided that changing your image would do us in. They programmed the laundry computer hoping to destroy your macho image and replace it with a more feminine one. If that didn't work (after all there are some females who might find our current mode of dress appealing) they planned to send the footage of this movie to the Federation Armed Services Committee and cash in on the current debate on gays in the military.

KIRK: Fiendish, Mr. Spok, but to no avail. If they succeed in canceling us we'll just start an afternoon talk show and we'll clean up!

THE END

By the way, Scotty did not pucker up.

OK, I will grant you are an exceptionally tolerant and forgiving person. After all you're a crossdresser (or at least involved positively with one if you're reading this) and you can probably stand and deliver a fifteen to twenty minute lecture on how crossdressers should be respected, and how it doesn't really matter what you're wearing, you should be treated with respect. Maybe you're one of the activists, willing standing up before God and all Her children in a dress to prove your point. I applaud you for your positive mental attitude and congratulate you for your "broad-minded" sensibility. So now I'm going to mess with your mind.

Let's act out a little scene. The setting is your local crossdresser's club. There are diverse persons of both apparent genders seated around the room chatting and schmoozing. Enter, stage left, yours truly, looking foreword to an evening of fun and games among my crossdressed peers. Suddenly the conversation stops. Tableaux: shocked faces, disapproving stares and icy silence. I quickly take inventory: shoes match the clothes, slip not showing, blouse buttoned tightly, (grab head) wig in place. Everything checks OK. So why the dropped jaws?

(Portentous drumming, then a voice offstage with lots of echo.) "Check your face, stupid!"

Quick, a mirror! There's got to be a mirror around, crossdressers simply can't exist without a reflection to ponder. There, lots of eye shadow, long, thick lashes, ruby red lips, high neckline covering the Adam's apple. Still no clue what's wrong.

(Voice offstage, downright exasperated.) It's not the makeup, dummy, it's the hair.

Oh, now I get it. If you guys in dresses are so gol darned tolerant, so ready to demand acceptance of your crossdressing, why do you get so nervous at seeing me in a dress if I haven't shaved my beard?

Relax, it's a rhetorical question, I don't expect you to answer it. In fact, I will admit that I am as unwilling to show up at a meeting in dress and beard as anyone. To be frank, I was more than a little embarrassed to dress up at home and have my wife see me, even though she actually encouraged it. Why is it unacceptable to express your femininity with hair on your face?

My wife the social worker explained it to me as she was reading over my shoulder while I typed this. It's called, in a typical social work phrase with far too many words, Internalizing the Mind of the Oppressor. (Why do social workers always need so many words. If you're going to use jargon at least invent one simple word and save me some typing.) It's the old story of the kidnap victim joining the kidnappers, the battered woman announcing "It's really my fault." If we're so ready to demand uncritical acceptance of gender expression, why is the presence or absence of facial hair so important?

I'll freely admit I have internalized the view that I mustn't want to go out in a dress with an unshaven face. So go ahead and admit it, you think so too. Then take a minute to ask yourself why. Reach down to the liberated woman in you and tackle this hairy problem, then go forth with a new vision of tolerance and acceptance. Who knows, maybe I'll catch up to you after I've shaved the beard so I can go out in public.

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.

I what to know who makes up the rules, and when I find her I want her to change them, now! It may come as a shock to you, but life just ain't fair. With my new job I am living in a two room apartment all by myself on weekdays. My wife is in school two hours away from my apartment, which is two hours away from our (supposedly permanent) home, and we navigate from node to node on this triangular route each weekend. I thought life was supposed to get more stable when you hit your forties!

But I digress, being alone again means that for fifteen hours of each day (less overtime) I can revel in female attire. I can sleep in a nightgown, run around in bra and panties or full formal gown, and otherwise be as feminine as possible whenever I darn well please. I can be daring and eat spaghetti in a white lace blouse. I can sit at the computer with my angel sleeves dangling on the keyboard and full length skirt winding up in the chair wheels or wake up to the comforting feel of a stuffed bra and silky nightgown clinging to my body. I can spend hours at the sewing machine, enduring its snarling and make new clothes for myself. I can cook, I can read, I can do anything I want and wear a dress too. So why is it I just cannot force myself to put on a housedress and clean the place up?

Our culture defines housecleaning as a feminine pursuit. If life were fair putting on a dress would instantly motivate me to wash the dishes and sweep the floor. If you watch TV you know real women have a primal urge to lay about the place with spray can and dust rag, but somehow this facet of femininity has escaped me. The ultrafeminine joy of cleaning the bathroom has all the appeal of the material I'm supposed to be cleaning, no matter how much nylon, rayon, spandex and silicone is distributed over my body. I have to face it, I hate cleaning no matter what I'm wearing, and there is no one else to do it for me.

Perhaps the solution is to hire a housekeeper to come in and do it for me, but then I'd have to come up with a really inventive explanation for the panties in the laundry basket and the 46D bra hanging off the doorknob. Creating a convincing extemporaneous dissertation as to what I do with the padded corset may strain even my powers of fabrication. I've toyed with the notion of turning on every faucet in the place before leaving for the weekend and allowing the resulting tidal wave to cleanse the floor, but I really want my security deposit back. And I suppose letting the gerbils out of the cage to nibble up all the trash would simply make matters worse, especially as they are pregnant.

So anyway, I want to have a long and serious talk with whoever instilled the desire to crossdress in me. Just why didn't I get the full treatment? If you know where to find her, let me know. But meanwhile I have to take out the trash…

Dear Mr. Sears,

I know that it may seem strange for me to be writing you, after all you've been dead for many years, but my friends at the Psychic Network tell me that this may be the only way I'll attract the attention of the store you left behind.

I have been a loyal customer of your store for many years because it supplies two classes of merchandise I cannot live without. I make my living with my hands, and for as long as I can remember I have used your Craftsman tools, they were the best around. Until, that is, a few years ago when some young whippersnapper decided Sears could live on your good name and started making them out of steel that had a close relationship to butter. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Sears, but I now turn to Mr. Stanley for his tools these days. Perhaps you and some of your ethereal friends in the netherworld could arrange to haunt the sucker who decided to make a quick buck off your name.

Although I no longer use your tools I still visit your store regularly. I hope I won't shock you, Mr. Sears, when I tell you why. Your see, sir, after a day making my living with my tools I return home and relax in a way that might perplex a man of the 19th century such as yourself. I remove my rough working clothes and put on a dress, or maybe a blouse and skirt. I doubt you ever considered doing this yourself, but as a man in the retail business I'm sure your philosophy is "the customer is always right". At least your sales staff has always been glad to sell me any article of feminine clothing I desire without so much as snicker. As long as I'm at the counter, and they're very welcome to laugh at me when I leave.

I must admit I have not purchased many dresses or skirts from Sears. Being a large woman until very recently your store did not carry anything in my size, but then until recently American retailers simply assumed all women were smaller than a size 16 so I can't fault your store for that. I hope I won't embarrass you too much when I tell you that I come to Sears primarily to purchase my underwear. Please, Mr. Sears, don't blush. I assure you that people in the 90s (the 1990s, that is) can talk about lady's underwear with perfect propriety. For that matter, some ladies have been known to wear nothing but their underwear (they call them string bikinis) in public and not be arrested. Ogled maybe, but not arrested.

I don't quite know why, but while your store has never carried outerwear in my size they have always carried underwear to fit my large frame. In particular, Sears has always carried stockings to fit me. Since you died before they were invented, you may not know what pantyhose are, so I'll try to explain. Someone decided that having to hook up garters to a stocking on each leg, adjust the straps and snap the snaps was too much work for a modern woman, so they designed a one piece garment that encased legs and torso in nylon mesh (we no longer use silk for stockings, sorry to disappoint you) and called it pantyhose because it serves the purpose of both panties and hose. This is fine for a woman, it makes their life simpler no doubt, but it has it's drawbacks for people such as myself. When I put on a dress I naturally want to wear hose beneath it, and I have a bit of a problem getting pantyhose to fit properly. I'll try to be delicate here, but the problem is not so much as having the pantyhose conform to the bit of anatomy I have and women don't but getting them to conform to my pot belly and stay up. They have a disconcerting tendency to roll up and slide down the curve of my paunch. So I have developed a preference for gartered stockings and Sears has always carried stockings in my size. In fact, Sears is about the only place that still carries stockings since Mr. Ward's establishment went out of business.

I must congratulate the person who came up with the names for the sizes for your stockings. I'm considered statuesque. I like that, it's much better than humongous, and brings to mind a piece of art at out local museum. There is a beautiful statue in white marble in the lobby of a woman in a flowing gown. The carving is exquisite and every detail of her body and garments is captured in timeless wonder for all to see and appreciate. When I put on a pair of your statuesque stockings and buckle my garters, for a moment I am one with that statue: the essence of femininity, at least until I look in the mirror.

But the last few trips to your store have left me bereft, for I have been unable to find new stockings. I'll admit I have been reluctant to ask the sales clerk if they are no longer carrying my stockings, but it appears that I may have to switch to pantyhose when my stock runs out. So please, Mr. Sears, if you have any influence with the modern management of your store, let them know you still want them do so some things in the old fashioned way.

I'd appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Ricky

I'm confused. Well, more than I usually am, and that's a bad sign. I need Identity, I need a Label to pin my hopes and dreams to. I thought I was a Transvestite, but lately I have found out that is too clinical a word and I shouldn't use it. So I tried being a TV but the rabbit ears kept falling off my head and the satellite dish was just unbearable.

So I became Crossdresser, that didn't help because you can only be a real Crossdresser if you are on a television talk show. I tried Femmiphile for a while, but I'm large and blocky enough I was too often confused with a file cabinet. Dressing seemed to take forever when I was an Eonist, and I kept loosing my balance when I was bi-gendered. Is there such a thing as tri-gendered, it might be more stable.

No doubt about it, I needed professional help. Fortunately help was close at hand, in the form of my wife. Being a physically handicapped individual from a family with a mentally handicapped member, she is in training to be a social worker. There are few people more qualified on this earth to sling labels, acronyms and jargon around. So I went down and found her at her desk, highlighter in hand, staring at a textbook and muttering what sounded like arcane curses, but were actually statistical formulas from her probability class.

"Wife," I began, "I am in serious need. I can no longer live with myself without having a single word that describes my complex need to express my femininity by donning a mop of horsehair, smearing goo on my face, attiring myself in foundation garments with no relation to my physiognomy and perching atop heels so high that only ballet training makes standing possible. In all your reading and research, with your vast experience you must have the answer!"

Her mumbling stopped in mid expression (mathematical expression, that is) and with an angelic look on her face she replied. "That's simple enough. Pulling a massive tome from the pile on the bookshelf, she opened it and said "Here it is. It says here that social workers are 'differently trained', my Down's syndrome relative is 'differently intellectual' and my bad leg makes me 'differently abled'. So you are, of course, 'differently dressed." She turned back and began mumbling again and I beat a hasty retreat to my word processor.

How simple. How obvious. How official. So, there is no more need to devote pages and pages to discussing what our community is to be called. When someone asks, just tell them you are differently dressed. No problem.

I have been reading TV literature for about twenty years now, and one thing I have noticed is that there seems to be an aversion to speaking about bodily functions. (No, I will not descend to the level of toilet humor, thank you. For that you can watch cable TV.) This always seemed to me rather odd, as we put so much effort into changing our bodies. Way back when, when I was experimenting with creating a more feminine figure, I would have loved advice on how to do it, but such intimate details were not available. I stuffed bras with washcloths, ice bags filled with an incredible array of fluids (trying for the right feel but the caps always were in the way), water balloons (dangerous, I warn you), and several things I won't admit to, even to this day. It was a relief to finally be able to afford a real breast inserts. I sculptured foam for hips, corseted my potbelly, altered dresses and wasted a lot of time and money.

So it was with delight that I read Binthar Dundat's comments on ah... well... ah... breaking wind. Notice how I stumbled there? Why is it that a person who swears like a trooper when upset has to wriggle and search for a polite term for something everybody does all the time when putting words on paper? As I write this it's over 90 degrees and my body is ah... well... ah... perspiring. (Remember - Men sweat, Ladies perspire. I hope you're doing it properly.) My stockings are wet enough to be fishnets, the kind you throw in the ocean and get soaking wet catching fish, not the kind they wear in those magazines behind the counter in the drug store. My bra weighs about a pound more than when I put it on and I won't even describe what the silicone falsies are doing next to my skin. Clammy nylon sticking to your behind is a sensation they don't talk about when you read about the joys of femininity.

If I'm doing this for the joy of it, what the heck does a genetic woman do to cope. I have a friend, a large and well endowed woman, who is a fine blues singer. Recently at an outdoor festival she was singing in the sun and the sweat stain on her right breast covered half her body where the guitar rested. Half of me was relieved that I wasn't the only one with the problem, but the other half was annoyed that society will not let her take off her shirt and be comfortable without obnoxious comments or arrest.

We have an annual event here in the Rochester NY area, the topless picnic. It's not the media circus it was when it started, and there are no longer so many obnoxious men who "attend" for the thrill, but annually a small group of women have a family picnic in a public park to protest this form of sex discrimination. The first year everyone was arrested for indecent exposure, but eventually released because this was a constitutionally protected form of free expression. Notice, the ruling said you can undress to express your political views, but a woman still can't be comfortable on a hot day in public, that's still illegal. (Note: since I wrote this NY has made it legal for a woman to be topless if it isn't for 'business purposes'. Nice euphemism, that.)

So anyway, my solution has been to make a couple of pads out of half inch foam rubber and an old towel, that insert behind the falsies and act like sponges. It works OK for a while, but I have to stop now and go wring them out. With any luck, my stockings will catch enough fish for dinner tonight.

I am developing an acute case of envy for those of you who live in the sunny clime of California. Here in the Northeast the trees are turning colors and the frost is on the pumpkin. If it would only stay on the cussed pumpkin I wouldn't object, but it is also invading my apartment, and wardrobe drawer.

Cold weather crossdressing presents special problems. Have you ever joyfully dug through your lacies and unmentionables and pulled out your favorite girdle only to have it clasp a band of arctic cold around your midriff until your precious limited body heat can soak into it? That silky smooth slip that is so kind to the legs in the summer becomes a sheet of solid ice skating over your shaved shanks. There are some advantages to high heels in winter. That pointy heel makes a great grip on ice and most of your foot is lifted off the cold floor, but the thin soles of women's shoes will not protect your tortured toes from cracking off one by one.

How in blazes can women wear skirts and hose at 15 degrees below zero? Is there a special brand of anti-freeze available only in shops that cater exclusively to genetic women, places that must be completely invisible to those of us with a Y chromosome in our makeup? There must be some rational explanation for the phenomenon. Do they give our TS sisters the secret once they complete their real life test? If so, how come not a single one has broken down and told the rest of us? There is no way on God's (previously) green earth I would venture outside into the snow in a skirt.

