The following five cases of transvestism in men[BF] will illustrate these points:
The first patient was very delicate all the time up to four years of age. His father died when he was four years old, and the boy was brought up by his mother. As the youngest living child (Nesthäkchen, nestling) he was rather spoiled by her. He slept with his mother until he was fourteen years old. The patient’s looks were rather girlish. He always wore girl’s shoes, on account of his high instep. Up to twelve years of age the patient played with girls, made dolls’ dresses, cooked in girls’ cooking stoves, etc. The patient’s sister was a dress-maker and often used the patient as a model to drape or to try on dresses. Otherwise the patient was never seduced by anyone to irregular practices.
CUT XLIII.
A characteristic picture of patient No. 1; posing in imitation of the celebrated painting “Psyche in Bath,” dressed in stockinet.
At puberty a certain change took place in the psyche of the patient. At this time, when about twelve years of age, he began to think how nice it would be if he could be changed into a girl. He never had any sexual desires for women. In stuprando manu he donned female attire, but his fancies had always women as the objects. When the patient is dressed like a man, no one would take him for a woman. There are no strongly pronounced feminine traits. The sex-organs are those of a normal man. The distribution of the hair on the body is almost the same as in any other man. The head is rather bald. On the arms there is no hair, but the hands are covered with hair. The hands are rather small, narrow, soft, well-shaped and artistic. The fingers are tapering. The legs and feet, when in dainty stockings, are rather feminine. The patient wears woman’s shoes. Otherwise when he is dressed like a man he looks like a normal man. But when the patient is in stockinet as in his photograph, “Psyche in Bath,” no one would take him for a man. When dressed like a woman, nobody would recognize a man in him. He has taken walks on streets unnoticed while so dressed. He never drew any attention, so perfectly does he look like a woman.
The patient’s behavior is quiet but not effeminate. His voice is low, of uncertain timbre. He tries to cultivate a female voice without resorting to falsetto. His writing is uneven, sometimes bold; mostly, however, it is a woman’s small handwriting. The gait is like that of a woman, swaying in the hips. The patient suffers from periodical hemorrhages of the nose, which he is inclined to consider as a kind of vicarious menstruation.
As far as the emotions are concerned there is a marked feminine sensibility. Tears come easily when watching emotional scenes. He smiles almost constantly when in conversation, but he rarely laughs outright. He is very sensitive to pain, but stoic enough not to complain. He blushes on the slightest pretext. He is possessed of feminine adaptability. He likes needlework and loves to do crochetting. He likes female amusements, such as “Kaffeeklatsch.” He is a freethinker in his creed.
The patient possesses normal love and admiration for the other sex. He is attracted by women, although his sexual feelings are very little pronounced. He takes the greatest pleasure in contemplating pictures of the female form. His day-dreams and fancies are only of women. He has no homosexual inclinations, but rather a profound repugnance against homosexual relationship. He never longed for a male instead of a female lover. Still he seems to want a man before whom he could expose the charms of his own person and who would kiss and caress him. His sexual desires are not developed. He never was in love with any women or men. His wife proposed to him. He may have remained otherwise single. He has three children, all perfectly healthy.
The peculiar anomaly the patient is suffering from is the desire to be a complete woman. From his childhood he had the wish to be a girl. His desire now is to live as a woman absolutely. He never had any dream where he saw himself as a woman; in fact, he never had any erotic dreams. He longs for the female form. He often wished to be castrated to be more like a woman.
The patient is attracted by beautiful women, but the instinctive feeling toward them is not the desire for possession, but more a feeling of envy that he cannot be one like them. The appeal of woman’s beauty to him is connected with the desire of inner or psychical or subjective identification of himself with the beautiful woman, the desire to be in her place—“Einfühlung, Miterleben,” as the Germans call it. He would do almost anything to see a girl in any condition of exposure, but he would experience only the desire of inner imitation. His desire to show himself in female attire is founded upon the impulse of being considered a full woman.
CUT XLIV.
