Transvestite

The term transvestite refers to a person who dresses and acts in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In its induction, the term incorporated a spectrum of gender behaviors and appearances. The definition has changed over time, however, and is not universal in application. Although the term may be used to describe the transvestic behavior of butch women, it is most commonly applied to male-bodied persons who imitate the dress and mannerisms of women.

Transvestite is derived from the Latin words trans, “across” or “over,” and vestitus, “dressed,” coined in 1910 by the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in his book Die Transvestiten: Eine Untersuchung u¨ber den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb (Transvestites: The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress). Hirschfeld's characterization of transvestites can be seen as a response to other scientists' pathologiza-tion and criminalization of gender-transgressive behavior and homosexuality. Hirschfeld believed that variations on gender and sexual expressions were forms of biological diversity. Transvestites, like homosexuals, were deemed “sexual intermediaries” who existed on a spectrum between “pure male” and “pure female.” From his numerous cases, Hirschfeld noted that one's gender expression or identification could not be reduced to one's sexual orientation. For example, some homosexual men are effeminate, but this is not unanimously the case, and similarly, many transvestites do not exhibit homosexual behavior. In his book, Hirschfeld also clearly distinguished trans-vestitism from sexual fetishism and psychopathol-ogy. The primary goal of cross-dressing behavior for transvestites is to appear as the opposite sex, not for sexual pleasure as in the case of fetishists and not to inflict self-harm as in the case of masochists. Since the induction of the term, the definition has narrowed to make room for other classifications of gender expression and identity.

[Page 861]In the 1950s, Hirschfeld's work was revisited by Harry Benjamin, a medical doctor who became associated with transgender advocacy and health care through Alfred Kinsey. Benjamin believed Hirschfeld's characterization of transvestites was too broad in scope, arguing for another category of individuals, transsexuals. Benjamin claimed that while transvestites act out the role of the opposite sex through appearance, transsexuals have a deep-seated mental and sexual disassociation from their selves and want to become members of the opposite sex. Thus, individuals who expressed their gender outside of traditional norms could describe their behavior as a willful act of dress and expression, trans-vestitism, or the expression of an essential or core gender identity, transsexuahsm. To obtain medical treatment such as hormones and surgery to alter their sexed bodies, many transsexuals distanced themselves from transvestites and often gay and lesbian communities as proof to doctors of their transsexual identities.

Since the 1970s, many people who exhibit behavior and dress associated with the opposite gender have rejected the term transvestite for its strong association with deviance, homosexuality, perversion, and mental illness. For example, many people often confuse the term transvestite with the psychological condition of transves-tic fetishism, a fetish for cross-dressing. The term cross-dresser has replaced transvestite both culturally and to some extent scientifically, and it describes mostly heterosexual men who wear feminine clothing and act or behave as women. Because men in this group are predominantly heterosexual and tend to live daily lives as men, they have historically, and still do, distance themselves from gay men and transsexuals. Often, they cross-dress only for special events or when attending specific clubs, which may be as infrequent as a few times a year.

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