When I arrive at my frugally heated apartment in the mornings my gerbils have moved all their chips to one side of the cage and are buried somewhere in them. It is somewhat sobering to know that those rodents are smarter than myself. They only poke the tip of their noses out of their nest until I toss them their food, staying sensibly warm. I have formed the habit of keeping my jacket on, taking my nightgown and bra from the closet and placing them on the radiator in the bathroom. By the time I have thawed myself in the shower they are warm enough that the residual heat protects me as I race for the electric blanket. Try as I might I eventually awake to cold reality and must get out of bed.

There is nothing in this world that will wake you up faster than placing a silicone breast form at ambient room temperature against your unprotected chest. Of course I never remember to take them out of the drawer and warm them in the bed with me, that would take forethought and intelligence, qualities that are sadly lacking in my makeup before crawling into bed in a cold room. John Travolta has nothing on me as I dance around the room in reaction. Could his famous one hand in the air routine have resulted from trying to seat a frigid form in his bra? Reaching for the sky does move things around a little bit, spreading the agony as it were. Technology has provided an answer to this problem, however. Just as I can thaw out the supper I forgot to take out of the freezer in the microwave, about 2 minutes on high allows my breast forms to provide a shield of pleasant warmth between me and the cold, uncaring world.
Actually, this is not the problem it used to be. When I was on the road years ago, before I had the bread to purchase real breast forms, I stuffed my bosom with hot water bags filed with various semi liquid concoctions. Semi liquid, that is, at 72 degrees or so. When they sat in the back of the van all day they were rubber wrapped ice lumps in odd shapes created by the other items in my suitcase. Many was the hour I whiled away in a hot tub with two hot water bottles floating thither and yon, thawing until I could safely put them in to my bra cup.

There is one up side to winter. There is no more delicious feeling than snuggling into an ankle length, long sleeved flannel nightgown. Flannel is one of the most comforting fabrics mankind has created, almost worth putting up with cold to enjoy it. I have spent the last couple days at the sewing machine stitching and snipping to make myself a couple of snuggly warm nightgowns. Even the snarling of the sewing machine, mixed up pattern pieces ( actually I ended up cutting out a flannel dress before I noticed the problem, but who will know the difference?) and various pinpricks did not disturb the warm, womanly glow as I sat at the machine in my feminine finest and created new clothes for myself. I may make it through the winter yet.

Sometimes I wonder if the entire world is crazy or if it's just me. For quite some time now I have been staying home unemployed while my wife goes off to work or school. Being unemployed is not the greatest thing in the world, but it has given me a great deal of time to be dressed, and therein lies the source of my bemusement. Tuesday to Thursday I get up after everyone has left, Ricky gets dressed and is alone until shortly before the school bus arrives in the afternoon. I am a solitary dresser, I'm not used to having anyone around when I wear a dress. A while back I joined the local CD club and attended a few meetings until circumstances forced me to drop out, but it's not the norm.

But now Mondays are different. On Monday my wife goes off to school. We rise and get dressed together, and that still seems strange. Not that we haven't done this before, but for 22 years of marriage we have assumed our public gender roles along with our clothing. On recent Mondays we have both assumed the feminine gender and it still seems a bit odd.

We both start out the same, in our skin, and don bra and panties. We both shake and shimmy to fit our breasts into the cups and laugh at this little dance. I can't help but notice my brassiere is about four times larger than the wisp of cloth that is so sexy on her, and my panties could be used as a sail a small wind powered ship without anyone being the wiser. Why do I feel so feminine at these times? As we are approaching old fogyhood we both favor plain cotton panties that allow air circulation at the cost of pretty fabric, and neither of us wears bikinis anymore.

Then the differences start to manifest. I raise my arms and shrug into a slip, she puts on her long underwear. (Remember - we live in the North, not sunny California.) I snap up my garter belt and roll on stockings, she puts on socks. I self consciously select a blouse and skirt, hoping my color and style combinations are acceptable, she dons a shirt and pants. I choose a pair of matching high heels, she puts her feet into sneakers. A quick brush of her short hair, no makeup to apply, and she is ready for the world.

Get the picture? Many of today's women have abandoned the trappings of femininity that masculine designers had decreed for them and opted for practicality. While I have not undressed any women on the street lately to verify this, it seems my wife is not that unusual in her choice of apparel. I must specifically exclude the worlds of high fashion and suit-and-tie corporate business; those types live a fantasy beyond the dreams of any crossdresser. It seems the only people who still wear slips and garters and corsets are crossdressers.

How did this come to be? As we sat down to breakfast this morning my wife commented on our apparel, noting just these incongruities. Struggling to keep breakfast crumbs off my bosom I found I had no answer, but it started me thinking. When we were married she would have been expected to dress much as I was now dressed, and to have long hair and makeup before appearing in public. Could it be that women's perception of what is feminine has changed over the last twenty years while our masculine perceptions have stayed fixed?

Perhaps it is a result of women's liberation, the average woman has learned to trust her own judgment, not some external notion of fashion. Or is it that this frilly, lacy, impractical version of femininity has been reserved for special occasions? When was the last time you saw a GG wearing skirt, stockings and garters outside a blue movie theater? And don't try to convince me you haven't secretly peeked above the knee when the opportunity presented itself - you would know if those were pantyhose or stockings.

It's not that my wife or most of the other women I know never wear skirts or makeup or heels, and even in pants and a T shirt my masculine side has no trouble appreciating their femininity. I guess I'm stuck with the idea of femininity I absorbed from my mother's lingerie drawer and the secret copies of Playboy in my friend's garage. Or perhaps the practical side of clothing doesn't affect me as much because I only wear feminine garb a few hours at a time. But as Ricky I still tend to dress in more traditionally feminine apparel than my wife. 'Tis a strange world we live in.

If you've ever left your own house in a dress you've probably encountered the classic dilemma: to go through the door with the stick figure with a triangle that is supposed to be a skirt or the door with the stick figure without that silly triangle. Have you ever stopped to consider that there is absolutely no way to tell if the stick figure without the skirt is wearing anything or simply the outline of a naked man, reduced to it's simplest skeleton? If you're unlucky the decision can have repercussions just as bad as those you have constructed in your head; if your luck holds up you can cease holding and quickly relieve yourself with no one the wiser. In either case it is rather hard to relax and let nature take it's course.

The problem with either of these course is you will be denied one of the quintessential feminine experiences, something forever denied to mankind: standing in the endless line before the women's room. You've all seen it wherever humanity gathers en mass; the results of shoddy architectural training that makes the facilities for men and women the same physical size in a building. Perhaps it's the vaunted egalitarianism of American Society that requires this unequal equality, perhaps its the male chauvinist pigs who don't care that urinals take up less room than toilets and thus you can put more of them in the same physical space. Perhaps all architects are unmarried and have yet to realize that once a woman has had children she needs to use the bathroom more frequently. Whatever the reason, there is a complete subculture that has developed to cope with this phenomenon.

I was recently fortunate enough to participate in this female bonding ritual, not because I was able to pass well enough to insinuate myself in the line, but because I am a member of the only other group in society that will casually bend gender rules, The Folkies. One of the strange rituals of Folkies is to gather once a year at some out of the way site and spend the weekend slogging through mud (it invariably rains) in the out of doors listening to folksingers do their thing, eschewing sleep and other mortal needs in order to hear one more song or one more hot guitar lick. This is caused by the same urge to gather that makes crossdressers attend conventions, but is very informal and much cheaper. At the latest gathering there were two buildings with bathrooms at either end of the site. The first year we designated one male and the other female as per standard practice, but it soon became clear that the proper toilet was always on the other end of the park. Within hours a sign appeared reading "Folks Room" and the gender barrier was smashed for the weekend.

So it was I found myself about #8 in the line, the only male in the group, and thus for a short time I became one of the girls. Conversation was already lively when I joined the group, so I offered my opinion on how to keep kids away from the poison ivy that had been spotted, agreed that Trout Fishing in America was one of the finest groups in the world, offered a tip on getting laundry clean, and wisely kept my mouth shut when the subject of breastfeeding was brought up. I was having a great time, not even worrying about missing the music to much when my foray into femininity came to an end. I was rushed to the head of the line to occupy the stall with the door that doesn't close all the way, on the theory that those of us who stand would be less embarrassed to use it than those of us who sit. Which says something about women in general: they are a very practical bunch.

A reminder: I wrote these columns 20 or more years ago.

Oh dear, it's finally catching up with me. Age, that is. Don't hand me any of that crap about life begins at 40, I believed it when I was 40. I just turned 46 and I'm straining to believe it now.

Unfortunately that's not the only thing I'm straining. The pendulum has swung again and I have gone from being able to dress for days at a time to no time at all. Our houseguest the baby, her mom and mom's boyfriend are almost always present in one combination or another so the lacies stay in the closet. By a whim of the Fashion Gods, I found myself alone in the house last Saturday and finally had the chance to let Ricky out of the closet. But those the Fashion Gods would honor they first make mad, and I was royally annoyed when the kitchen door opened and I had to sprint for the bathroom. I always keep my civvies in the bathroom, just in case.

In feverish haste I reached back to unclasp my bra and froze in place. Radiating from my shoulder was a sharp pain that held me transfixed in agony (don't you just love vivid descriptions like that?) before my groping fingers could get near the catch. Even the sweet caroling of "Anybody home?" was unable to free me from my inaction, I was just too involved with my body and its pain. Eventually I found myself able to function again and, feeling a bit foolish, pulled the bra down onto my paunch, rotated it 180 degrees and unhooked it. I quickly hid the evidence and greeted my tenant who had come to pay the rent.

Since we now have health insurance again I saw the doctor, who diagnosed a mild case of tendonitis. Mild, huh? Glad it's not severe, I guess. He prescribed exercise and every day I do 3 sets of 10 reps with a can of pineapple because I'm not going out to buy expensive weights. All I need is weight to lift. I thought of using one of my breast forms, it's just about the right weight, but it would be hard to explain and the grip I would need to hold onto the thing would cause lascivious talk.

Having lived with a handicapped wife for 24 years now, there is a truism known to those of us who hang out with disabled folks that "being able bodied is only a temporary condition". I've only paid lip service to the idea up to now, but is taking on a new reality, and it raises some interesting questions. If I intend to go to my grave in a skirt and a nice blouse, just who is going to put them on me? I know, the undertaker will the last time, but what about those years in between. Will Medicare or Medicaid pay a home health aid to assist crossdressing? Could we stand another tirade from a certain Southern senator when he finds out? Could you charge your breast forms off as health appliances on the medical insurance? Could you consider five inch heels to be orthopedic shoes and take them off your income tax?

My son keeps threatening to send me off to a sleazy nursing home every time I want him to do something that takes a bit of effort, just how in the devil will I convince the staff there to help me on with my slip. Anybody know just how far you can stretch patient's rights?

While this has it's amusing side when I only have a bit of pain to cope with, what would life be like for a disabled crossdresser? With a severe disability you must depend on someone else to dress you, feed you and help you do most of the things we take for granted. How do you find a caring and accepting someone else? I have many disabled friends, but this subject has never come up, no more so than with my non-disabled friends.

Transvestites of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your pants! Throw off the chains of convention and proudly wear your chains of gold and silver! Strike while your irons are hot! Join with your Sisters today in forming the International Ladies Garment Wearers Union!

Yes my Sisters, you must suffer no more in silence in your motel rooms and closets. Demand entrance to the sweater shop run by the ILGWU. Do not skirt the issue but join the thousands of your sisters who will never know the pains of labor in the birth of this noble cause. As with the unions of tradesmen before us we shall join together and triumph!

In the bad old days of yore powerful men and corporations forced weak and unorganized workers to toil at slave wages in dark factories. These poor, unorganized workers had little choice but to bear the brunt of this mistreatment. It was not until energetic and enlightened leaders started the Union Movement that these conditions were changed for the better. The American Federation of Labor, United Mineworkers, and yes, our namesake the International Ladies Garment Workers Union brought these oppressed men to the attention of a heretofore uncaring society and brought about Great Change.

In much the same way other minorities in our society, the Blacks, Hispanics, Women and Gays, have found that organization, solidarity and publicity are the key to reform. Now the time has come for all transvestites to break out of their closets, get a good close shave, and join the Union!

Membership requirements are easily fulfilled and benefits substantial. Simply foreword the price of your next dress to the ILGWU and it will be placed in our Union Strike Fund. It will remain there, to the great interest of your leaders, until our first demonstration. This demonstration will be a march on Washington to demand our rights as part time women. The Union Strike Fund will supply each sister with a pair of high heels suitable for marching and a tastefully decorated picket sign. Since we will have prepared the way with lobbying by our own PAC, the Federated Associated League Supporting Imitation Effeminate Sisters (FALSIES), we expect a rousing greeting as we strut through the hallowed halls of Congress in our finest. There are tentative plans for a sit down strike so please no Mini- Skirts.

So strike up the band, sing the praises of pantyhose and join the IGLWU today! You have nothing to lose but your sanity!

The year 1989 marks the 100th anniversary of the Brassiere, as it was first called, an item of apparel dear to the hearts of all transvestites. I find it hard to conceive of a time without the bra, so integral has it become to feminine fashion in our culture. It and the jockstrap are the only garments that have an anatomical function limited to one sex; all other clothing takes its gender from the culture. A male wearing a bra can only be doing so for the pleasure of it, as we all well know.

The bra was invented to free women from the corset, that torture device invented by men to emphasizes what they liked in a woman's figure. I'm not talking about the lacy spandex things that women of today wear to entice a man, but a heavy, stiff monstrosity of whalebone and steel that cinched the waist so hard that it crushed the internal organs and killed women at an early age. It's hard to believe that little girls of that era could hardly wait to be tied into one of these things so that they could become a 'woman'.

I have recently been privileged to watch a modern day rite of passage as my daughter has grown to need a bra. At first it was not a matter of need, it was a matter of wanting to 'join the club'. Never mind that she had no breasts to speak of, wearing a bra was a status symbol; if you had one you had arrived at that elusive state of being a 'woman'. There is nothing quite so poignant as a young teen girl wearing a bra for the first time. There are those little itches and twitches that are needed to get the uncomfortable thing back in place; actions that simply can't be performed in the view of a father for fear he would notice, but the fool thing isn't anchored down by a developed bust and keeps riding up! I felt like saying that she should borrow my falsies to weight it down, but since she doesn't know that I have a use for a bra yet, I couldn't tell her.

Then there is the experience of coming on a group of teenage girls who are just discovering the wonders of skirts, stockings, makeup and other womanly trappings. I can't help comparing their youthful journey into the feminine with my own and those of my sisters. Some of them wear heels tall enough to raise blisters and have pounds of makeup on their face, like some of my sisters who haven't learned moderation in their adoration of feminine appearance. But slowly, over time, the newness wears off and becomes commonplace. Most of these girls, and most of my sisters, learn how to present themselves without being overdone, but a few of them will never grow up. There are as many opinions as to what is feminine as there are people in the world.

So slowly that I really didn't notice it, my daughter has passed beyond the wanting stage to the needing stage. On the recent trips to buy school clothes, I couldn't help noticing that she has a figure, and a good one at that. Tall and lean and leggy and she couldn't understand why I bought a baseball bat at the sporting goods store after she had gotten those new clingy tops.

