Transvestites

Transvestism (also called transvestitism) is the practice of dressing and acting in a style or manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex.

Though coined as late as the 1910s, the phenomenon is not new. It was referred to in the Hebrew Bible. The word has undergone several changes of meaning since it was first coined and is still used in a variety of senses. Today, the term transvestite is commonly considered outdated and derogatory, with the term cross-dresser used as a more appropriate replacement. This is because the term transvestite was historically used to diagnose medical disorders, including mental health disorders, and transvestism was viewed as a disorder, but the term cross-dresser was coined by the transgender community. In some cases, however, the term transvestite is seen as more appropriate for use by members of the transgender community instead of by those outside of the transgender community, and some have reclaimed the word.

Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word transvestite in 1910 (from Latin trans-, "across, over" and vestitus, "dressed") to refer to the sexual interest in cross-dressing. 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.

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. 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 a variety of people from the transgender spectrum.

Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often associated with transvestism. In more recent terminology, this is sometimes called transvestic fetishism. 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.

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