Radu C. (from Braila) is 17 years old and writes us that he thinks he is “in love” with one of his classmates. The latter is also his best friend and they do a lot of “stuff” together – homework, going to parties and discos, walking in the park and so on. They even go to double dates together, although R.C. confesses that he is not attracted to girls and they don’t seem to like him, either. In time, he grew very fond of his friend. The special bond between them seems to include a physical attraction, too – as he frequently dreams that they touch and kiss… He wonders whether he should tell his friend about it or not, because he is afraid of being misunderstood.
Answer: Before deciding whether you should tell him or not about your feelings, you should first try to clarify the nature of your relationship. Are you really friends, or just classmates? Do you trust him completely? Because if you don’t, there is always the risk of him spreading the news about your sexual orientation to everybody – and you wrote that you don’t want people to know about it, yet.
        From your letter, I understood that your fear of being misunderstood is in fact a fear of rejection. You are afraid that you will lose his friendship, that he will avoid you in the future. Therefore, you don’t expect him to become a closer friend. You want him to understand and accept you as you are, but don’t really trust him.
        If this person is a real friend, his reaction will be a positive one. Or at least he won’t reject you in a harsh manner. Even if he doesn’t share your feelings, you have to take the risk. You will thus have the opportunity to find out if he is a real friend or not.
        It is always worth trying!

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    Monica F. (19 years old) from Piatra-Neamt asks us “what does transsexuality means?”
Answer: In a specialised language, transsexuality is called “the syndrome of sexual dysphoria”, an expression that refers to the discontent resented by the transsexual towards his/her sexual identity. The word “dysphoria” (dys = difficult, in Greek) refers to the psychic discomfort, to the anxiety and discontent resented by those persons who believe and feel that they belong to the opposite sex. Transsexuals feel “imprisoned” in an unwanted body – a body that is not in line with what they feel inside… “I feel like a woman, but I have a man’s body” or  “I have a woman’s body, but actually I am a man” are the most frequently used arguments.  A transsexual man, for example, has male genitals, hormones, chromosomes and sexual secondary features. However, he feels that such an identity is not appropriate for him. This is why a transsexual rejects his gender’s ideals and affective stereotypes and does not behave as the ones with whom he/she shares the same anatomical constitution. However, one is identified as a transsexual only if he/she has a continuous desire to belong to the opposite sex – a desire that lasts at least two years and is not accompanied by psychic or organic diseases or to genetic abnormalities.  The extremely strong desire to belong to the opposite sex can take two forms, which are often connected between them: a) wearing the clothes of the opposite sex; b) choosing a sex-change operation, by which the transsexual finally becomes a representative of the gender he/she identifies with.
        Transvestites share the first form, too – who are most often heterosexual men, who after putting on women’s clothes, are sexually aroused and masturbate. J. Bancroft et al. describe the following categories of transvestites:
a)      fetishists, who by wearing women’s clothes are realising a sexual act;
b)      double-role transvestites, who are people with a twofold orientation, heterosexual and transsexual. Their desire to belong to the opposite sex is not permanent;
c)      homosexuals, people whom others of the same sex as them attract. They sometimes wear women’s clothes in the attempt to find a partner, not because they are interested in changing their sex;
d)      transsexuals, for which wearing the clothes of the opposite sex is a form of expressing the sexual identity they feel to belong to. They are not sexually aroused by this habit, as the fetishists. Sometimes, they do not adopt only the clothes of the opposite sex, but some of its gestures, activities and attitudes as well.
        As far as the sex-change operation is concerned, transsexuals desperately need it – inasmuch as they sometimes castrate themselves…