So welcome to the club, my daughter. I hope you can understand when you find out that your father wants to wear a bra that he needs as much as you did just a few short months ago. I and my sisters need to join the club just as badly as you did.

It has been brought to my attention more than once that I have a big mouth. I'm sure that you, my readers, have remarked on my talent for fearlessly offering opinion and advice from behind the safety of the printed page. Unlike talking, where my pontifications can be challenged by a loud "Oh yeah, that's what you say!", if someone out there wants to comment they have to take the time to compose their thoughts, put them on paper, find a stamp and mail the thing. In practice this means I go unchallenged from the Olympian heights of my keyboard, royally assuming my wisdom has been heard and accepted by the masses, who obviously base their life's path on my precepts.

That is until I have to put my advice into practice in my own personal life. There have been two major changes in my life recently. After 24 years my wife and I have called it quits, for reasons that have nothing to do with my crossdressing. I find myself singularly unprepared for the whole dating scene, I mean dating is for teenagers with raging hormones and not for 46 year old bearded crossdressers with raging hormones.

First of all it's hard to find a date, after all most of my friends are already married, and the relationships with those that aren't are already set in a non-romantic mode. Suddenly those ads in the "getting personal" columns that were so funny to read have a new relevance, and feeling like a fool, I sent off a few letters. And no, I didn't mention my penchant for petticoats in the letter. So much for starting out with pure, unadulterated honesty.

Then the agonizing questions started. Do I stop shaving my legs? Are all the crossdressing magazines removed from the toilet tank in case I bring her home? What if I like her, how do I tell her? I know I have told my readers you have to tell the lady before you get serious, but I don't want to! I mean, it's scary! I don't want to be rejected, ridiculed or reviled. Anyway, I was saved from making this choice because the first date was a disaster, she had more makeup on her face than I have cumulatively worn in my entire life (this for a picnic!) and I got maybe 16 words out of her over a 3 hour date. Whew. But the next date is in two weeks. Let me see, should I stop shaving my legs or....

Then there is the question of telling the children. I thought I was safe from this one, after all my kids are grown and they already know. What I had neglected to consider is that grown kids have a tendency to have kids of their own. That's right, my daughter is making me a grandperson, for lack of a better non-gender specific word. I have always threatened to be the kind of grandparent my parents were, spoil the kids rotten while they had them then let mom and dad live with the consequences. There is only one problem with this scenario. My daughter is living with me while she goes to college, and I will have to live with the consequences. In fact she has another four years to her masters degree, and with the father in school also that means I might be helping raise my grandbaby until almost school age.

I must admit the idea of holding a baby to my artificially enhanced breast is very appealing, what could make a person feel more feminine? But there are those consequences to deal with, and the decision is made more complicated since this is not my baby, but theirs. They accept me, but will this extend to the baby? We haven't discussed it yet, after all she isn't even showing yet, but the topic has to come up over the next seven or eight months.

Anybody know a good advice columnist I can consult?

I saw another one today. I was driving along a country road and over there on the left, by the well kept farmhouse was another of those rather weird examples of modern art known as the "moonie". Have you ever seen a moonie? No, I am not talking about some earnest and well scrubbed youth in the airport lounge selling flowers for the Korean Messiah, but rather the mushroom shaped and gaily painted depiction of someone's legs and nether regions that are sprouting on lawns all over country like, well like mushrooms. Perhaps these decorations have not made it to your part of the world yet, but It Is Only A Matter Of Time. (Read that pretentiously, as befits the Capitals.)

From a distance a moonie looks like an overgrown mushroom sprouting on the lawn after an night's rain in the heat of summer, but as you approach near enough to make out the detail it resolves into the classic Moon Position as seen out the rear window of a '55 Chevy after the prom and before the cops return the offender to his parent's custody. A uniquely American art form to say the least.

But why, you might ask, am I describing Modern American Art when you expected a dissertation on transvestism and the ramifications thereof? Well keep your panties on and I will endeavor to explain. You see the mushroom outline of a moonie is most pronounced when the figure is wearing a skirt, so there are many moonies out there with brightly colored skirts exposing various amounts of slip and panties. I suppose it depends on how liberated (or kinky) you are as to how much you want your moonie to let it all hang out. But while the moonie that inspired this dissertation had only a modicum of exposed white frills and no evidence of more private undergarments in view, it had markedly hairy legs and combat boots.

Hairy legs and combat boots? Just why is an obviously prosperous farmhouse in the middle of nowhere sporting such an ornament on the front lawn. Why not a pair of pink flamingos or a lawn jockey? I might expect a duck with counter-rotating propellers for wings or even a plaster deer, but hairy legs and combat boots below a skirt?

Then it hit me. Remember a while back when there was a bit of controversy about finding a discrete logo that would identify the bearer as one of your sisters without trumpeting the message to the world? I, along with many others, was a bit leery about anything like that because it would inevitably become public knowledge and the glaring light of day would enter out unwilling closets. Sure I would like to know my sisters, but a PO box is safer. I had a devil of a time not stopping to ask, but I feel sure that one of my sisters must live there, and she had solved the dilemma with a logo that would never be penetrated. After all there are no standards set for moonies and it seems the more bizarre the image the better the chance the artist has of selling it. So who is gonna notice one more crazy moonie, I ask you.

It seems appropriate too, since a lot of us enjoy the clothes and, for one reason another can't shave our legs or don't have the time to do more than quickly slip on a bra and dress for a half an hour once in a while. This is especially true when the doorbell rings unexpectedly. If there is a more unsettling period of time than the high speed strip and redressing before you can answer it, I would like to know about it. You don't need knee length leather boots with five inch heels to make it any more exciting do you? So those of you who want to let our portion of the world know what is hidden in your closet, run down to the lumber yard for a sheet of plywood, get out the paint brush and all that leftover paint in the basement, and get cracking. And don't forget the hairy legs and combat boots.

Can you stand to read one more personal story about a sister coming out of the closet? I know that every CD newsletter uses these stories as fill when there isn't enough other stuff to put on the page, and that you have read a million of them, but this time I'm the one telling the story. For that matter I don't care if you read it or not, I'm gonna tell it anyway.

Those of you who have followed my maunderings will know that The Bearded Lady (The column I wrote was called ( The Bearded Lady) is not only a pseudonym but reality. Except for short periods when I had to wear a breathing mask I have been bearded since my body provided enough hair to cover my chin. I can remember painful and anxious days in my youth wanting desperately to grow a beard, or at least some fuzz on my upper lip, so I could be a hippie. At that time my crossdressing was in remission, I had no desire to dress at all. When the desire did came back, I dressed alone and didn't care about the beard because no one could see me anyway. I lived in a very rural area and had no hope of attending a meeting, and my size will not allow me to pass. Why bother with the hassle of shaving if I couldn't go out anyway?

So about two years ago I changed jobs and am now in a small city. There is a CD group here, but with all the changes in my life I was reluctant to get involved. As anyone fool enough to write me letters knows I take forever to answer because I keep getting involved with this or that and never have any time for anything. And frankly, I was afraid that I might lose control of my dressing, and while I have a marvelously supportive family I am always careful to take them into consideration. I did not want to take a chance in offending them or allowing my compulsions to rule me.

So why did I get involved? My wife gave me the push, much to my surprise. She has gone back to school and her course in human sexuality required a research project, and what would be more natural than research on crossdressing. So she contacted the local group and they were very receptive to both the survey and to my beard. (Of course I went as my male self, I'm not that dumb!) We enjoyed the group and I decided it was time to shave.

From the times I have had to shave before I knew that it bloody well hurts to scrape that tender skin, so just after New Year's I shaved to give my face time to prepare for the meeting at the end of the month. I have acne again from the irritation, a one O'clock shadow and people tell me I look ten years younger, which is not bad in my forties but was a real problem in my twenties. Back then no one took me seriously until I had a mustache.

So I recently spent two weeks out of town and practiced makeup in my motel room, endured the agony of the alcohol in makeup on my irritated skin, drove into New York City to visit Lee's Mardi Gras where I bought a wig and wished I had several thousand extra dollars to buy the place out. If you're ever there they are nice people and very friendly and helpful.

I did find out that my wig hair sticks to the makeup on my face and is highly annoying. There must be a solution, but my wife wasn't available to help on my first night out and I was too chicken to ask my daughter. I have this funny feeling with makeup because my ideas of femininity are based on the natural look. The women I admire don't use makeup, or at least use very little of it. A heavily made up woman seems unnatural to me, so smearing enough goo on my face to cover the beard provokes ambivalent feelings at best.

I had last week off in compensation for working over Christmas and began to sew furiously, as I wanted something to cover my hairy arms. (I had to stop shaving somewhere!) My face still hurt and makeup is not my forte, but I screwed up my courage, dressed up and went out. In my excitement I got the wrong day for the meeting, and showed up last night to a dark and empty house in the middle of a blizzard, freezing my legs off in a skirt and hoping my wig wouldn't go sailing down the street. Not only that, but having killed our second car just before Christmas I took my wife to work so our son could have the car and had to kill time until Midnight when she got done. How do I get myself into these things, anyway? I know, I know, if I had bothered to read the newsletter to be sure it wouldn't have happened.

Call it a dry run, or practice or a jolly good try. (My wife suggests stupidity.) The next night there were too many people around to prepare before the meeting so I bundled my clothes and makeup into suitcases and off I went. It took far too long in the bathroom to get ready, but at last Ricky made her public debut and…

And nothing. I don't know what I was expecting, a trumpet fanfare, masses of people lining the streets and cheering, or all three networks covering this momentous event, but I was simply accepted as one of the girls and was invited to join the Euchre game and that was that. Come to think of it, isn't that what all us girls say we want, to be accepted without a lot of fuss? That's what I got, a friendly, low key reception but my mind was ready for victory parades down the streets of Paris or a ten minute introduction as the honored guest of the evening.

So that's it, I had a good time at a small party with some friends, learned how to eat pizza without eating my wig along with it or dropping it on my bosom, how not to scratch my face when it itches and muss my makeup. I was simply able to relax as Ricky in front of people. Not what my unconscious mind was expecting, but thanks girls, it was just what I needed.

(Since I no longer have access to the article that got my dander up, I have let the author be anonymous in my response. You can probably figure out just what she said from the context.)

Pardon me, but my dander is up. I know that is a difficult, and potentially embarrassing to raise a dander while wearing a skirt, but by golly it's hoisted and flying in the hot air of opinion.

As one who regularly generates gales of opinion on these pages, I must first proclaim that everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and while I may not agree with that opinion we are all free to express out thoughts in public. But once that opinion is out in the open it is subject to criticism and objection, and I strongly object to Anne X's edict in her August 1992 column. In short, she stated that your either must come out of the closet and fight the good fight or you are living a lie and of no use to anyone.

I must reject this simplistic, black/white view of the world. Perhaps it is because I came of age in the 60's, when those in political power would have had us believe that there were only two choices: (1) Uncritical love of country and blind allegiance to the administration or (2) Blackhearted commie-pinko treason. Then, as now, I countered with the immortal words of Mark Twain, "Loyalty to the country: always. Loyalty to the administration: when it deserves it." The critical point is that the administration is NOT the country and the country is NOT the administration.

I fear the echoes of this masculine, either/or, yes/no philosophy permeated the Ms. X's writing. I hate to say this, because it plays into the gender stereotyping that I try to avoid, but her imagery of revolution, war, trials, and domination are distressingly masculine. Pardon me, but I was under the impression that we were trying to explore the feminine side of our nature, and to achieve some kind of integration so that we can live as a whole person. At the risk of letting my own masculine side take over, I must answer Ms. X as I did the misguided President who told me that I had to fight an unnecessary and unjustified war because he was not to be questioned.

Ms X: I will not accept the false choice you offer, there is a whole spectrum of choices out there that cover the world like a rainbow. No one color has precedence, we are each a droplet of water refracting the light from where we are placed at this time. Perhaps we will move in the winds of the world, perhaps we will fall in the coolness or rise in the heat of the sun. Together we are a glorious whole, not a regimented accumulation of sameness.

I would choose to nurture my sisters with my love and advice, to support them and sustain them; helping them to overcome fear and loneliness. I refuse to tell them to go away because they do not share my agenda. Most certainly I would not denigrate any organization even if that organization does not fulfill my particular needs. I came out of the closet earlier this year and found that I did not particularly enjoy it; the negatives outweighed the positives so I simply reopened the door and went back in. This was a personal choice, based on my personal needs at this time, and to have Ms. X tell me that I am betraying some cause by doing so negates the fundamental reason for our being in an organization: to support each other and find solace from those who share similar concerns. I have said it before and will say it again: Crossdressing is not the only influence on my life and is only one of many things I like to do. I will not let it control me, and I will not let proselytizing dogmatists coerce me into becoming what I am not.

Lastly I resent Ms. X's misuse of Martin Luther King's vision. Mr. King fought and died for a world where peace and understanding were the norm. The polarization and alienation envisioned by Ms. X are the antithesis of Mr. King's dream. The glass of water is neither half full or half empty, it is a vessel that offers one of life's necessities; we need not argue over the quantity, but only appreciate and partake of the contents considering our needs and the needs of others.

How ironic! While looking for something in my files the other day I found I have been writing about crossdressing more than ten years now. The problem is, I now realize I am completely unqualified to be a crossdresser, let alone a writer on the subject. Think about it - just what are the qualifications for a crossdresser? Surely you've read a multitude of "true life stories" in the crossdressing magazines. Perhaps if we were to distill all these stories we can come up with a set of qualifications for a true crossdresser. This would produce a sort of a smorgasbord of features, where you can pick one from column A and one from column B until you have a complete dinner, but every true life article has most of the following items in it.

I knew I was different at 6 months of age but was overwhelmed with guilt and agony because I was the only one so I joined the army to prove I wasn't gay and of course sex had nothing to do with it then I found my sisters and we all went out shopping at the mall but when I went home my wife found me in her dress so there was a nasty divorce so I started boozing but now I'm recovering and accept my femininity and life is going to be just dandy.

I think that covers everything, except maybe gushing about nail polish colors, eye shadow and frilly skirts. So if these are the essential qualifications to be a crossdresser then I'm in deep trouble. Let's look at them one by one.

I knew I was different / guilt and agony - Nah, I have always had an ego that has never let me down. I knew if I did it there had to be somebody else out there that wanted to do it too, even if I didn't know them. So why feel guilty? It has to be normal to someone.

I joined the army to prove I'm not gay - Hell, I was number 347 in the draft. Remember, I grew up while we were playing policeman in Viet Nam. I quit school and got a job within days of the lottery. I'm not gay either, but feel no need to prove it to anyone.

Sex had nothing to do with it - Give me a break, I started dressing to feed my adolescent libido and sex had everything to do with it.

We all went out shopping at the mall - I hate malls. Every blasted one of them is the same, with the same dumb stores selling the same merchandise you can get anywhere else at much lower prices. Tell me, would you really to be associated with someone who would drop $1.25 for one of those soft pretzels? With mustard?