First patient.
From a legal point of view the patient’s inversion is mainly confined to the sphere of clothing. He has a profound longing for female clothes. He takes pleasure in the sight of female attire. Woman’s underclothing exercise a greater charm upon him than the woman herself. He especially attaches great importance to the corset. The patient is always dressed in female underclothes. He wears only a man’s coat, vest and trousers, or the clothes belonging to the outward cover. He wears woman’s shoes, shirtwaists, corsets, stockings, etc. The earlobes are pierced for earings, which he wears every night. He takes breakfast dressed as a woman.
When the patient is dressed as a woman, he has all a woman’s feelings and longings. For this reason he tries to dress as a woman at every opportunity. The desire to be dressed like a woman takes the form of an imperative impulse. When he cannot dress up he becomes restless. He would rather commit suicide than be without female apparel.
As a literary man and brain-worker, the patient can concentrate his thoughts better when in female attire. When dressed as a woman he feels himself to be in a normal condition and is cheerful. A feeling of absolute comfort and restfulness comes over him, when in female clothes, and his behavior is in full accordance with his feelings, while in male dress there is a kind of absent-mindedness about him; he is always thinking of his female dresses.
The second case is that of a gentleman of about sixty-two years of age living in the western part of our country. As a child he was known as mother’s boy, and his mother and he were very fond of each other. He has always done his best to please her, spent as much of his time with her as possible, and took great pleasure in the tasks she would give him, such as knitting, crochet work, or plain sewing. On most of all these occasions she would first put him in girl’s clothes. The hardest tasks would then be a pleasure to him. These practices continued up to his twelfth year of age.
From his earliest recollections his playmates were always girls and his playthings were dolls, ribbons, miniature housekeeping, furniture, etc. He was an expert doll maker and could cut and make doll clothes for his sisters and other little girls. At ten years of age he could cook and prepare a meal. He was known to have no lack of courage.
His inclinations are always towards strong-minded, energetic women of the masculine type. He also has an admiration for other men of his type when they are dressed like women. He never had any homosexual inclination. He always had an almost uncontrollable desire to wear woman’s attire. When so dressed he can always think more logically, feel less encumbered, solve difficult problems. But for the popular prejudices he would always wear female attire.
The skin of the patient is soft and clear, the hair on head and beard is soft and light. He has little hair on his body. His shoulders are square and his breasts quite large. His voice is high.
He blushes readily. He could never countenance vulgarity, such as smutty stories or obscene remarks. He is receptive. He is very sensitive to pain or pleasure. He is inclined to be stubborn. His intellect is keen, and he thinks logically.
When about fifteen years old his father forbade him to wear female clothes, so he kissed his mother good-bye and made his way to the far West. There he drove a team on construction work of a railroad and in the fall of the same year found himself hunting buffalo. In the five ensuing years he has done his part in winning of the West, with the result that he carries two Indian bullets in his legs. But he covers them up with petticoats, he says, as often as opportunity permits. Then he forgets all about them, as well as all other troubles. He has served as a detective in a United States marshal’s office, as a sheriff, and as a justice of the peace. He has been able to conquer almost everything except his uncontrollable passion for female attire. When the inclination to dress comes over him, he is unable, try as he may, to resist it.
This last characteristic in the case shows that the desire for cross-dressing may often assume the degree of a veritable imperative idea. If the desire is not satisfied, some patients are seized with anxiety, accompanied by cold perspiration and palpitation of the heart.
The third case is of a gentleman, thirty-two years of age, married. In his answer to a letter written by another transvestite asking him for his life history, the patient writes that he expected the letter, because Agnes M. had told him that he would receive one. This Agnes M. was a man, and it is characteristic of these patients to call each other by girls’ names. Our patient, too, signs his name, “Yours femininely, Blanche.” The part of the history of this “Blanche” that interests us most reads as follows:
The feminine instincts first appeared at the age of four years. He was then attending a small girls’ school in the country, his mother having a business in town. At about that age, it was suggested that it was time that he was put into knickers. When he first was dressed in boy’s dress, a horrid feeling assailed him. He fought so persistently against wearing these new apparel that his mother resolved to leave him dressed in girl’s attire for a few years longer. Thus he was able to wear frocks for the first eighteen years of his life.
