transvestitismn.
/tranzˈvɛstᵻtɪz(ə)m/, /trɑːnzˈvɛstᵻtɪz(ə)m/, /transˈvɛstᵻtɪz(ə)m/, /trɑːnsˈvɛstᵻtɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /trænzˈvɛstəˌtɪzəm/, /træn(t)sˈvɛstəˌtɪzəm/ Chiefly Psychology in early use. Now somewhat dated.
1. The action or practice of dressing in clothes conventionally associated with the opposite sex; spec. (Psychology) the urge to cross-dress, esp. as a means of deriving sexual pleasure. Cf. transvestism n.Much less frequently used than transvestism after the 1950s.
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the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > wearing clothing > [noun] > wearing clothes associated with opposite sex
travestiment1832
cross-dressing1911
transvestitism1912
transvestism1913
Eonism1928
transvesticism1934
1912 News-Democrat (Paducah, Kentucky) 8 Aug. 8/5 [Reporting the opinion of the physician Simon Flexner, who had recently studied with the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin.] Transvestitism, he said, has been and is common in all ages and all countries.
1914 L. P. Clark Crit. Digest Newer Work on Homosexuality 12 The desire to wear the clothes of the opposite sex, otherwise known as transvestitism, is a compendious subject in itself.
1949 J. H. Steward in Handbk. S. Amer. Indians V. iv. 757 The association of transvestitism and the tamborine with shamanism are characteristic of Siberia and the northwest coast of America.
1976 Jrnl. Amer. Psychoanal. Assoc. 24 iii. 545 The analysis of a patient with the presenting symptom of transvestitism revealed a prominent set of fantasies of being ‘initiated’ and taught by a seductive and glamorous woman..in the art of dressing and make-up.
2020 M. T. Taylor in A. Bakker et al. Others of My Kind vi. 199/1 Both men [sc. Hirschfeld and Benjamin] were concerned with illustrating a long history of transvestitism and transsexualism.
2. figurative and in extended use. The fact or practice of changing one's appearance, behaviour, etc., in a manner thought reminiscent of cross-dressing. Usually with modifying adjective.
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1925 B. Dobrée Ess. in Biogr. 258 When Steele invented Mrs. Distaff, he eagerly seized the pen and threw himself into feminine guise, in a glow one is tempted to think, of mental transvestism, for as many papers as he thought his readers could bear.
1956 H. Tennyson Dark Goddess viii. 200 I thought you disapproved of European women in saris,..cultural transvestitism you once called it.
2009 Guardian (Nexis) 29 May 35 His desire for ‘decentralisation, transparency and accountability’ almost exactly matches the Jury Team's slogan... This kind of political transvestitism on Mr Cameron's part simply will not do.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2022).
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n.1912