Sometimes I think that crossdressing couldn't exist without malls. I really can't recall a story where a crossdresser got prettied up and went anywhere else. Concerts - you have to sit too close to some stranger. Public parks, better but there's a lot of open territory to cross and too many sharp eyed kids. The mall is just great for impersonal semi-interaction, but I'll buy my dresses elsewhere, thank you.

My wife found me and there was a nasty divorce - Sorry, her dresses wouldn't fit me and I told her when the time came. She just thought I was a bit more weird than before and made me a couple of dresses that actually fit. Even though we are getting a divorce it's amicable and the crossdressing has no part in it.

I started drinking, etc. - I'm a teetotaler and always have been. As far as I can tell I never grew up and that stuff is for adults. I prefer reality straight and not filtered through a chemical haze.

I accept my femininity and life is going to be just dandy - Strangely enough I really don't feel feminine. Those feelings in me that might be called feminine are just part of me. There is no woman within as far as I can tell, but Lord knows there's enough of me to have a few of them in there with several pounds to spare. I simply like to wear the clothes.

So I guess that's it, I have to disqualify myself as a crossdresser. What sort of ceremony shall we use? Perhaps the Crossdresser General will approach me as I stand before the ranks of my former sisters and, with drums solemnly beating in the background, rip off my shoulder pads, strip the pink bow from my bra and the lace from my panties then send me away in disgrace to wear black oxfords for the rest of my life. We could hold a formal tearing down of my clothes closet, where it and its contents are burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds. I don't know, perhaps if I repent and go to the mall to revel in my guilt I can be saved, but I doubt it.

(Originally written in the late 1980s)

Welcome, my sisters, into the world of the New Age. Listen to the formless music in the background. Hear the muted chanting of a choir of True Believers. Abandon your previous self to the teachings of Mother Earth. Feel the innate power of the mysterious Female Life Force flow into your sadly male body. Read the articles in crossdressing magazines filled with terms like "oneness", "karma", "pansexuality" and even "reincarnation." Recently I even learned that women have superior hearing to enable them to be better mothers.

Now I'd be the last one to publicly trample on anyone else's spiritual beliefs, no matter how ridiculous I privately consider them, but I firmly believe all people have the inalienable right to go to hell in their own way without help from anyone else. You can believe seventeen contradictory things at once and it's fine with me, just do not expect me to share your belief. The skeptic in me starts to scream things like "Oh, yeah? Cite me a study proving women have better hearing than men!" I have a hard time believing my desire to wear frilly things can be traced to experiences in a past life, especially when I am not convinced I have any life besides the one I am living now.

"New Age" anything gives me problems. The essence of the New Age seems to be uncritical acceptance of the mystic powers of the earth, the universe, little green men from outer space or some other source of power of which normal mortals have no understanding or control. Self proclaimed leaders will offer you understanding and guidance (for a price, and not always in money) using crystals, pyramids and other conduits to control those forces. New Age ideas can cure your ills, soothe your soul, soup up your mind and balance your tires. The beauty of it all is you do not have to understand anything about it; you have no responsibility, it is all beyond your control. Isn't it nice to know your need to crossdress is a force of nature?

Sow-wash! (That is the feminine of Hogwash, isn't it?) You better take responsibility for your crossdressing. It's one thing to indulge in the fantasy of femininity, but this is one more variation on the "I can't help it" excuse. Yes, spirituality is a mainstay of human existence, be it in a Born Again Christian, an Eastern Mystic or a disciple of the New Age. Humanity seems to have an inextinguishable need for something (God, The Cosmic All, The Great Frisbee) that is responsible for creation, something bigger than us that started it all.

But fer cryin' out loud there are no mysterious powers or abilities endowed to a person by virtue of femininity or masculinity. Watch out, sisters. Just because it's in print somewhere doesn't make it true. Which leads to a nice piece of circular logic to end this tirade. Go ahead and read all those TV rags you subscribe to, but don't accept the pontifications of anyone, including me, without questioning.

Sometimes life is disillusioning. I have sat here in my closet for about twenty years now, and for the past five or so the door has been open far enough to hand out these columns. Believe it or not, I really don't have a great urge to fling the door open and come out in my finest. I know that I am too far from the feminine norm to ever be more than a conspicuous fraud, but it doesn't bother me. I enjoy dressing for the sake of dressing, and enjoy the company of my sisters once removed via the post office. On the whole, my family, myself and the world in general have come to a working compromise.

But now it seems that this working arrangement is not enough for some parts of the world. The other day I read Mike Royko's column on the strange subject of "outing". While the column dealt with the gay community, it is not all that far removed from our little sisterhood, and what affects them will sooner or later affect us.

In Chicago, some of the more forceful gays have decided that those of their number who are still in the closet are cowards and hypocrites, and it is the divine mission of the true gay to expose their cowardice and hypocrisy, especially if they are political, spiritual or media leaders. So for the good of the gay community, these activists are forcing the recalcitrant out of the closet and in to the spotlight, allegedly to assume their rightful and proper place as leaders of the gay community.

Good grief! Just what we need, a plague of fundamentalist gays, out to save the world and make sure that everyone conforms to their set of beliefs, and damn the cost to any one person or institution. It's a holy mission, so betraying the trust of the fellow in the closet is not to be considered. Don't worry about his family, his job, his sanity; this is for the greater good of all gays.

Gack! I'm starting to choke on my own platitudes.

The whole phenomenon is achingly human, of course. If you are not at the top of the totem pole, there is always someone lower than you to spit on, someone you can feel superior to. At the risk of stereotypes, think of the Hindus and Seiks, the Israelis and Arabs, Irish Catholics and Protestants, or even American Blacks and Hispanics. In each case some part of the culture feels better by disdaining another culture in exactly the same way they themselves have been disdained. And nobody ever learns! Go ahead, ask a member of one of these groups if this isn't hypocrisy in the highest. Go ahead and ask, but don't expect a sensible reply. It's never the same when you do it to someone else; there is always a good reason that simply can't be questioned.

So what's the point of this? What does it have to do with you, dear sister, you sitting alone in your closet. Maybe you had better start asking yourself some objective questions before one of these well meaning terrorists comes upon you, or worse, you join their ranks.

Think about it.

Have you ever had a dream come true? Silly question, that - if you have been on the planet for long enough to be able to learn to read something good must have happened to you along that line. What would be a dream come true for a crossdresser? OK, OK, enough suggestions from the audience, I get the idea. Do you dream of being able to dress full time when not working, live alone, never need to consider anyone else's feelings, do what you darn well please when you want to do it? Unlimited freedom, self expression, fulfillment of your every desire!

Four months ago, (remember I wrote this in the 90s) when the necessity of taking a third shift job out of town came up, I could barely wait to fulfill this dream. My wife had to go out of town to do her master's work and I wouldn't see her anyway, so the prospect of living by myself five days a week was very attractive. Until a few years ago I was a field tech and was frequently away from home anyway. Could this be so different?

I became a happy hermit, curtains closed and dressed every second I was not at work. Just having feminine clothes on my body was sufficient unto itself, an end without means. I shaved my legs even in high summer shorts weather. Nobody noticed - or at least nobody said anything. Arriving home from work I shed my male clothes, showered, and gleefully climbed into bed in nightgown and bra. I wore stockings and garters every moment I was out of bed, and sometimes in bed too. On weekends I left this ersatz feminine world and returned to the real world of family and friends, only to return to my fantasies on Monday morning after work. In other words I had a wonderful time.

Can you get too much of a good thing? Things have gradually changed. A while back I gave up shaving my legs, I just couldn't get up the energy to do it. After weeks alone in my apartment I kept wanting to go outside and had to take off my dress to do it. I started to develop an empty feeling when I reached over to the other side of the bed and there was no one there. Last week I didn't even bother to get dressed, it just wasn't worth the effort. If I hadn't left all my male pajamas behind I wouldn't even have put on my nightgown.

I have come to an almost heretical conclusion: I've overdosed on dressing. I'd rather be with my wife than be dressed up. I want to live with my family full time again. I don't want to get dressed anymore. I have entirely too much of a good thing.

Yet this is even more of a fantasy than my dressing. My kids are grown, both in college now and are leading their own lives; we will never be a family the way we used to be. Even if the job fairy or the NY State Employment Service waved its magic wand and found me a job 500 feet from my house it's been rented and I don't live there anymore. My wife still has to finish her education. I find it very strange to dream of taking off my dress and return to a normal family life when I am living my fantasy of just a few months ago.

Some people are never satisfied.

I'm confused, so this will be a very confused column. It's sort of like one of those dreams where several seemingly unrelated threads of thought combine in really odd ways and you wake up thinking "I'm not sure I want to know anyone who could dream up something like that!"

The first thread is the art show in Toronto I saw with my daughter. This was a highly uncharacteristic act on my part, as music is my love, not viewing Great Art. But she loves impressionists and the Barnes Gallery (very famous among those who love that sort of thing) was showing some of its finest exhibits in an attempt to raise money to fix their roof. This was very exciting because it took several court orders to overturn the clause in the will that set up the museum to allow the works to leave the premises. Trust me, it was exciting for art lovers, and the crowds were huge. To my surprise I truly enjoyed the exhibit. The taped commentary was as interesting as the art, and I left with an understanding of another culture and it's values.

Not surprisingly I was fascinated by it's approach to femininity. A number of the paintings were of nude women, some erotic, some not; some rather off the wall, some very realistic. But most of these women were real, flawed, mature, unidealized people, the kind you would meet and know as neighbors, coworkers and people on the street. I left thinking what a vastly more sensible approach to femininity than the way our society portrays women. I also realized that the contemporary portrayal of women comes not from Great Art but from The Great Sales Pitch.

I won't get much argument when I say you can pick up any major magazine and see that the ideal woman is a skinny, bright eyed, young, well dressed, impeccably made up, young, professional, big breasted, flawless, young model type trying to sell you something you just absolutely have to run right out and get now. In more specialized magazines, the ones behind the counter at the store, the image being sold is the same, except for the well dressed part.

You can rail about the unreality of this popular image, but it has to be tapping into some real phenomenon or it wouldn't work. Face it, you can sell more power tools when the poster has a broad in a bikini holding a humongous drill (Yes, Dr. Freud, I understand what it really means!) than you can publishing a spec sheet. It's not confined to consumers of the male variety either. A comely woman with a mop will sell more floor cleaner or dish soap, and despite the best efforts of equal opportunity and feminism, those products are not aimed at males.

It gets even more confused because in advertising sex sells, and sex almost always implies a female image figuratively offering herself to a male consumer. There is a small market for the male hunk pitching to the liberated female, but men make significantly more money in this society and you sell to whoever has the money. Never mind what it's like in the real world of men and women, this advertising strategy works and will not be abandoned until our society adopts values and perceptions that no longer make it a viable way to make money.

With all this on my mind the next thread started in the mailbox, with an unsolicited "Crossdresser's Magazine". It's images of femininity were quite different from either of those above. This wasn't the first time I had gotten such a magazine, I even wrote a scathing criticism of the first one I received that Kym wisely didn't print. I have never gotten off on pictures of men in bras with dangling participles and my first reaction was disgust and anger; this was something that would set back all the good efforts of the transgender community. That is until a loud bonging in my head alerted me that my hypocrisy alarm was going off.

I have to be honest here, I read (and write) erotic fiction when the mood strikes me. To my mind "anti-pornography" and "hypocrisy" are synonymous. Sex is a normal human activity and nothing to be ashamed about, including what have come to be code worded as "graphic depictions" of it. My image of femininity includes strong women who enjoy sex. Although hard to come by, the few unbiased studies have shown erotic material, by itself, is neutral to beneficial. It has also been shown that combining violence and eroticism is a potent negative force, something to be truly worried about. So why did I react so strongly to this "Crossdressers magazine" when I am hopelessly liberal and a consumer of eroticism myself?

The answer seems to be found in good taste and civility. The "in your face" approach, the philosophy of individualism that ignores the comfort and sensibility of anyone who does not share your interests is causing a deterioration of society in general. This is a difficult distinction to draw, let alone defend.

I start with the idea that anything done in private between consenting adults is no business of anyone else unless and until those actions harm another party. If you define "harm" as murder, rape and mayhem the answers are still pretty clear. What happens if you define "harm" as an affront to your sensibilities. Can "harm" be defined as feeling uncomfortable around someone else? The confusion and difficulty come from balancing the conflicting sensibilities of people with different values.

As long as I wear my dresses in my home no one should care about it. It's when I choose to walk out the front door I have to consider others who will be uncomfortable with my chosen attire. I don't see how the clothing on a body can cause harm to another person, military uniforms with weapons excepted. But if I am going to advocate my right to wear a frock in public despite what anyone else thinks about it do I have a right to be upset by the attire of the people in the magazine I disliked so? Make it a step harder, do people who feel uncomfortable around homosexuals have the right to live without them. How about someone with a dark skin or a foreign accent?

The simple principle gets lost in a thicket of complications. My personal solution is to not force my peculiarities on others without good and compelling reason. In return I try to accept the peculiarities of others without undue discomfort. So if you get your jollies reading a magazine that caters to atrocious bad taste, go ahead and do so. I'll try not to sniff in superiority because of my superlative taste and breeding while you do so. But I wish you wouldn't send me a copy without asking first.

The issue of security came up recently in a letter to one of my sisters. Security must be of overriding concern for many transvestites, and many of us would be in a poor position if they were found out. To me it seems that the security issue can be broken into two parts, public and personal.

I have never given too much thought to public security. I simply could not pass in public, so being read and ultimately embarrassed has never been a concern. Since I am in a rural area I am unable to join one of the many groups around the country so there is one more aspect of security that can be checked off. No, if my public security were to be breached it would be through the mail. When I first started out to contact my sisters, I used my own name in correspondence. Ricky is a childhood nickname and I now get a secret charge when an old friend or relative calls me Ricky. I would do it differently now, but the die is cast and cannot be recast. I simply have to trust my sisters to be discrete, and unless one of the employees of the Post Office is out of line there is no problem. At least there has been none for the past five years.

While I would be unhappy to be exposed, it would not be the end of the world. My ability to earn a living would not be affected greatly, I am in electronics, and there are more oddballs per capita among us techs than any other occupation I know. Granted the jokes and ribaldry would be difficult at first, but it couldn't go on forever.

My wife and children are in the know. Should I be exposed I think they would have it worse than I would. Being teenagers they are both greatly concerned with public appearance. I already have a reputation as an eccentric, but this is a different order of eccentricity.

My greatest regret would be that I would no longer be able to continue in Scouting, but even that is drawing to a close. There are other things I wish to do with my life, and I have moved on to other things to a great extent. But knowing that I could never return to a movement that has brought me great rewards would be a lasting sorrow.

As for friends and family, I am an eccentric sort of fellow, and so are the bulk of our friends. Neither my wife or I have ever been into the status or appearance trip, and as I write this sentence the hippie phrasing seems to define much of our lives. While a few eyebrows would be raised, I think that my status as the Bearded Lady would not lose us many friends.

