And I am so glad to have another perspective on the Transsexual experience. I am glad to hear that so many people that you have met over the years have been so accepting of you for yourself. Gives me hope for me & my love...there will always be close-minded people, I know, but perhaps they are not so common as I thought.

I am glad for you, after "suffering" all through the book with you, that you have found the happiness and contentment that you sought all along; that you found love. I have heard many, many resonances in your story that remind me of me & my love, of where we've been, where we are now, and where we hope we're going. And I do thank you for giving me the hope that the road is not so hard as I feared it might be, and re-assuring me that the journey can be as bright & beautiful as we dream it will be.

I feel humbled by your scholastic abilities but not alienated. I simply was never exposed to academia as a youth and therefore am in awe of those like yourself who will delve into history and glean some truth from amidst all the chaff. I am so looking forward to a continued relationship with the Metro'on and feel connected in a more secure fashion to the Gallae of the universe. I am delighted to have discovered the name of my family. I never did like the Spanish term of Berdache, it was imported and it is derogatory. Gallae is my birthright and the core of my authenticity. Thank you for facilitating my reunion.
Brightest Blessings

You call us gallae, I like it, it's nice. Personally I call it gender-gifted, because I see it as a talent, something extra you get when born, like some people have a talent for drawing or music or math. A few years ago I went back to study. I wanted to know more about myself and chose psychology, because I didn't like all the names as transgenderist, transsexual, crossdresser, etc (neither did you). Because I never felt that I'm a women. I have very feminine feelings that's right, but I can't be a women there's a difference between what I feel and what women feel. I also never felt that I'm male, because also there is a discrepancy between the feeling of a male and my feelings.

When I'm into sex, I'm the feminine partner of a female. I never impregnated a women and what's more I never had any fantasy's about it. It's not a thing that can get me aroused. So I have no real relationship, because I had the luck that I found out very early in live that I wasn't like the "majority", and I was always honest to girl friends, so they never expected the "act". And yes I dress many times as a women, because it feels better, more relaxed and I have very good friends where I can come as a women or as a male. It doesn't matter to them. I'm their friend because I'm me.

You know Laura, its a pity that you live so far away, because I really would like to know you and your friends, they seem to be nice people. I'm not gonna write a book here. My English is too bad, and I don't know If I'll ever get an answer on this mail. You'll gets lot's of them I imagine. I write this only because I wanted to say, keep it up. It's nice to feel connected with the others whose gender is not that what society expects.

And I cried. Not sorry for that. But it's so astonishing, almost bewildering, an experience to see the pieces fall into place at last, to feel that deep, warm sense of recognition, to silence the urge for rationalization and defense and at the same time see a circle closing...like your rainbow did.

Thirty years ago I started out as a graduated historian of religions. Now I read the statements, the criticism of monotheistic, imperialistic doctrinism that nobody then would hear from me. And I, the skeptic, went on a frantic quest. I studied, I read and wrote. History of art, sociology, anthropology, law and now, computers. I tried to understand. To understand the world, mankind, myself. I refused to surrender to the doctrinists' cheap solutions, I didn't go along with the therapy-hoppers. And I stumbled upon something essential in myself.

My transgenderism.

Yes, I knew about the Gallae, Ma Rhea, the Berdaches, the Hijra, and all the others. I, the male, with such strong female qualities, couldn't accept the option for transsexualism. And not just for wanting to preserve my marriage. I feel, indeed, a real woman, but don't want to be pseudo-female. I embraced the idea of being 'transgendered', a quality of my own. And then, your concept of the Gallae, so long known to me, so long overseen, closed the circle. The study that I started out with, the struggle that kept me astray so long, the quest for something I so desperately needed without knowing what it meant, all becomes a coherent sense of meaning, rationally and spiritually.

You gave me my most precious Christmas gift since years. I will be reading your writings tonight. The words of my sister-Gallae. Wish I could give you all a Christmas embrace. Thanks; and everything that's good and wise.