Hirschfeld considers them as closely related to the male androgynes who crave to have breasts like women and are ashamed of facial or bodily hair, and to the female androgynes who are ashamed of their breasts and wish to have a beard and body hair.
Transvestites generally explain that they do not feel free except in the garb of the opposite sex. "In men's clothes," a male transvestite said, "I have the feeling of wearing a uniform." "In feminine clothes," a female transvestite said, "I feel inhibited and hampered. It is only when wearing masculine garments that I feel energetic and efficient."
The late Dr. Mary Walker, the French painter Rosa Bonheur, the French explorer Madame Dieulafoy, were characteristic examples of energetic women who felt compelled to abandon the garb of their sex and to dress themselves as men.
Are Transvestities Homosexual? Dr. Wilhelm Stekel of Vienna objects to drawing a line between transvestites and homosexuals. But we must make a distinction. Hirschfeld is right in stating that there are no more homosexuals among transvestites than among normal individuals. He means, of course, conscious homosexuals practicing their abnormal form of love. We know however, that there are thousands of men and women who, while consciously experiencing the greatest disgust at the thought of homosexual practices are unconscious homosexuals. Their dreams leave no doubt as to the nature of their cravings. We may reconcile the Stekel view with the Hirschfeld view by saying that transvestites are in the majority of cases unconscious homosexuals. They may consciously lead a most normal life: Madame Dieulafoy was married and apparently very devoted to her husband whom she followed on all his voyages of exploration.
Unconsciously, however, and for reasons which we shall examine later, transvestites crave a change of sex.
Metatropism is masculine behavior in women, feminine behavior in men. Normal man is physiologically aggressive in love, normal woman is submissive. In cases of metatropism, those characteristics are reversed.
The Metatropic Man prefers tall, strong, powerful women, often of a different nationality or race, at times, women with some physiological handicap, lameness or deformity (the French philosopher Descartes was attracted to women suffering from strabism). He generally selects a woman older than himself, either very intellectual or very low ethically. In one case he is dominated by her mental superiority, in the other he feels that he is sacrificing his principles or his social standing. Professional or business women appeal to him especially. He is often a shoe fetishist. Clothing which denotes power, authority, impresses him.
The Metatropic Woman seeks feminine, beardless men, with perhaps a good head of long hair (poets, artists). Madame Dudevant, the French novelist, adopted the masculine name George Sand and had affairs with two sickly artists, Musset, the poet, and Chopin, the composer.
The metatropic woman is often a professional or business woman who, in her love relation, assumes a very independent, dictatorial attitude to men. She favors young men whom she can dominate better.
In what Hirschfeld calls metatropists, we recognise parent-fixation men and women, obsessed by a conscious or unconscious incest fear, a complication which has been discussed in another chapter.