She's the founder and self-described dean of Miss Vera's Finishing School For Boys Who Want To Be Girls. But cross-dressing is still widely misunderstood. These days, it would appear people are much more accepting of differences in gender and sexual orientation than what used to be the norm.
'That's the perfect cue for my line, 'For every woman who burned her bra, there's a man burning to wear one,' ' says Vera, who goes by the name Miss Vera. In a few hours, after Vera and her team have asked Pat a few questions about his female persona and provided him some practical lessons in social graces and female aesthetics, he'll walk back out as 'Bianca'– a sassy, 30-something-looking strawberry blonde. He's greeted at the door with a kiss on the cheek by the gracefully-attired Veronica Vera. He's wearing a baseball cap, sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers.
On a brisk fall afternoon, Pat shows up at the Manhattan apartment dressed like your typical soccer dad.
