Reading Mike: The Annotated Bailey: Chapter 8, page 147

<< previous page

Bailey Commentary

[147] 8 Terese and Cher

  
Honest and open autogynephilic transsexuals reveal a much different pattern. They were not especially feminine boys. The first overt manifestation of what led to their transsexualism was typically during early adolescence, when they secretly dressed in their mothers’ or sisters’ lingerie, looked at themselves in the mirror, and masturbated. This activity continued into adulthood, and sexual fantasies became increasingly transsexual—especially the fantasy of having a vulva, perhaps being penetrated by a penis. Autogynephilic transsexuals may declare attraction to women or men, to both, or to neither. But their primary attraction is to the women that they would become.  
These summaries are given here less to clarify than to organize the information that follows. Transsexualism—especially autogynephilic transsexualism— seems so foreign to most people that it requires a great deal of explanation. And illustration.


So meet Cher and Terese, most extraordinary friends. Terese is shy, small, and very feminine. Cher is extra extraverted, tall, and in some ways strikingly masculine. Terese is Mexican-American, Cher Italian-American. Both Terese and Cher are transsexuals born boys, now women. The most unusual fact about them in my experience is that they are close friends and are different types of transsexuals; serious socializing among the two types is practically unheard of. Terese is a homosexual transsexual, and Cher is autogynephilic. Spend the day with them, listening to their stories and watching the way they behave, and the difference between homosexual and autogynephilic transsexualism will be forever blazed in your mind.

 

 
Terese was born Jose Garcia, in Mexico. His parents divorced when Jose was young, and he was raised by grandparents. They moved to Chicago when he was ten. From early childhood, Jose wanted to be a girl. "Why do girls get prettier things and why do they get to do the things I like to do?" he wondered. He knew, because he was told, that he was a boy. But that did not guide his behavior. He dressed up as a female as frequently as he could, played with dolls, was


next page >>