At that time necessity made it imperative for him to earn a living, and he was forced to go out into the world dressed as a boy. He writes, he will never forget the great aversion which assailed him when he first went out in trousers. He seemed ashamed to look anyone in the face. He always wanted to hide his legs.
He never gave up feminine underwear, only outwardly he dresses as a man. In the house, when he returns from business, he always dresses as a woman. His mind is never contented during the daytime. When the evening comes, the first job on getting home is to don a petticoat and frock and to be for the rest of the evening in the garb which his mind tells him is the right one. He feels nothing but nausea in the garb of a man.
CUT XLV.
Third patient.
The last characteristic shows plainly the morbidity of the case. A normal woman, if forced by circumstances to wear men’s clothes, may have the feeling of being improperly dressed, but she would not have the feeling of nausea. Here we have a creature with a normal male body, but on account of the complete female mind he feels nauseated when wearing male clothes.
The fourth case is that of “Prof.” M., a female impersonator, who also addresses his transvestite friends by girls’ names. His history reads as follows:
The patient is sixty-two years of age, has a beautiful form, small hands and feet and a beautiful head of hair which he can do up in lady’s fashion by the aid of switches.
CUT XLVI.
Fourth patient, dressed for the street.
His mother dressed him in girls’ clothes until he became a large-sized boy, and when she attempted to put him into boys’ clothes, he would kick and scream. Since that time, when opportunity presented itself, he would masquerade in female garb. There seems to be a peculiar fascination and pleasure to him when dressed in the clothes of the opposite sex. A sort of an irresistible impulse comes over him at times, and he cannot extricate himself. He can control his thoughts better, write and seemingly work better when dressed in skirts, and he is more contented.
His sexual organs are fully developed and do not differ from any other male organs. A number of years previously he was strong sexually and fond of the opposite sex. Nowadays he cares more for his own sex. Men look more attractive to him than women do. “It seems strange,” writes the patient, “but I think all female impersonators learn to have an abhorrence for the female sex, even a hatred in the course of time.” “Dear Miss S., as you and Maude (by the way, S. and Maude are both men) are in the same boat, I am free to tell all these things. I am pleased to find one who thinks as I do. The common herd does not understand me.”[BG]
The patient is sixty-two years of age, has a beautiful form, small hands and feet and a beautiful head of hair which he can do up in lady’s fashion by the aid of switches.
This case throws a certain light upon the psyche of the woman impersonators. They do not become effeminate through the long habit of masquerading—that would be confounding cause and effect—but their innate anomaly leads them to choose impersonating as a profession. A normal man would hardly select such a profession as his life work.
The following case is that of a gentleman, aged thirty-six years, an artist painter who is about to marry. In his letter to a transvestite friend he protests against the insinuation of homosexualism. He writes as follows:
“The reason why I did not answer before is because it seems to me that our views on the matter mentioned are very diverging. As far as I can judge from your letter, it looks as if you consider man’s love for dressing in female clothes equal to homosexualism. I can tell you that homosexualism has always been an abhorrence to me, and that the sole reason for my desire to wear gowns is purely feminine love for what is beautiful and picturesque. In my relations to the other sex, I am just as normal as any other man.”
The longings for cross-dressing in our cases may be best explained, that the feminine strain, normally found in every male, exists here in a greatly exaggerated form. Every normal woman attributes an exaggerated value to clothes and, Narcissus-like, is more or less enamored with the female body.[BH] The same
exaggerated value to female clothes is attributed by the male transvestites. The female transvestite, on the other hand, thinks of clothes more or less as men do. Yet, the male strain in her, being a morbid phenomenon, dressing is of more importance to her than it is to the normal man.