Travesti (gender identity)

Not to be confused with Travesti (theatre) or Travesty (disambiguation).

In some cultures, especially in South America, a travesti is a person who is biologically male who has a feminine, transfeminine or femme gender identity and is connected to a local socio-political identity.

Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way. By the mid-2010s, a majority of South American trans social movements and activism tend to acknowledge travesti as both a possible gender identity, and a possible socio-political identifier adopted by those who identify as women but have been designated male at birth. Those who know of and acknowledge non-binary genders also tend to see travesti as a possible all-encompassing label for all femme people designated male at birth whose gender identity is not male-dominant, including those whose actual gender identities might be bigender, genderfluid, agender, pangender, trigender, and others, and also as a gender to which one can fluctuate toward in one's genderfluidity.

Travesti was initially a pejorative term, with the same connotation its cognates in other European languages have, but has been reclaimed as a political noun by Argentinian and Peruvian travesti activists. Such move also had decolonization undertones, as it was already recognized by some at that point that in pre-Columbian American societies and in pre-slavery Africa, diverse non-cisgender identities existed (e.g. Muxe, Two-Spirits, Cogender), until they were supplanted by the dominant Western colonizer's discourse of sex-gender as a binary dichotomy and opposition, with dissident individuals repressed in several forms, from shaming (in which both alternative gender expressions and those adopting them were then classified as deviant) to the death penalty.

Travestis emerged as a distinct social group in the 1970s.

Common traits

Travestis' feminine gender expression typically includes feminine dress, language, and social roles. Travestis may modify their bodies with industrial silicone injections, breast implants, or estrogen- and/or progesterone-based hormone therapy. Liquid silicone became popular among South American travestis in the 1980s.

An old understanding in South America, carried through by the official psychiatry diagnoses formed mostly by the understanding of European and North American professionals and academics, is that there is a dichotomy between travesti and transsexual, in which the former group does not desire surgery to modify one's genitals, whilst the latter one does. Nevertheless, such conception of the differences between travesti and transsexual has become disputed, as this invalidates the identities of many travestis and trans women alike, measuring a "valid identity" by one's degree of dysphoria and body modification, rather than self-identification. This issue is criticized in Brazilian trans circles as [transmeritocracia] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), particularly when affirmed in-group by fellow trans people.

Travestis might identify under any sexual orientation (including lesbian) identity, under the assumption of the "defining feature" of their identity being either their gender designated at birth or their feminine socio-psychological identity. It is increasingly advised for people to treat travestis under the same language they would use to convey the identities women (cis and trans alike) adopt. Non-hetero travestis might identify as either femme ([sapatilha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), or just femme), butch ([machorra] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)/[caminhoneira] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), or just butch), or neither (the translation for those two words in both Spanish and Portuguese are recent reappropriations, still potentially offensive).

Language use and institutional perception

Travestis can be contrasted with [transformistas] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (drag queens), who dress as women for performance and entertainment. Cis men whose gender expression is femme/feminine in nature are known as [crossdressers] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Portuguese, an English loanword. In most cases, travesti themselves would solely be [transformistas] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) or [crossdressers] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) if they dressed as men.

A travesti might identify as trans, transgender ([transgénero] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [transgênero] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), transsexual ([transexual] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), woman/female ([mujer] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [mulher] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), femme, genderqueer, non-binary ([no-binaria] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [não-binária] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), transfeminine ([transfemenina] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [transfeminina] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), third gender ([tercer género] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [terceiro-gênero] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), as all possible identities mentioned, as few, some or many but not all of them, or as solely travesti.

Confusingly, in both Spanish and Portuguese, the translation for travesti's cognates in other European languages tends to also be travesti, blurring definitions of identity and social experience. As such, it might be hard to distinguish the more Iberian, medical establishment- and dictionary-sanctioned, definition of travesti, which is one of gender expression and/or fetishism ([transformista] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) for the performance, in all of Latin America, [crossdresser] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) as the general hobby/interest, more particularly in Brazil), and the more Latin American understanding of travesti, or simultaneously the socio-political and non-Western gender identity, more directly tied to other aspects of Latino expressions of transgenderness.

