History of CrossDressing
Most people imagine a cross-dresser is that of a drag queen. Tall and
glamorous, dressed to the nines and with heavy make up,
with very long long eyelashes and spangled dressed, revealing
dresses, the stereotypical drag-queen image is unfotunately stamped on the
popular imagination.
However the history of cross-dressing stretches way back a long time,
to origins far away from gay clubs. In Europe in the middle
ages, women cross-dressed to avoid the gender hierarchy. Historical
accounts show that an abandoned wife would often take on a male
disguise in order to live an independent life. Literature of those
times reveal a fascination with crossdressing. Some have even gone as far
as to speculated that Joan of Arc was a transvestite and there is even a
legend of a Pope who is female.
CrossDressing in the Theater and Films
During the Elizabethan period, men in the theater dressed as women to
play roles of women. Shakespeare used crossdressing as a comic
device, and this led to situations in which a man would be dressed as a
woman and a woman who would dress as a man. In the play Twelfth
Night, a actor would dress as a woman to play the part of Viola, then
Viola would dress as a man to infiltrate the court of the Count
Orsino.
Shakespeare used crossdressing with good reason. It allowed
disguise and surreptition, seductions and mistaken identitiy. For this
reason, crossdressers always have been loved in the entertainment
industry. Other examples come from the 'sweet transvestite from
Transylvania' from the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Julie Andrews in
Victor and Victoria, cross-dressers never fail to intrigue us.
CrossDressing in Politics and science
Gender politics has been a minefield, but in the last century they
became even more complex. Transvestites - men who dress as women
or women who dress as men are just one of many groups in the transgender
community. There are also transsexual members, who undergo operations to
change their sex.
The first sex change was in 1952. Private George Jorgenson, a
soldier in the United States army, was convinced he was a woman in
a man's body. After leaving the army, he persuaded the Danish doctor,
Professor Christian Hamburger, to perform a sex change
operation. | 
|
