Transvestism
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Transvestism (also called transvestitism) is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing the clothing of the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations.
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[edit] History
The term transvestism has undergone several changes of meaning since it was coined in the 1910s, and it is still used in a variety of senses. Therefore it is important to find out, whenever the word is encountered, in which particular sense it is used. However, to understand the different meanings of transvestism it is necessary to explain the development of the term and the reasons behind the changes of meaning.
[edit] Origin of the term
Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term transvestism (from Latin trans-, "across, over" and vestitus, "dressed") to refer to the sexual interest in cross-dressing.[1] 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 (physically) heterosexual, (physically) homosexual, bisexual, and asexual orientations.[2]
Hirschfeld himself was not particularly happy with the term: He believed that clothing was only an outward symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations. 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.
Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often, but not always, associated with transvestite behaviour; he also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of a person's "contra-sexual" (transgender) feelings and fetishistic behaviour, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex.
[edit] Modern usage
The Nazis' rise to power and World War II had brought an end not only to Hirschfeld's work, but to also most European research in the field of sexuality. In both Europe and North America transvestite behaviour (both by male and female bodied persons) was until the 1960s seen as an expression of homosexuality or suppressed homosexual impulses. Also, the three-gendered framework of Hirschfeld disappeared, and the two-gender framework became the frame of reference again.[citation needed]
[edit] Divergence from homosexuality
Social changes brought about the next modifications.
The gay and lesbian rights movement after the Stonewall riots weakened tranvestism's association with homosexuality, since more lesbians and gays became visible and most of them did not show transvestite behaviour. The extreme transvestism that is still associated with the LGBT community, which differs from most other forms of transvestism, became known as drag.
That left transvestism as transvestic fetishism, in which transvestic behaviour is coupled with, and often necessary for, sexual arousal. However, in most western societies it became almost impossible for women to engage in transvestism, because more and more pieces of male clothing were permitted or even fashionable for them. Also, the distinctive transvestic behaviour of butches in the lesbian community became "politically incorrect" and therefore became rather rare (or went "underground"). All this led to the term transvestism being applied to men or male-bodied persons only, because there seemed to be no need for a word for transvestic female-bodied persons.
Today transvestism is still applied mostly to male-bodied persons. However, some researchers never stopped using the term transvestism for female-bodied persons, and recently some groups of female-bodied transvestites have started to use the term to describe themselves, although the term "drag king" is more common.
[edit] Cross-dressers
After all the changes which took place during the 1970s, 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. Therefore, the term cross-dresser was coined. Self-identified cross-dressers generally do not have fetishistic intentions, 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 transsexual people, 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.
However, when this group of people achieved public attention, 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".
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.
[edit] See also
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Look up transvestite in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