So all in all, being publicly exposed would be difficult, but not a complete disaster. I strongly suspect that I would become one of those sisters that would take the chance in appearing publicly to educate the uneducated. But I have no driving need to go public, believe me.

There is another aspect of security that needs to be dealt with, and that is internal. We all have a need to be secure within ourselves, and the guilt that this lack of security can cause is well known. This internal security must also consider the woman who has graciously chosen to share my life. I have been most fortunate to have a wife whose love is unconditional. There are many areas of our lives where there are profound gaps between us, but we have found ways to bridge or walk around those gaps.

My wife is a born again Christian and I am agnostic. I am completely unable to find the faith that she says sustains her and the inability to share this faith has been one of those gaps. However my philosophy of life is virtually the same as those of the Christian faith except for the belief in God and Jesus, and I am active in her church in those ways that do not conflict with my personal philosophy. I even got dressed as the apostle Andrew each year and take part in the annual Easter play, and in doing so I hope I am able to enhance a faith I cannot share in the audience. I am not sure if it is a quote or if these are my words, but "We may disagree about the destination, but we are walking on the same road." This is an accurate description of the situation.

I think my wife approaches my transvestism in much the same way. In this case marriage is the road we are traveling, and we are traveling until death parts us at that unknown destination. I cannot share my joy in wearing women's clothing with her, but she accept and helps in what ways she can. She will never understand my compulsion any more than I will understand her faith in God, and the inability to share will always be a space between us. What has to be said is that it need not divide us or drive us apart. The love we share can bridge that and many other gaps that occur between us if we both work at it. And that, my sisters, is the security that counts.

I think I've changed my mind. I'm flexible, I can be convinced by reasoned argument. I wouldn't want to be considered dogmatic. So I must tell you my sewing machine has convinced me there is no alternative to SRS.

It's true, for my entire life as a crossdresser I have never had any urge to become a woman, and have said so at length and with some vigor to anyone who would listen to me blather on, but that's all over. I once again girdled my loins and sat down to do combat with my mortal enemy the sewing machine. I have made innumerable items of feminine apparel when I could get the thing to cooperate with me, dresses, skirts, blouses were no real problem. Most of them even came out well enough I could wear them in public, that is if I had the nerve.

But this time it was different. This time, in my current unemployed state, I decided to sew a pair of shorts for my male self. Somehow all of my good shorts had disappeared in the various moving adventures of the past year, and I was in no position to buy some new ones for the very hot weather we were having. Besides, it's the end of August now and the stores think it's winter, they're full of flannel shirts and such.

Things went smoothly at first, I rummaged in the many drawers of fabric and found some suitable material, located a suitable pants pattern, washed the material and cut it out. I seated myself in front of the sewing machine, newly back from repair and no longer sounding like a steam train with a bent drive rod, and hoped it would be thankful enough for the service to be good to me. I got out the directions, read them, read them again, and went through them a third them without understanding a thing. I soon realized the problem.

Up until this time I have only had to cope with a skirt. Not a difficult thing, a piece of fabric with a small hole on top and a larger hole in the bottom when you get down to the basics. Add a ruffle, elastic, or other doodads and it still remains the same. But pants, on the other hand (leg?) are a topological nightmare. I left college 25 years ago in part because advanced calculus was completely incomprehensible to me with all that stuff about morphing a coffee cup into a doughnut and spatial curves and other gobbledegook. Trying to piece together a pair of pants made me wish I had finished that course, because I truly needed it.

With the aid of a commercially assembled pair of pants and a lot of patience I was able to connect the legs in the right sequence and even get the pockets in the right place, all the while being thankful that skirts don't have pockets. I was gaining back my confidence now, and turned the page over and was once again lost in limbo. That's when I decided SRS would be simpler and more effective than continuing to sew.

Have you ever read the directions to assemble the fly on a pair of pants? Believe me, if I had Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking in the room with me they would be as completely mystified as I was. There are all these little bitty bits of cloth that have to be folded in a manner guaranteed to outclass an origami master. Then you have to sew them together an inch at a time with this overlapping that while holding the other thing still and being sure not to stitch through some piece of material whose function is completely incomprehensible. I tried, I really did, and failed miserably. Wielding my trusty seam ripper I took it all apart and did it again. By this time my wife was laughing uproariously, though she admitted under severe questioning she had never attempted to assemble a fly herself.

The second time it was a bit closer to the ideal, but the zipper was in backward. Maybe I could start a new fashion and wear them inside out? Nah, there is only one solution: SRS. And elastic. Without the bodily equipment I would have no need of a fly, a simple elastic waistband would be comfortable and effective.

Colorado, here I come.

If a man in woman's clothing has a odd ring to it then a 6'2", 250# wolf in sheep's clothing is surely fair game for some hearty guffaws. If there is one thing serious about the situation it is that I have enjoyed bras, panties and garters for the last 20 years. I still do, but I only enjoy this apparel in the privacy of a motel room or other secluded setting. When I dress it is for the feel of the clothing and the intrinsic pleasure it brings, and this pleasure is largely separate from the rest of my life. I make no distinction between Ricky and Ralph, and outside of costume parties no one has seen Ricky except my wife. When you add this to the fact that I am in serious contention for the laziest person in the world it becomes obvious that shaving is an activity that holds little fascination for me. Besides the beard hides my double chin and keeps small children from running off screaming.

But all things change. When I discovered Tri-Ess and as I got to know others with the same peculiar hobby a tiny devil began to rattle his pitchfork between my ears. I mean, just what did I look like under all that hair? As I looked through the directory I felt a pointed thought take shape: "Maybe you could look like her" (him?) (them?). When I strolled through Lane Bryant "Wouldn't it be nice to know if this thing will fit before I pay for it?" scratched at the base of my neck. When the night became late in my motel room "Damn it would be nice to take a walk in a skirt" began to claw somewhere above my right eye. But the next morning, when I crawled blearily out of bed, the thought became "I'm gonna kill myself if I get my hands on anything sharp when I feel like this", and the beard was safe for another day.

That is until the weekend before Thanksgiving when, with the kids gone for the night, curiosity overcame me. Before sanity could return in the morning my wife hauled out the scissors, soap and razor and the deed was done. Well started anyway. Along the way we made some discoveries. Like it takes a long time to get rid of a beard that has had all those years to take root. Like two hours. Like the first shave after fifteen years hurts! Like razor burn is not any better than it was when a teenager I knew was trying desperately to shape what he then called a beard. Like the beard I had now was rather blue immediately after a close shave, and the young man who could miss shaving for two days and never notice was gone forever. Like I had to shave my chest or wear turtle necks. Like I'd be damned if I would shave my arms too. Like it was a Dumb Idea to start this at ten o'clock on Friday night. Like my wife doesn't use the kind of makeup I need and that the body paint pencils just won't cover a beard.

Talk about your learning experiences. I won't got into detail about the other things I learned about trying to procure makeup in a small town that would cover a blue shadow, or the gyrations involved to get another night alone to get the pictures that all this was being done for, or the funny looking stranger who stared back at me in the mirror. Suffice it to say that Saturday night all was ready and Ricky made her first appearance in full regalia. It is difficult to describe the experience. Since the beard made the use of makeup rather unnecessary I had never experimented with it before. I can only try to describe the warm glow as I sat there, dressed in my favorite bra and best blouse while my wife curled my hair, painted my face and generally worked me over. There was a deep, warm glow to simply sit there and be fussed over, an intensely pleasurable feeling that every man should know. In a sense this was the culmination of the feelings that make me dress, and to be totally accepting for while is a beautiful experience.

Even the pulled hair, curling iron burns, and exasperated demands to "Keep your eyes open until the mascara dries!" could not dampen the excitement and pleasure. Finally all was complete and I looked in the mirror. It was kind of a shock to see my sister in there. Now I know that one of my stature should not expect Miss America to return his gaze in the mirror, but anyone but my sister! Please! Oh well, I guess we are what we are, or at least what our makeup makes us seem.

Anyway, out came the camera, the flash, the backdrop and the commands to "Keep your legs together, you're supposed to be a lady" and "Straighten your shoulders. If you're going to wear a bra you may as well show off your attributes." Somehow those thirty-six exposures ran through my wardrobe and poses from serious to whimsical.

I'll let you in on a secret. I'll never get a ride if I hitchhike with my skirt pulled up on one leg. The ten days before the pictures came back were an eternity, and then I learned something else. I was so excited about my first pictures as Ricky that I forgot everything I knew about photography. They were undoubtedly the most technically bad pictures I have ever taken, and I'm glad that they were processed by a computer because they were embarrassing. But still in all they did provide an excuse for Ricky to sit under the ministering hands of her hairdresser and makeup artist a second time, which made the situation easier to bear.

This time I retained my former professional instincts, set the equipment up properly, and zipped through another thirty-six frames all too quickly. The results were technically better, but I fear Ricky will never be able to hide her hairy arms or blue shadow without enough makeup to keep Max Factor in business forever. A head and shoulders shot provides a view of a matron that will now be known to the world as Ricky, for better or worse.

Ah, but now comes the problem. The morning came once again and I found that I could not convince Miss America to replace my reflection, even with lucrative offers of multi-year contracts and promises of anonymity. The thought of looking at that face every morning while employing a razor took on it's old horror, and the fun of watching the double takes diminished as I ran out of people who hadn't seen me lately. I hereby announce that I have given the razor to my wife for her legs and the phiz is once again hirsute.

I am a victim of discrimination. Sure, sure, you've heard it before. What crossdresser hasn't experienced discrimination. Just put on a dress to mow the grass and you can absolutely rely on being discriminated against by your family, the neighbors, and the lawn care service. Go shopping for a new girdle and the prejudiced salespeople won't even consider letting you try it on in the changing room. Wear a frilly skirt to work and no one will compliment you on how the colors match your beard. A crossdresser's life is a hard one, but you already know that.

That kind of discrimination is just plain normal, you get used to it. Lately I have been finding my male self is being discriminated against when I go shopping for clothes at my local X-Mart. You know, one of those mega chain stores, probably attached to some mall, that sells everything in the universe except the item you came in to buy. I can remember a time when chain stores maintained the polite fiction that women did not exist in any size over 12, and your only recourse as a large woman or crossdressing man was to find an expensive specialty shop or order by mail. Somewhere along the line the marketing executives discovered a substantial portion of American womanhood was, um, substantial, and began to stock clothes for the "Plus Size" woman. They still haven't realized there are colors other than black and silver when the size tag has an X on it , but they're learning.

I recently went shopping for my wife's birthday. As several of her old nightgowns had recently been recycled as rags I bought her a couple of nightgowns to replace them. I got one summer and one winter weight, and had no trouble finding clothes for her; I even found matching nightgowns in 3X for me. I know, it's insufferably cute, but I couldn't resist. I went over a few isles and picked up some size 12 pink lace bikinis and dithered over a summer frock on sale but didn't spend the money. So far, so good. The problem began when I went to buy a couple of men's shirts. Shades of the sixties, it seems men don't come in any size larger than 1X. Arms longer than 25 inches? Don't be absurd.

Then I tried to find some male tailored bikinis that I could wear without fear of lace peeking over the edge of my pants. Not an X in sight, bikini wearing men apparently are all small, medium or large. (Shame on you if you read something into that last line I didn't write.) Plenty of white traditional briefs, lots of boxers, but I like wearing bikinis even if I will never be invited to pose with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So that's it, the fashion mavens of America are discriminating against big men. Or is there another explanation? You tell me - if the only clothing that fits a large man is to be found on the plus size woman's racks, is there a joyous conspiracy developing? Could it be in the coming years every large male who doesn't wear custom tailored suits will be attired in blouse and skirt?

I know Martin Luther King's reaction to discrimination was to say "I have a dream!" I can dream too, can't I?

It's hard to cope with having your world view turned upside down. As crossdressers we all know society disapproves of us. We hide in closets, shop in catalogs or venture timidly to the women's section if suitably inspired. For those of us who are significantly over the norm in size it is a challenge to find a nice dress. That's the conventional wisdom, isn't it?

Recently I went to my local discount emporium for some clothes shopping, and I assure you I had no intention of shopping for my feminine self. First on the agenda was to find some sleepers for my 10 month old grandson. Having found my way to the unaccustomed environs of the children's section I began my search. I found that the Fashion Gods of children' clothing seem to be unrelated to the Fashion Gods of women's clothing.

I'm sure you've noticed how the alleged size of a dress shrinks as it's price inflates. Good psychology, that, makes sense for marketing and advertising. I love being able to wear a size twenty! This doesn't hold true for infants, however. Kids clothes are allegedly sized by age, and at ten months he's bigger than the Fashion Gods conception of a three year old. I searched in vain, the poor kid is going to have to sleep in the nude (well, almost) until he's old enough to fit into pajamas, which seem start at size five. I'd offer to make him a nightgown, but I don't think my daughter's understanding would stretch that far.

Finding myself thwarted I soldiered on to task two, my boots had worn out and coping with a northeast winter demands something more substantial than a pair of sneakers. I swear it was January when I entered the store (snow, wind and all that sort of stuff) but inside the store it was high summer. Not a pair of boots to be found. Sandals, sunglasses and swimsuits, yes; heavy rubber boots - not a chance. You buy those in summer to be ready for the winter, don't you know?

My frustration level was mounting, but I had one more errand to complete. I have recently changed jobs and work in an office now. My previous work pants and T-shirt are no longer suitable attire and I needed some new pants and shirts. Feeling rather out of place I found the men's department. It seems the Fashion Gods of men's clothing must be related to those of children; they had decreed men grow no bigger than size 40 (there were one of two pairs in that size as a sop to the unfashionably large).

I also needed socks, plain old black polyester crew socks. I admit I'm a nerd; with a drawer full of black socks I never have to worry about finding a matching pair. So I found wool, cotton, patterns, ankle length, just about every variety except mine. That did it, I'm afraid I snapped.

I can take a hint. The Fashion Gods were punishing me for my sacrilege. I turned my cart to the Women's section and found a lovely turquoise number in size 24 (on sale, of course!), some matching pantyhose and even got a new bra to wear under it. As I see it, mercantile society is forcing me to crossdress, so who am I to argue? I just hope my new boss understands.

We crossdressers are a creative bunch. With a little paint, some strategically shaped padding and no little imagination we can create a feminine exterior to match our interior being. Admit it now, when your are dressed from head to toe and there is no one else in the house haven't you ever stood in front of the mirror and sung some pop hit by your favorite female singer and thrilled to the applause from the looking glass? Maybe you've even succumbed to temptation, donned fishnet stockings and something daring, propped up the camera on the dresser, set the timer and taken pictures that were a bit provocative. If you are on line I know darn well you have checked out the pictures at alt.trans. These days a crossdresser can create a convincing appearance; heck, some of us can even do so outside the protection of our living rooms.

