Transvestism

This article is about the history of the word 'transvestite'. For cross-dressing, see cross-dressing. For information about the sexual fetish, see transvestic fetishism.

Not to be confused with Transgender.

Cross-dressing
History of cross-dressing
Breeches role · Breeching Travesti · In film and television In wartime · Pantomime dame
Key elements
As a transgender identity Passing · Transvestism
Modern drag culture
Ball culture · Drag Drag king · Drag pageantry Drag queen · Faux queen List of drag queens
Sexual aspects
Autoandrophilia · Autogynephilia Feminization · Pinafore eroticism Transvestic fetishism Sissy · Transgender sexuality
Sexual attraction to cross-dressers
Andromimetophilia Gynemimetophilia
Other aspects
Bacha posh · Crossplay En femme Female masking Girlfag and guydyke Gender disguise
Passing as male
Breast binding · Packing
Passing as female
Cleavage enhancement Hip and buttock padding
Organizations
Tri-Ess
Books
My Husband Betty She's Not The Man I Married
v · d · e

Seven men in a cabaret cast in Miami Beach in 1972, where two of them performed as women and three as transvestites.

Transvestism (also called transvestitism) is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations.^{[clarification needed]}

History

Eddie Izzard, a famous comedian and transvestite, performing his stand up comedy routine Sexie.

Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s, the phenomenon is not new. It was referred to in the Bible^[1] and traces back to Ethiopia and the origin of man.^{[citation needed]} The word has undergone several changes of meaning since it was first coined and is still used in a variety of senses.

Origin of the term

Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word transvestism (from Latin trans-, "across, over" and vestitus, "dressed") to refer to the sexual interest in cross-dressing.^[2] He used it to describe persons who habitually and voluntarily wore clothes of the opposite sex. Hirschfeld's group of transvestites consisted of both males and females, with heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual orientations.^[3]

Hirschfeld himself was not happy with the term: He believed that clothing was only an outward symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations.^{[citation needed]} In fact, Hirschfeld helped people to achieve the very first name changes (legal given names were and are required to be gender-specific in Germany) and performed the first reported sexual reassignment surgery. Hirschfeld's transvestites therefore were, in today's terms, not only transvestites, but people from all over the transgender spectrum.^{[original research?]}

Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often associated with transvestism. In more recent terminology, this is sometimes called autogynephilia. Hirschfeld also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of a person's "contra-sexual" (transgender) feelings and fetishistic behavior, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex.^{[citation needed]}

Cross-dressers

Main article: Cross-dressing

After all the changes that took place during the 1970s,^{[clarification needed]} a large group was left without a word to describe themselves: heterosexual males (that is, male-bodied, male-identified, gynephilic persons) who wear traditionally feminine clothing. This group was not particularly happy with the term "transvestism".^{[citation needed]} Therefore, the term "cross-dresser" was coined.^{[citation needed]} Self-identified cross-dressers generally do not have fetishistic intentions,^{[citation needed]} but are instead men who wear female clothing and often both admire and imitate women.

This group did — and sometimes still does — distance themselves strictly from both gay men and transsexuals, and usually also deny any fetishistic intentions. It was probably this development that led to the explicit definition of transvestic fetishism as distinctively different from transvestism.^{[original research?]}

However, when this group of people achieved public attention,^{[citation needed]} they were commonly referred to as transvestites rather than cross-dressers. That led, paradoxically, to yet another usage of transvestism: cross-dressing, male-bodied, male-identified, heterosexual persons. This group typically self-identifies as "cross-dressers".^{[citation needed]}

Echoing the changing history of the term "transvestism", cross-dressing (but not cross-dresser) is now being used to describe the act of wearing clothing of another gender.^{[original research?]}

When cross-dressing occurs for erotic purposes over a period of at least six months and when it causes significant distress or impairment, the behavior is considered a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders called transvestic fetishism.^[4]

See also

• Cogender
• Cross-dressing
• Drag (clothing)
• I Am My Own Wife
• List of transgender-related topics
• Transgender
• Transsexualism
• Travesti (theatre)

References

1. ^ Aggrawal, Anil. (April 2009). "References to the paraphilias and sexual crimes in the Bible". J Forensic Leg Med 16 (3): 109–14. doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.006. PMID 19239958. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8CY1-4TRHCD9-1&_user=5081486&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000047720&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=5081486&md5=ccfb8545a50236e6819a0666ba569db2. 
2. ^ Hirschfeld, Magnus: Die Transvestiten. Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb mit umfangreichem casuistischen und historischen Material. Berlin 1910: Alfred Pulvermacher
   Hirschfeld, M. (1910/1991). Transvestites: The erotic drive to cross dress.([M. A. Lombardi-Nash, Trans.) Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
3. ^ Hirschfeld, Geschlechtsverirrungen, 10th Ed. 1992, page 142 ff.
4. ^ "DSM-IV". All Mixed Up. http://www.genderpsychology.org/transsexual/dsm_iv.html. Retrieved October 9, 2010.