Note BG — Chapter XVIII · PARAESTHESIA (continued 2)

The wail and cry of the patient that the common herd does not understand him are well known. It is the old feminine protest that men do not understand women. It is the familiar catch-phrase which a flattering yellow journalism and mediocre literature are continually dishing out to their women readers. Men will never understand women, is preached in and out of season, insinuating a certain depth in and mystery about her psyche. Most certainly, the man does not understand woman’s psyche. He does not understand his own, neither does she understand her own. The experiments in psychological laboratories are dealing only with the relations between the sensations and perceptions, not with the “whence,” “how” and the “why” of the mechanism of the mind. The mechanism by which a material fluid, cell, or electron turns into a thought, whether in the male or the female brain, is yet unknown, neither is there any prospect that it ever will be. Still the workings of the human mind are subject to observation, and we know by experience that woman’s psyche changes with the change of her dress. The mind of a man born in poverty and brought up in humble surroundings will always remain humble, even when he becomes a millionaire. He adapts himself with great difficulty to changed conditions. Woman’s adaptation to new surroundings is phenomenal. Dress her as a queen and she is a queen, clad in rags, she acts the beggar. Normal men do not understand the nature of such a mind that can be so influenced by outward appearance. Neither does man understand the wonderful instinct of the hymenopter. Yet the insect seems to be less proud of its mystery than our patient of his or the female of the species of hers.

For this very reason the male transvestites who are possessed with a female spirit or a female soul are more interesting than the female transvestite, possessed of a male soul. In normal men dressing is never a matter of great concern, neither is it with the transvestite endowed with a male mind. But the normal woman attributes a vast importance to feminine dress, and the male transvestite with the female soul excels her in dress-valuation.