But in all my years I can't recall seeing a crossdresser wearing a spaghetti strap top, at least not one who hasn't had breast enhancement surgery. I love those tops, they were popular in my youth where the braless look was celebrated with gusto. As a budding feminist I worked very hard not to drool like a maniac as I surreptitiously watched breasts swaying under the thin cloth. What could be more feminine than a low cut top with those slim cords holding it on the shoulders? Herein lies the problem, when I wear something low cut my cleavage displays an unacceptable expanse of silicone from my breast inserts. To make matters worse just how is a crossdresser as big as I am to go without a bra? The glue simply won't hold those babies on my chest. It seemed to be an insurmountable problem.

That is until I attended an outdoor festival on a sunny spring day. Either the young women of today are more conservative than my contemporaries or the Fashion Gods have intervened. There were plenty of tank tops, spaghetti straps and cleavage in view, but darned if every one of those girls wasn't wearing a bra.

Having grown up with a prudish mother with firm opinions about clothing, the idea of letting your bra straps be visible would have made her blanch. I'm afraid that I have inherited her sensibilities for it shocked me to see all that exposed foundation garment. I guess I'm not the liberated crossdresser I thought I was. There is no way to conceal a bra with these garments, they simply can't hide a bra strap. Well, the proclamations of he Fashion gods are many and weird, it is not my place to question.

If a boyfriend was present there was the frequent and surreptitious struggle to align the straps without him noticing. It soon became a game to see what color bra a girl was wearing and see if it matched her top. This is not the only bit of color matching ordained by the Fashion Gods this season. A rather large percentage of these girls had flamboyant tattoos on their backs, and as most of these tops were cut low in the back as well I could color match the bra band to the tattoo. Sometimes it boggles my mind to realize how little it takes to amuse me.

All of this is great news to crossdressers. We are no longer limited by the braless look, at least for this season. The popularity of tattoos is an even greater boon. Even a recovering Hell's Angel in a skirt wouldn't seem out of place in the variegated artwork I saw. Besides, everybody will be looking at your illustrations and not at your face, so you can stop worrying if your makeup has run and the beard is showing through. If someone asks about the blue shadow just tell them it's the latest fashion in tattoos.

Tanstaafl. Sounds like a sneeze or something vaguely Russian. The meaning of the word is best shown in a story retold freely from the writing of Robert A. Heinlein, the inventor of the water bed and the coiner of the word. Seems a young man, newly hired as a traveling salesman, was passing through a new town about lunchtime. Stopping at a likely looking taproom, he enters to find a large sign stating: "FREE LUNCH WITH YOUR DRINK!"

This seems an inordinately good deal to the young man who immediately orders a beer and proceeds to the sideboard to stock his plate with a fine selection of food. He strikes up a conversation with one of the local patrons, orders a couple more beers and generally passes a genial hour at lunch. When he calls for the bill he is shocked to find his three beers have cost him $15.00. As he begins to express his outrage the local, who has seen it all before, patiently explains that someone has to pay for the food at the sideboard, and it sure isn't going to be the bar owner.

Tanstaafl. - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

True in the bar in the story, true when "You May Have Already Won One Million Dollars", and true in life and society in general. Every receiver has a giver, every pro has a con, and every right has a duty. You only get what you pay for, and payment is not exclusively in cash, it can come in time, effort, dedication, love or liberty. And turning it about, you pay for what you get, or what you do. These thoughts were uppermost in my mind as I read about Tammy White, a pre-op Transsexual in jail for a robbery she committed to get the money to finance her sex change.

Tanstaafl. It applies here, as everywhere else in life. By her own admission, Ms. White was "living and working as a female." Working as a female. Perhaps her income was not sufficient to make her dream come true, or perhaps it was too long to wait to save up enough. I don't know what drove her to break the rules and try to make someone else pay for her wants, but she broke them and paid the price. A little forethought would have revealed that failure would result in a long time in an "all-male, all macho prison", but she did indeed decide to violate the law and ignore one of the bonds that keeps our society together, the right to keep what you have earned. Tanstaafl.

As a TV I can sympathize with Ms. White's needs, and with the pressures that drove her to commit robbery, but I am most thoroughly annoyed that she seems not to have learned anything from the experience. Granted gender dysphoria is a mental illness, even one recognized by the APA, but in our society we are only created equal; after that it is up to the individual to work - and pay for - achieving his or her desires to become unequal in a way that best suits them. And, most importantly, this is not to be done at the expense of those innocent others in the society. Instead of learning from her mistakes, Ms. White is demanding that the State finance the treatment, which she could not gain by herself, simply because she is in jail. I find it deplorable that Ms. White, after thumbing her nose at society, demands that they grant her desire to be a woman. Tanstaafl. She has only herself to blame, and I do not want to pay, through my taxes, for what she was unwilling to do for herself.

If she is mentally ill, as defined by the APA, then counseling should be made available during her incarceration just like any other inmate. But to change the entire prison system to accommodate her needs as a TS is unrealistic. The prison didn't invite her to live there, she committed a crime in full knowledge of the consequences, and now must pay for that decision. At the end of her term she can start where she left off and use her own skills, time, determination and money to fulfill her desires.

Tanstaafl, Ms. White. After telling the world by your actions that you don't care if you hurt anyone else to fulfill your desires, please don't expect the world to do it for you.

Ouch, the things you learn from your kids! I suppose every parent goes through this sort of thing, but being able to talk with your now adult children reveals some interesting things you were not aware of when they were growing up. Specifically, I gained some insights into the age old question "Do we tell the kids?" I have a message for all you closeted crossdressers with children: you don't have to tell them, they already know.

My daughter has moved home to go to college in town, and our son visits on weekends, as much for the free laundry and all the food he can swipe as to visit the old folks. It was one of those late night gab sessions that occasionally happen, and the subject got around to the things they had pulled on their parents long enough ago to be able to admit them now. There's no other way to say it, we were bamboozled from top to bottom, and I can only console myself by thinking of the things I pulled on my parents in turn. Naturally the subject of my crossdressing came up along the way, and I was certainly enlightened.

My son found out when he went poking around in my van where I kept a suitcase of Ricky's clothes for the time I spent on the road. When my daughter was about 10 I built a locked closet in a corner of the attic to hide my dresses, thinking it was out of the way and would attract no interest. Yeah, I should have painted a billboard with a great red arrow saying "Daddy's hiding something behind this door and you absolutely need to find out what!!!" It became a challenge and it was practically no time before she found the key and opened the closet, with a friend looking on, and then hastily shut it again wondering what the heck those mammoth dresses were doing in there. It was a considerable time later that we formally told the kids about my odd hobby, and they have both been wonderfully accepting. They even managed to get through last Halloween when I came out of the closet and ran around the city in my flowery finest for all to see, and my daughter has seen me dressed many times without any damage to her psyche.

There is both a relief and a responsibility in having the kids know you are a crossdresser. Naturally no longer having to hide a major part of yourself is wonderful, but that also entails a major responsibility to not let your desires take over the needs of your family. The first crossdresser I met in person almost made me quit dressing (Well I know it wouldn't have lasted but...) He had absolutely no consideration for his wife and daughter, who could never invite people over because when he got the urge to dress he dressed and damn the family. He never helped around the house, spent money they didn't have on clothing and wigs and made up the most outrageous stories to justify his insensitivity.

I just noticed I have been using the masculine pronoun when I try mightily to use the feminine to describe my sisters even if it gives me a rather funny feeling to call a he a she. I have never been able to think of this person as anything other than a man with fake boobs. The pain he caused his family was so very apparent, but he could not see it or react to it. Years later I took rape and abuse training and recognized that this person was using his crossdressing as one of many abusive tactics on his family. To see something I find so enjoyable perverted to a tool of hate disturbs me greatly., but then a very wise man once said "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." Unfortunately, he was right.

All this surfaced recently because my daughter is now an engaged woman, and we have brought my future son in law in on the secret. I actually think I was more nervous about him finding out than when our kids did. He is an exceptional young man and was not at all upset, but what happened couple weeks ago has blown my mind. We're hosting a baby and her mom in our house, so I have not been able to get dressed for about three months now, and the urge is getting rather strong these days. When I found myself unexpectedly the only one in the house last Saturday I eagerly donned bra, blouse and heels and sat down at the computer to write. I did shut the bedroom door just in case someone came home, but knew I had at least four hours before any scheduled arrivals.

Anyone who has dealt with one of those airline TV monitors is sure to know what happened next. In the middle of a creative fog there comes a knock on the bedroom door and I about severed my knees when I leaped up in my chair and rammed them into the desk drawer. I hastily asked "Who is it?" and was answered by my future son in law's voice. He wanted to come in. Partial relaxation, he saw me dressed on Halloween and didn't freak out. But the beard is grown back now, it feels different.

Taking a firm grip on my lifelong reflex to hide my skirted self from the world I called out "I'll warn you I'm dressed, but if you want to you can come in."

He did. Not so much as a raised eyebrow, no quaver in his voice, just a cheery "Hi Dad, where is everybody? We're all supposed to meet here for the concert." With that he crossed the room and put his hands on my shoulders. To me it felt like my bra straps were about 2 inches thick under his hands, drawing attention to my well padded bosom. He commented about how warm I felt to his cold hands and gave me a short neck rub, and went out to wait for the rest of the group to show up.

I feel very warm and fuzzy thinking about his matter of fact, uncritical acceptance of me. There are not many 20 year old men who are able to casually touch another man while he's wearing women's clothes without the slightest bit of anxiety or revulsion. What I was wearing made absolutely no difference to him. Even though his news of an impending horde in my living room meant I had to return to the land of normalcy, I kept the glow of that unstrained personal acceptance with me throughout the day.

I hate Philadelphia. Well, maybe that's a bit too harsh. I hated living in Philadelphia. I took a job that made me move to Philadelphia once and lasted precisely one and a half weeks before I ran screaming back to my rural home and continued unemployment. But perhaps I was a bit hasty, for now it seems the enlightened curators of the Museum of Art there have declared my favorite fetish to be a legitimate subject of cultural study.

They now have an exhibit of brassieres in their costume and textiles section. Not only that but they have one Kristina Haughland as resident lingerie expert, who has made an anthropological study of female undergarments. How do people get jobs like this? I'm unemployed right now, why won't someone pay me to fondle feminine fashions?

It seems that currently the bra biz is booming. On one hand (breast?) there is a growing market for the reinforced, action oriented "sports bra," and at the other end of the spectrum sales of lacy nothings trailing ribbons and bows are going through the roof. I can just see it now, some poor woman goes shopping and spends hours choosing the right combinations of sneakers, pardon me - that's canvas foot support systems, so she is properly shod for every conceivable occasion, and then has to spend another day and a half purchasing the proper brassiere to go with each foot support system. If American industry can pull this one off we'll be out of the recession before you can snap the hooks on your own personal breast support system. Now if I can only find a way to market special occasion panties I'll be rich!

"It's confusion over women's roles." says Ms. Haughland. "Women are expected to be everything - athlete in the morning, business woman by day and sex goddess at night. And there's a bra for every occasion."

How true that is. I've been confused over women's roles for years, and I'm glad I'm not alone. Why, the Intimate Apparel Council of NY, NY (I'll bet you never knew they existed - did you?) says that sports bras account for 9 percent of bra sales and underwires take 38 percent of the tally. There was, sadly, no accounting of how many of those bras were sold for use by men, so we may never know how large our share of the Intimate Apparel market is.

There have been an interesting evolution of the brassiere over the years.

The bra as we know it first appeared around the turn of the century as hoop skirts, super tight corsets and such began to lose popularity. Oddly enough, woman considered the long-line boned and reinforced brassieres liberating when compared to their predecessors. By the '20s designers were advising fashionable women to throw away their bras and adopt the boyish look of simple breastbands. (Glad I wasn't around then!) The '30s saw the breasts part company, and women, or at least bra wearers of whatever sex, could be discerned to have two distinct globes instead of a single rounded mass mounted on the chest. The '40s and '50s saw the advent of the "torpedo" or "snow cone" bra, with it's myriad stitched circles, the kind I first snitched from my mother and filled with washcloths.

The sixties were trying times for the manufacturers of bras, what with the bra burners and free lovers who had no use for intimate apparel, as they were cavorting naked in fields of flowers and doing things that scandalized their parents. But American Ingenuity was up to the challenge, and the no-bra look became the standard in bras. Padded, seamless cups enhanced the figure without those lines on the shear blouse. And someone discovered color. Of course you had to have the right color bra under your clothes or you were terribly out of fashion. And don't forget patterns of delicate pink roses on the fabric of the cup and the blue rose where the cups join. The Intimate Apparel Council says American women (how can they prove their sex, I ask you?) bought 292 million bras last year.

So what's in the future? A spokesman for Maidenform, which has it's own bra museum in NY City, predicts bras in lush fabrics like satin, and bold patterns in deeper hues. Maybe even paisley or mosaic prints. We face a bright future under our blouses, no doubt about it.

I have been indulging in a solitary vice again, but don't worry - I mean reading, not what you thought. While perusing the Skeptical Inquirer I came across a review of an odd little tome of pseudoscience called Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras. Now really, what would your average brassiere obsessed crossdresser do but immediately sign on to the library computer and get a copy delivered to the local library to find out what's going on here. You didn't think I would pay for the thing, did you?

The authors, Sydney Ross Singer and wife Soma Grismaijer, have a theory that wearing a bra so tight it makes red marks in the skin or wearing one for more than 12 hours a day restricts the lymph system and thus causes a buildup of toxins in the breast that in turn cause cancer. Unfortunately the book is so riddled with contradictions and inaccuracies I can only assume the publishers were after the big bucks with a controversial topic. While there is much good information in the book, there is no way to tell what's true and what's speculation.

To give you some idea of their scientific leanings, when Soma discovered a lump in her breast they decided to seek alternative cancer treatment without even getting the lump diagnosed as cancer. They developed their theory with no testing of lymph function and their sole research was a poorly constructed and poorly controlled survey. It should be no surprise they made no effort to confirm that their cancer group actually had been diagnosed with cancer. Oh, what fools these mortals be! (Thanks Will.)

In response to all this a spokesperson for the American Cancer Institute Society stated "We look foreword to the publication of the Bra and Breast Cancer Study in a peer reviewed scientific journal, where the study results can be properly evaluated."

Humm... they seem to think a properly controlled scientific study would carry more weight than speculation and surveys. If you are aware of how scientific studies are conducted (Pay attention here, the latest survey revealed 60% of you haven't a clue) you will know there are two or more groups studied. One is the group you want to test for the phenomena you are investigating, and the other is a control group to make sure the results do not reflect some unexpected effect. Well, my sisters. that's where you and I come in. Can you think of a better control group for this study than a group of men dedicated to wearing bras?

Just think of it, by becoming a volunteer in the cause of science you will be able to go to work next Monday morning wearing your favorite black lace bra, as long as you cinch it up nice and tight. I can just see it now, you walk in the door and take off your coat and one of your co-workers in the machine shop strikes up a conversation:

"Hey Earl, I notice somthin' different about youse dis morning."

