Cross-dressing

Cross-dressing (sometimes referred to as transvestism, although this term is largely considered obsolete and pejorative nowadays) is the preferred term for dressing in a manner generally associated with a gender other than the one that one self-identifies as. People may have various reasons to cross-dress such as sexual excitement and/or relaxation.

Relationship with transgender identity
Crossdressing is distinct from being transgender. Persons who identify with a gender that differs from their sex assigned at birth are transgender. Conversely, a cross-dresser dresses up as a gender they don't identify as. If a trans person is presenting as the gender they identify as, they are not cross-dressing.

Still, many self-identified cross-dressers may be trans people whose circumstances do not yet allow them to transition — they may live with family who isn't supportive, or be underage, or they just aren't really in a position to accept the social consequences of transition. It can seem easier in the beginning for a trans person to use the language least likely to lead to negative social consequences, and thus identify as a cross-dresser, considering this more socially acceptable. This does not mean that cross-dressers don't exist, or that all trans people have identified as cross-dressers.

There's an old joke in parts of the trans community that a transvestite is a trans woman minus two years, but in reality, they're different forms of gender expression that happen to overlap sometimes. The overlap between transgender identity and transvestism was even more pronounced historically in Western countries, prior to more distinctive language and community between the two emerging. In Germany for instance, a transgender person was known in the early 20th century as an "extreme" or "total" transvestite, so the distinction was still observable.

Relationship with homosexuality
As went to great pains to explain in his masterpiece,  "transvestites are not homosexuals". They can be, but the two aspects are separate and only tangentially related. Dressing in drag (an exaggerated, campy form of gender performance which is not the same as everyday cross-dressing, where the aim is to "pass" for the other sex) is popular among gay men. There are many drag-themed cult movies that have a following with gay men, and drag balls (events where people are encouraged to come in drag with a contest for the best costume) are common around Pride Week. Nevertheless, a man who dresses in drag is not the same as being transgender. As RuPaul put it: "How many women do you know who wear seven-inch heels, four-foot wigs, and skintight dresses? I don't dress like a woman; I dress like a drag queen!"

Relationship with feminism
This is mostly dependent on who you ask. To some people, the idea of gender-specific clothing is not compatible with the ideals of feminism, while to others it is. Undoubtedly, men who cross-dress for the purpose of mocking women are incompatible with the ideals of feminism, but of course most cross-dressers don't cross-dress to mock women. There is also a double standard at work here: while a woman now wearing a pantsuit isn't exactly shunned or frowned on in the modern era, a man who wears a skirt is (at least in the West, and outside Scotland), due to society's disparagement of femininity and femaleness (though Utilikilts made some inroads for a while ). Alternatively, cross-dressing may be seen as a method of escape from the current capitalist, patriarchal society in which women live (see: the many female-to-male cross-dressers throughout history and fiction, particularly Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which features a woman who cross-dresses to rise above her allotted station in life). Women have dressed as men, both in history and in recent times, known as "drag kings" since 1972.

Relationship with psychology and psychiatry
Historically, cross-dressing (called transvestism as a clinical term) was pathologized by the medical establishment and considered a disorder stemming from Freudian sexual conflicts. Today, cross-dressing is widely considered a harmless form of gender expression by experts in the field, but the diagnosis of "transvestic fetishism" still exists in the DSM-5 even though the mental health profession has mostly moved on from the idea that all cross-dressing is sexual in nature and problematic. The term "transvestite" itself is often considered derogatory for these historical reasons; "cross-dresser" is preferred.

Moral panic
Anti-drag legislation started sweeping the US in 2023, which could be blamed on fundamentalist Christian/GOP legislators' cherry picking from the Bible. Cross-dressing is one of many abominations, including some that fundies regularly violate other abominations (e.g., wearing clothes woven with different fabrics, ). states:

The stated rationale for the Tennessee legislation by its drafter, Jack Johnson, is an insincere appeal to emotion (think of the children). Not knowing what Johnson's actual motivation is, one could assume from the location in the Bible Belt that it is religion-based, forcing his religion to be superior to other groups freedom of speech, which is likely unconstitutional. The GOP has targeted drag shows with proposed legislation in at least 14 states. In his rationale for the anti-drag Arkansas Senate Bill 43 in 2023 that Arkansas State Senator Gary Stubblefield also gave protect-the-children argument, but then overtly referred to his Christian religion but mistakenly cited the wrong Deuteronomy chapter of abominations:

A more sinister motivation might paralleling the 1939 anti-LGBT laws of Nazi Germany, which is plausible due to the frequent targeting of Drag Queen Story Hour by fascist Proud Boys and other far-right organizations, starting in 2022.

Think of the children
Many of these anti-drag statutes in the US targeted drag queen story hour events, where drag queens would read stories to children, typically at a public library. Starting around 2015, drag queen story hours are generally charitable and have the goal of promoting reading and diversity. However, homophobes routinely describe these events as salacious and use it to stoke the.

Drag in performance dates back as far as there are records of theater (e.g., ancient Greece, India, China and Japan), often simply because women were prohibited from acting. Since drag is primarily a moral panic within the United States so far, we look at the history of drag performance for children here. The first universal film censorship in the United States, the Hays Code, in existence from 1934-1968 had no mention of cross-dressing, so all such films were presumably allowed for children during that time. The Hays code was followed by the MPAA rating system, which introduced an age rating system with "G", "PG" and "PG-13" intended as acceptable for children. Some well-known examples of drag in US film intended to include children in the audience: • 3 In US broadcast television, Milton Berle ("Uncle Miltie") appeared in drag endlessly on TV starting in 1951 and into the 1970s. Flip Wilson's character "Geraldine Jones" made regular appearances on his Emmy-award winning The Flip Wilson Show (1970-1974). Jamie Farr played his character "Maxwell Klinger" in drag in the M*A*S*H TV series (1972-1983) about Korean War medics. Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason appeared in drag in a 1974 TV special. Tom Hanks in the Bosom Buddies TV series (1980-1982).

Other well-known cross-dressers
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