This adds to the increasing trans insatisfaction with the narrative of pathologization of the commonly "true transsexual"-associated "gender identity disorder" / "gender dysphoria" as a mental illness (versus transvestic fetishism as a paraphilia supposedly requiring no medical intervention through hormone therapy and body modification), and the necessity for such diagnosis to legally modify one's body or legal identity markers, or to be offered medical government sponsorship to do so. It is often said that the Harry Benjamin-style standards of ideal sex transition narrative, one that typically includes heterosexuality, strict adhesion to gender roles, the presence of full bodily dysphoria (including genital dysphoria) and also of discomfort with one's designated gender since early childhood, does not fit the reality of the overwhelming majority of trans people, and should be abandoned. Nevertheless, most Latin American and Caribbean countries (including Brazil, where most travestis live) still officially require genital modification to change one's legal gender markers, when they allow one to do so.

Official government policy in Brazil, for example, has included distinguished areas for travestis in male-only prisons, while trans women and trans men might both be sent to female-only prisons, in a 2014 resolution allowing freedom for gender expression of inmates.

Third gender

As with other non-Western gender identities, travestis do not easily fit into a Western taxonomy that separates sex and gender. Some writers in the English language have described travestis as transgender or as a third gender. Don Kulick described the gendered world of travestis in urban Brazil as having had two categories: "men" and "not men", with women, homosexuals and travestis belonging to the latter category. In her 1990 book, From Masculine To Feminine And All points In Between, Jennifer Anne Stevens defined travesti as "usually a gay male who lives full time as a woman; a gay transgenderist." The Oxford English Dictionary defines travesti as "a passive male homosexual or transvestite."

Similar identity communities found in other countries include femminiello, kathoey and hijra.

As denial of pre-legal womanhood

The use of this term, however, is also used for transfeminine people with self-identification identities other than travesti (such as literal translations of transsexual woman, transgender woman, trans woman and so on), a politically loaded term, who are still not legally female, especially those who decide some forms of legally requested body modification, or those who for however reason still did not undergo such practices.

This genitalization of transgender identities is condemned by local activists and their allies, but still highly prevalent, up to the pervasive use of male pronouns by media of people known to be travestis when the standard linguistic use by the travesti themselves to refer to their kind is the one defined by feminine ones.

Transgender people of non-binary gender identities that are not feminine with seemingly feminine gender expression or seemingly feminine-headed body modifications might also be misgendered (assigning the wrong gender to someone) for the same reasons, aside disregard for the concept of a gender other than man or woman and people who feel like belonging in them (binarism, also known as discrimination towards non-binary gender persons). Usually, the concept of gender-neutral language in Spanish and Portuguese is regarded as a post-modern substandard construct that characterizes use of "improper language" by vehicles of mass information and ink-written media in general.

Sex industry

Travestis often work in prostitution and pornography. One travesti organisation in Argentina reported in 2005 that 79% of the 302 travestis interviewed in Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata work principally as prostitutes.

In Mexico, travesti sex workers are among the groups most affected by HIV.

In other languages

In French-speaking countries, [travesti] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) means transvestite, anyone who is dressing up as the opposite sex. In the Greek language, the same word (τραβεστί) is also used to describe people who identify as a third gender, and who are particularly visible in the sex work industry. 'Travesti' derives from 'trans-vestir', or 'cross-dress'.

See also

• Effeminacy
• Third gender

References

• Kulick, Don (1998), Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) ISBN 978-0-226-46100-7
• Prieur, Annick (1998), Mema’s House, Mexico City: On Transvestites, Queens, and Machos (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) ISBN 0-226-68257-9
• Fernández, Josefina (2004) Cuerpos desobedientes: de género, Buenos Aires, Edhasa, 2004.
• González Pérez, César O. (2003) dos al desnudo: homosexualidad, identidades y luchas territoriales en Colima, México, Miguel Angel Porrúa, 2003.