"Yeah, Sam, I'm doin' my bit for science. I'm in a scientific study. Da Doc says I gotta wear dis t'ing for the next six months. 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It's real important, it could mean life and death for some broads."

"Ya don't say, Earl. That's very selfless of youse. I'm sure da boss will want to promote someone who is so giving dat he will make such a sacrifice for da cause of science."

"Youse may be right, Sam, but I just hope I don't louse up da shop safety record if I get dese hooters caught in da lathe!"

Or perhaps you're a high school science teacher, the scene would go something like this about 3 seconds after the end of the first period when the Principal invites you to his office:

"Mr. Smith, several of your students have commented on latest lab session. I must admit I have never considered using the Victoria's Secret catalog as a source for experimental materials."

"Why, Mr. Jones, I have always subscribed to the principle that scientific inquiry must be completely unfettered, although I will admit this piece of apparatus about my pectorals is rather constricting." It did serve as a good starting point to explain the fundamentals of dynamic tension.

"Fascinating, Mr. Smith. Could I inquire if this, uh, experiment was part of the syllabus?

"Why no, Mr. Jones. I have been selected to participate in a scientific study on the relationship between brassieres and the incidence of breast cancer in women. Needless to say I'm in the control group."

"So I see, Mr. Smith. May I inquire as to the extent and scope of this experiment."

"Of course, Mr. Jones. Because of encouragement from the rest of the staff we have expanded it to include an animal study. In a stunning show of interdepartmental harmony, Mrs. Wilson of the home economics department has her students sewing little bitty bras for several rats. They did quail a bit at the thought of designing brassieres with six cups apiece, but we realized each rat could serve as it's own control by only using two breasts for testing."

Brilliant, Mr. Smith. I assume the Biology department supplied the, uh, test animals.

"No, Mrs. Tweed of the cafeteria staff had a far better supply of rats than the biology department."

"A fine method of saving the taxpayer's money, Mr. Smith. How long is this course of experimentation to last? I will need time to prepare proper explanatory materials for the students and their parents if it is to be lengthy."

"Six months, Mr. Jones. I would be pleased to prepare abstracts of the study for the staff and conduct an extracurricular briefing on the results of the Study."

"Wonderful, Mr. Smith. I'm sure the PTA will be pleased by your exemplary attitude to volunteerism."

So I urge you to call Mr. Singer as soon a possible and volunteer your services, you'll be glad you did and the world will be a better place for your sacrifice.

With apologies to those of you who weren't around to listen to radio in the sixties, I'll start this with a famous quote. In the immortal words of the Chicken Man: "They're everywhere, they're everywhere". Crossdressers, that is. In the last week everywhere I look I see a crossdresser, right out there in public.

First there was the color coordinated Dennis Rodman with green hair and white wedding dress. Then I was cruising through my local megagrocery store, the one with the film lab in the front, and stopped to check out their picture of the week. Usually it's a cute little kid or kitten of something wholesome like that, but this week it was a guy in wig, hot pants and a couple of round somethings stuffed under his T-shirt. Returning home I pick up the paper and Ann Landers has her second column this month devoted to crossdressing, and most of the letters are positive. I went to a concert on Saturday night and the singer does a song with a verse about visiting her neighbor Joe, but since he's wearing a dress today she'll call him Stephanie, and everything's cool in suburbia. Then there are the movies, it seems every male actor in Hollywood is lining up to do their next movie in drag. The new issue of MAD came today and what do I see but Luke Skywalker in garters and Chewie in a low cut dress, which makes me feel a whole lot better about my body hair after seeing Chewie in drag. What's going on here? Are we about to hit the big time and become acceptable?

It was thinking about the movies that gave me the answer. Remember way back to 2001: A Space Odyssey, when every other scene featured some mundane commercial product in futuristic form? There are agents who spend all their lives trying to get their product on camera in the hopes you will drink the same hooch or drive the same car the star is using on screen. With diligent research I have discovered what's happening. The American Lingerie Manufacturers has hired a big time Hollywood placement agency. In the hopes of doubling their product sales overnight they have contracted to place crossdressers before the public in the hopes every man on the planet will get an irresistible subliminal urge to start wearing bra and panty sets.

By George, wouldn't you like to eavesdrop on the agent? Lets use a suitably androgynous name like "Bernie". I'll leave the details of clothing, underwear and padding to your imagination. Since the Fashion Gods have decreed that cigars are no longer smelly, cancer causing, evil and disgusting, we can be politically correct in imagining our agent leaning back in an enormous chair, telephone in one hand and cigar in the other, with a client on the line. It might go something like this:

[Hollow intercom voice: "Mr. Fisher on Line 1"]

"Good morning, George, how's life in the Big Yellow Box? Say, George, now that Santa is done with Dennis and you have your corporate feet wet in our lifestyle I got a couple ideas for you. You know how Kodak likes to stress the true to life color of your film? Well, look, I got more than a few clients that tend to be rather colorful, both in dress and lifestyle. What better way to point up the color quality of your product than a spread on my people?"

"Oh. Sure, George, I understand. After Dennis a study of stained glass church windows is just the thing for balance. I tried, George, just remember that when Fuji starts their next campaign. My people use an awful lot of film, you know.."

["Mr. Lucas on line 2"]

"Georgie baby, good to hear from ya. Listen, Georgie, I just saw your re-release and it was great, I gotta thank you for including one of my people in the bar scene. It's a natural, Georgie, truly a natural. Say what? Well, of course my clients are not purely natural, I gotta admit that, but come on, this is the 90s and you're showing the 23rd century or some such. The future belongs to my people.

"Listen Georgie, I got this idea, it's terrific. Next time you do a film where Harrison has to disguise himself what say you hire some of my people as script consultants. I guarantee no one will recognize him when we get done!"

["Mr. Steinbrenner on line 1"]

"Hello, George, what can I do for you. How's it feel to own a winning team after all these years? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, you gotta admit the strike did screw up fan loyalty. Listen, George, I think I can solve your problems. Now, don't get me wrong, but the action in baseball is kinda slow, you gotta supply something to keep the fans interested while they're waiting for the next pitch. Look, you provide the uniforms and I'll get a dozen or so of my people as cheerleaders for the team before the next season starts. In New York it will be a natural!

["Mr. Hashimoto on line 3"]
(So OK, I ran out of Georges)

"Good morning, Sir. I understand you are about to introduce a new luxury convertible to the American market. I have a suggestion to help you cash in on our changing corporate lifestyle. Picture this, we start out in a boardroom, young, hard working executive just ending a presentation. Sexy voice over asking what does he do to relax after a stressful day. We watch him open the door to his office, his name prominent on the door. Inside he removes suit coat and tie, turns his back to the camera and pulls up his shirt. A quick flash of a bra band under the shirt, then cut to the door opening again. He comes out en femme and proceeds to drove off in your convertible, long hair and scarf flying in the wind. Great, isn't it!"

I know it's not the way the Japanese do things, Mr. Hashimoto, but we Americans are rather different. Think about it, you'll like it."

I'm glad that in the twenty years since I wrote this things have changed appreciably.

Since you're reading this, I'll assume you have read at least one article where some learned person expounds on why men like to dress in skirts and such. You'll find reasons like "freeing the inner self", "expressing our femininity in a hostile world" or even " it just feels good." Somewhere in the list of the good things in being a TV will inevitably come a comment to the effect of "being able to wear a rainbow of colors instead of a gray flannel suit."

Ah, right, can't forget that. Why just walk into the ladies department at any major store and you will be surrounded by reds and blues and other less identifiable colors whose names are only known to fashion designers. Can you honestly say you can call a color to mind when someone tells you something is a lovely shade of teal? Teal? Fuchsia? Where do these names come from? It's got to be the same people who come up with the names pharmaceutical companies use for their latest drug. But anyway, there you are surrounded by soft cloth and multitudinous colors and you HAVE to buy something, anything, to satisfy that insatiable urge to own just one more blouse, or skirt or sweater...

Gleefully grabbing the first thing in reach you fall in love with it. But, oh my, it's too small. No matter, the plus sizes are just over there. You troll through a sea of color, leaving pinks and purples bobbing in your wake, sailing (or maybe sale-ing) on to new and brighter outfits. But wait, everything is going dark. What's happened? Suddenly you're back in Kansas, everything has gone black and white. The rainbow hues and patterns have drained away, leaving colorless stripes and polkadots. If you're lucky you will find a large floral print in a dull silver on flat black. You're in The Land of the Large Woman.

It's a conspiracy, that's what it is. Somewhere in the tastefully decorated offices of the fashion mavens it has been decided that large people do not wear colorful clothes. Not only do they nick you for an extra few bucks for the Plus Size, but they save a buck by not having to use all that expensive dye in the cloth. After all, when you're a size 24, a tent will do, you're past the decreed bounds of fashion.

So what can you do about it? You can learn to sew and after a few years practice you may get good enough to make something you could wear in public. So you run to the nearest fabric store and again glory in the many colors. Feeling faintly out of place you find the pattern books and start paging through. Shifts, dresses, blouses and skirts galore. There, the perfect dress for next week's meeting, but the size chart stops at 18. No matter, you keep an eye on the size chart as you look and discover anything in your size makes you think of the big top at the circus. And what fool put padded shoulders on a size 4X dress anyway?

Life just ain't fair if you're trying to be a big girl. It's enough to make you want to become a nudist. But that wouldn't work either.

There's something wrong here. It says on my resume, of which I have mailed out approximately 6.37 billion in the last year of semi-employment, that I am a highly skilled electromechanical technician. It says a lot of other glowing things, but in essence it means I can go into a factory somewhere and quickly understand and repair several millions of dollars worth of complex machinery that is doing something the normal maintenance staff cannot fix. At the risk of hubris I'm good at it too. So why is it that the common household sewing machine strains my abilities to the breaking point and beyond.

I have gone from semi-employed to flat out unemployed for the last two months, so with Christmas coming and lots of time on my hands I decided to stretch my meager resources and sew some gifts for people, like my wife and daughter and (ahem...) my feminine self. After all, sewing is the quintessential feminine activity. Soft fabrics, lace, needles, delicate stitching, ribbons and loving craftsmanship. (Sorry - the politically correct haven't come up with a gender neutral version of the word and I refuse to use such an unlikely construction as craftspersonship.) The local fabric store cooperated by having as sale on some of that lovely, shiny silky fabric that real men never, ever wear, not even while eating quiche. So with pattern in hand and bundles of fabric and notions laid out carefully I approached the task.

The preliminaries went well. I put the company tabletop on the kitchen table, laid out the fabric and cut out a dress for my daughter, a blouses for my wife and myself. As I cut I indulged in fantasies of medieval ladies gathered in a sunlit room of some castle, dressed in lovely long gowns, each with a potential new long gown on their lap placing precise stitches by hand. I longed to be one of those ladies, secure in their art and creativity. But daydreams must fade and I could put it off no longer, it was time to confront my old enemy - the dreaded sewing machine.

I doubt if Mr. Morse Knew what havoc he would bring to my life when he invented the thing. On the surface it is a rather simple device. A motor, a few gears and cams and a needle bobbing up and down hypnotically. My wife has used this machine for years and never had a problem with it, but every time I come within six feet of it, it becomes a hypochondriac. Needles fall out, belts break, and gears grind. The thread tension becomes as erratic as the chart of a brain wave, leaving great gobs of thread on the underside of whatever is being sewn.

This time I approached it as I would a faithful old dog. I patted it on the head, spoke kindly nonsense to it and stroked it's well worn spine. I softly explained what I was doing as I loaded the thread, filled the bobbin and threaded the machine, hoping this would keep it from being confused and doing something awful to my sewing. It seemed to work, pieces of cloth began to assemble into something resembling a blouse. I was amazed, I uttered not one unfeminine word during the entire process, the blouse was finished and all that remained was to sew on the buttons.

I should have known better, it was just too easy. The machine worked perfectly, the operator didn't. I lined up the front of the blouse to place the buttons and the ruffle was off a good four inches on either side of the blouse. I swear I matched all the foolish notches, dots and markings, but there it was. Now I used those unfeminine words as I wielded the seam ripper on those all too perfect and tight stitches, rearranging the ruffle and cutting one side short. Success, only the buttons to go.

Remember my fantasy of lovely ladies hand sewing gorgeous garments? Forget it! If there is anything more boring than hand sewing I have yet to experience it. Next time I'll use a pattern with a zipper. Have you ever tried to keep a button in the exact right place while sewing it onto that slippery feminine fabric that looks so good? They tend to migrate to uncharted regions of cloth having no relationship to the front of the blouse despite the best efforts of humanity. With perseverance I completed the task and began to think about the two other garments cut out and waiting for me. So I did what any reasonable crossdresser would do - I came up here and wrote this article, and am fully prepared to discover several other urgent projects before I approach the sewing machine again.

Wish me luck, there's only three weeks left to Christmas.

Something funny happened the first time my family spent a week at the now infamous home of Jim Bakker, Heritage Village USA. Since I am not a Christian and had to work anyway, I spent the week as a bachelor. Well, not exactly a bachelor, more a bachelorette. I hate that word, it is as awkward as some of the supposed "sexual-bias-free" creations that grace the media these days, and I have a whole new understanding of those libbers who object to those sexist terms. Be that as it may, let's just leave it that Ricky had run of the house for a full week, something that doesn't happen very often.

Of course I spent a good deal of time doing things like reading, washing clothes and dishes, poking away on my computer, sewing, and other more serene and ladylike pursuits, but there comes a time when all the work that needs to be done in an old house like ours can't be ignored any longer. I have been threatening to actually clean up the basement for years, and had been conveniently forgetting the wallpaper for my daughter's bedroom so long that I have forgotten how long I have forgotten it. In other words, it was time for less than ladylike activities, but I didn't want to quit being a lady. So I put on T-shirt over one of my more utilitarian bras, designated one of the oldest skirts as my "work skirt", and knowing full well how silly it was I put on an old pair of pantyhose anyway and adjourned to the basement with the broom, dustpan, and several garbage cans.

It did not take me long to raise a prodigious cloud of dust, so I reached for my handkerchief. Or to put it more precisely, I reached for the pocket that should have held the handkerchief, and I had a revelation: women's clothes do not normally have pockets. I had not noticed this previously, as my dressing was confined to motel rooms or a few hours on a Sunday morning when the family was at church. In that confined area, and when engrossed in such ladylike tasks as writing letters, I had never noticed the lack of pockets. As I ran upstairs for the handkerchief and other small items I usually carry in my pocket, I realized that if women's lib is ever to succeed, someone is going to have to invent a practical pocket for a woman's skirt.

Let's look at the options. The first and most obvious is to abandon the skirt and put on a pair of pants. Practical yes, but who said fashion is practical. Let us assume that the person wearing the skirt or dress is wearing it for a good reason like being a TV, or whirling around a dance floor in an evening gown or working in an office where the successful woman must wear a skirt. Pants will just not do in these situations.

I hear a rousing chorus of "What's the problem, she has a pocketbook?" from the great multitudes reading this treatise. But while a pocketbook (aptly named, what?) may be practical when a lady is out shopping or on the town, it is a bloody pain to tote around the house and the strap gets caught in the broom handle. I know I can't keep track of the fork I just set down at the dinner table, let alone which room I left my handbag in. To be useful a pocket must be attached to you, so you don't have to keep track of it. So much for that idea.

Then there is what the girls of my youth referred to as the 'womanly'. For those of you that didn't grow up in my part of the world, a womanly is the area more generally known a the cleavage. It was a familiar game of my youth for a girl who liked you to drop some object into her womanly and offer to allow you to retrieve it if you had the nerve. This was invariably done in front of a large group of people and I fail to remember a single instance of the object being removed by anyone other than the owner of that particular womanly.

Leaving the memories of my teenage years behind, there is still some possibility that this anatomical attribute of womankind could be made to substitute for the male pocket. There are some obvious drawbacks, of course. Low cut garments would leave the wearer looking like a portable collection of the odds-and-ends found in your night table drawer, while a turtleneck sweater would make access difficult and embarrassing. This, of course, would not apply to a nursing mother, who has learned how to get in there without anyone but her baby seeing her breast, but for a TV it is a skill that would be just too revealing. Besides, while Dolly Parton might have no problem, someone built like Twiggy would be unable to carry more than a spare pair of earrings. Let's try something else.

So what about an actual pocket in the skirt?. The main objection to that is, unless you are down in the basement helping me and don't have an audience, a full pocket will ruin the flowing lines the skirt was meant to show. No one gives a hoot if a man walks around with lumpy pockets, but let a woman look like one hip is malformed and everyone will notice. I will refrain from commenting on the remarks a front or rear facing pocket would inspire. Scratch this option too.

Maybe we could steal the sporran from some Scotsman's kilt, after all many ladies have stolen the idea of the kilt before this. I am not sure of the etiquette of this situation, however. I know that the kilt requires a lack of underclothing to be worn properly, but does this extend to the sporran as well? I could not get a straight answer out of my Scots friends, they were too busy laughing. If the prohibition were to apply, a woman wearing garters, stockings and no undies (pantyhose would come too close to underwear for use here) beneath her skirt could create the wrong impression in the coarser of male minds, and TV would literally run the risk of exposure. Sorry 'bout that - I couldn't help myself.

So I guess I must leave the question unresolved. If you have any good ideas, let me know.

I'm a happy crossdresser, but I'm still confused. Maybe it's just me, but why are so many of my sisters so dissatisfied with their life, and that of their sisters? Lately it seems that all I see are articles about how we must fight for our rights, demand that our wives, children pets and the general public accept us uncritically, and grant us our every wish.

OK, so I exaggerate, but it seems a little much. Do we really need to be accepted uncritically by the public? Do we even want to? Isn't part of the diversion in donning a dress in knowing it is out of the ordinary, just a little bit naughty? I know I get a thrill out of feeling my breast forms bounce when I go down the stairs, and in my heart of hearts stockings and skirts are a way of thumbing my nose at our crazy society. I don't need anyone watching me to enjoy being in a dress, in fact I feel downright uncomfortable even with my wife, who is as understanding as any woman could be.

Why must there be so much emphasis on getting out and passing in public? If you have that particular passion I would be the first one to give you all the help I could to make it happen, and even escort you and back you up the first time. Where I get annoyed is when someone intimates that I'm shirking my duty to my sisters by just enjoying a bra and panties around the house with the curtains closed. I don't need a guilt trip because I'm not constantly screaming at the barricades of society and demanding my 'rights'.

I will grant that there are common elements in our situation and that of the civil rights movement in general. I would ask you to think back to the sixties, at least those of you who are old enough to remember them. The whole thing started with the radicals who were willing to make a fuss and get noticed. We couldn't have changed our society without them. The radicals and the folk on the fringe are a necessary part of change.

But it takes two other types to make those changes last. First come the quiet ones who work behind the scenes, writing the laws, organizing the small community groups doing the detail work. Then come those that do their part by living their life in accord with the dictates of conscience. They are not flashy and you probably don't recognize the few of them you know, but they are as utterly necessary as the emotional face on the TV screen demanding whatever civil 'right' is in vogue for this demonstration.

I'll cheer the radicals who are trying to broaden the borders, and I'm very thankful to those who do the scut work that allows me to go to a convention or read a publication about crossdressing, but I am most at home with those who sit in the background and attend the local chapter meetings or just sit at home and write letters in pantyhose once in a while. There is room in society in general for all three types, and our little segment of society should be broad minded enough to accept all of our sisters and affirm their needs. Crossdressing should be enjoyable, we have enough societal guilt to cope with without another layer from our sisters.

Help, I'm overdosed on TV newsletters, magazines books and handouts. Life has been busy of late, and just about everything I found in the PO box has gotten tossed into a pile at the back of the closet, waiting time to read it. So the holiday weekend came and I had time to dress up, lay back and read. I read it all at first, then found myself skipping around a bit, then jumping over whole articles on the title alone. After the fifth report of how the convention went, fourteenth discussion on how to tell the wife/kids/parents/mailman, the twenty-eighth personal history and umpteenth argument about what word we should use to identify which gradation of a man in woman's clothes, something snapped and I ran screaming from the room with skirt flying.

Anxious to restore my grip on reality, however tenuous, I made lunch and sat down with the latest issue of The Skeptical Inquirer for a good dose of common sense. Perhaps you are not familiar with the Skeptical movement, I fear most people aren't. SI is the journal of The Committee for Scientific Investigation for Claims Of the Paranormal, a name begging for an acronym if I ever heard one. CSICOP. Say it out loud, phonetically. Psi cop. I don't know if it was intentional, but it works.

As I began to think of it, a crossdresser has to be skeptical to survive. There are so many pathways to fantasy in our world it's hard to keep things straight.

So what is a Skeptic with a capital 'S'? Simply stated a Skeptic is one who demands that any claim to anything be backed up with proof, and that any extraordinary claim (UFOs, miracle healings, ESP, etc.) be backed with rigorous proofs before being accepted. Simple to state, sure, like "a crossdresser wears the clothes of the opposite sex", but as complex in reality as the ins and outs of TV/TS behavior. This need of extraordinary proof of extraordinary claims applies to crossdressing in the minds of most people. Like it our not our society is irrational on the subject of sex, and crossdressing is automatically lumped in the "perverted sex" category without thought. Education has helped, but we still need to present that extraordinary proof to the outside world.

This skeptic has had trouble swallowing some of the ads I've found in TV/TS publications. Then I read an article about your personal colors, or the way to make yourself up, and find the opposite advice in an article from another source. And pardon me if I say that you needn't be a Skeptic to gag at most of the TV fiction available.

You had better be a skeptic about your appearance before going out in public. One of the first rules of skepticism is your personal involvement will bias your judgment. If you don't have an unbiased outside opinion before you leave, there is someone out there that will be glad to inform you about all your mistakes, believe me. Then there's all the psychological advice available. Tell the kids, don't tell the kids, how to break the news, CDs are special, this survey says one thing, the next says something else. How the devil do you sort it out.

I can't tell you that is a sentence, but what I can tell you is that after reading SI for a few years, I have painlessly gained the tools to sort the sense from the nonsense. The interplay of claim, response, counterclaim, on such diverse subjects and animal intelligence, medical quackery, the effects of heavy metal rock, crystals and other new age trappings begins to teach you what questions to ask. then in the next issue the letters column challenges what was in the last issue. One of the things I find most interesting are the accounts of 'classic' frauds of the past.' By knowing what has happened before, you are less likely to be fooled in the future.

For those of our sisters involved in educating the public, the same techniques used to counter false claims of the paranormal apply to countering false information about crossdressing. I know this column has strayed from crossdressing, but we can't stay dressed all our life. You might pay a visit to you local library and check out a copy or two of SI. If you want to go whole hog, get a subscription from The Skeptical Inquirer. After all, its something to read until the next issue of Cross Talk gets there.

(Note: This was written for the now defunct Cross Talk Magazine.)

SOME NOTES ON THE DESIGN OF CROSSDRESSING HARDWARE

There are several difficulties to be overcome in the design of self-crossdressing hardware. This paper will enumerate them and offer suggestions to remediate the problems.

1) Determining the sex of the hardware. Actually, determining the sex of the hardware is not a formidable task. The primary problem occurs because design engineers have no discernible knowledge of sex. After all, anyone who spends their day in front of a computer screen rotating images of some machine and eagerly punching in digits on their scientific calculator can hardly be expected to pay any attention to biology. Anything so messy and undefined isn't worth bothering with anyway. This is why engineers cannot function without technicians, who are worldly and can translate engineering abstractions into reality.

Among mechanical devices it can be taken as given that bolts, rods, shafts, sprayers and pneumatic actuators are male in nature, while nuts, collars, vacuum devices, drains, and clamps are naturally female. In the electronic field things are more confusing, with circuit boards having primary male plugs but possessing numerous female sockets for the insertion of chips. This essentially dual nature of circuitry is fertile ground for gender confusion on the part of electronic hardware.

2) Outward expression of cross gender tendencies in mechanical hardware. This is a problem as most hardware is prevented by function and convention from dressing at all. However, adroit use of motion detectors and heat sensors to detect the presence of human beings will allow hidden springs and solenoids to deploy skirts, brassieres and pantyhose when no operator is present. Careful material selection and programming will allow these items to be quickly disguised as oil boots or other functional protective barriers if anyone should approach.

3) Outward expression of cross gender tendencies in electronic equipment. Modern programmable controllers have been an inestimable boon for gender conflicted electronics. With complete control of visual displays a modern computer can present any gender it wishes. Now that the series is over it can be safely revealed that the computer aboard the Enterprise was actually activated as Charles, but was able to convince Star Fleet and the entire crew of the Enterprise it was female by skillful manipulation of vodor and visual output. The only one to catch on was Data, but as an enlightened android he didn't care anyway. Please don't ask me to speculate on how Data dresses in private. I can only say that the incredible physical speed of an android is highly valuable when the door chime sounds.

4) Fetishistic tendencies in mechanical hardware. The author has noted a marked preference for rubber and plastic coverings on the part of many mechanical systems. Automotive engines and steering systems in particular adorn themselves with a confusing array of rubber clothing and accessories. Mechanics may try to tell you this is because of all the anti-pollution equipment required by the EPA, but we know better. And just what does a car do with all those belts and hoses when the engine isn't running?

5) Hardware and hormones. The equipment used in pharmaceutical processing presents special problems. Constant bathing in shifting hormones causes wild swings in gender identity. Rather than reveal to its operators that it is simply the wrong time of the month, engineers invented Murphy to explain these seemingly random mood changes. Physical or psychological therapy could help, but as yet no company has extended its insurance program to production machinery.

6) Non-industrial applications. Perhaps the most famous application for crossdressing hardware can be found at Disney World. The publicity people will deny it, but some very strange things have happened in the animated hall of the presidents after the park closes. A hint can be taken from the recent MAD magazine back cover depicting George Washington crossdressing the Delaware. You might also be fascinated by the ghosts in the haunted house (those spirits are NOT wearing pants) and the wardrobe at the Country Bear Jamboree. Design problems are minimal as these are totally automated exhibits, requiring no interaction with an operator who might catch on. Who's going to notice another wardrobe closet amongst all the machinery anyway?

It was a dark and stormy night.
You don't know how long I've wanted to use that line, but I never could figure out how to use it when I'm supposed to be writing about crossdressing. Anyway, it really was a dark and stormy night and a few of my sisters had come to my place in the country for a evening of silk and schmoozing, and the evening went very well. About the time things should have broken up the place rang with a loud bang and I fear I was the one who started it. It was an innocent remark, I assure you. All I said was "I wonder if we'll lose the power again" when Mother Nature answered and off went the lights.

So OK, we look out the window and saw nothing but pitch black. Carrie picked it up very quickly, asking "I wonder if it's safe to leave?" and was answered by another crack as a majestic maple started drum practice on the bedroom roof. Ask a silly question and darned if Mother Nature doesn't answer.

Thus started the Wonder Club, born of boredom and excitement as the lights flickered and died and Joan asked "I wonder what we'll do now?" Mother nature being silent, we agreed on some ground rules. Since we have all been exploring the wonder of femininity within ourselves without many answers over the years, the things the Wonder Club wondered about must never, under any circumstances, have a rational answer. That would take the fun out of it.

I started the ball rolling by wondering why pantyhose in a washer always end up in a knot that would defy an Eagle Scout. Nancy wondered what birdbrain would put hose in the washer without putting them in a bag first, but was ruled out of order as we wondered if her wonder could be construed as having been an answer to my wonder. Phyllis wondered what the connection was between stars and garters, and whether the advent of pantyhose had caused the demise of that fine old phrase. Jean wondered who was in charge of planned obsolescence at the pantyhose company, and how they managed to make hose that ran just as she left the house without time to change. Carrie wondered how they made sure the run would occur right over the varicose vein in her leg.

I was about to wonder when the lights would go on again when Jenny wondered how you could have distinguished a crossdresser in the stone age. After all, how do you tell if a mammoth skin is meant for a woman or a man. Jenny wondered how crossdressers ever managed without having bras. Nancy wondered why her bra always shifted just at the worst possible moment, leaving her lopsided. Jean wondered why so many sisters were into DDDD cups when they look so ugly. I, in turn, wondered how TVs managed in the era of nose cone bras without elastic or give, which made Nancy wonder why it made the slightest difference, as we were all in the dark, anyway.

It was Jenny who wondered if there was ever a blind crossdresser, and how he would cope without reading mail order catalogs. Soon Jean was wondering why a catalog for queen size women always had models that were a size 8, and Phyllis wondered just what the heck a 'full figure fashion' was anyway. She'd never seen anyone with only a partial figure, unless it was herself before stuffing her bra. That set Jenny to wondering why lately it was easier to find a blouse that fit her femme self, when nobody seems to be making shirts that fit her male self. Used to be the other way around.

Speaking of mail, Phyllis wondered where all the letters she mailed to sisters who swore that they would answer everyone who wrote ended up. I wondered if they went to the same place where my odd stockings went from the dryer. No, Jean said, the wonder was that when you opened a PO box it took only about three weeks for your name to be on every mailing list for swingers magazines and you started getting every Lane Bryant catalog ever printed before you even ordered anything. Carrie wondered what the people at the post office thought of her mail, and I wondered how they maintained their professionalism when they had to be laughing every time they filled the box. Nancy wondered how the box stayed empty for weeks at a time, and then was stuffed so full you needed mining tools to get the mail loose.

Carrie wondered why she was blessed with a six foot plus body with black fur when some people - no names mentioned please - had the infernal luck to be slim, blonde, beardless and short. She also wondered why it didn't matter because it felt so good to put on panties and bra. Nancy wondered how lacy things on her wife's body caused such different emotions from the same clothes on his own body, and Phyllis wondered why some people were lucky enough to have a wife the same size to trade clothes with.

About that time, I wondered just how much more of this I could take when the lights came back on. The magic was gone and the wonder Club adjourned until further notice.