transvestiten.adj.
/tranzˈvɛstʌɪt/, /trɑːnzˈvɛstʌɪt/, /transˈvɛstʌɪt/, /trɑːnsˈvɛstʌɪt/, U.S. /trænzˈvɛˌstaɪt/, /træn(t)sˈvɛˌstaɪt/ A. n.
1. A person who dresses in clothes conventionally associated with the opposite sex, esp. regularly or habitually; spec. (chiefly Psychology) a person (typically a man) who derives sexual pleasure from cross-dressing. Abbreviated TV.Early discussions of transvestism in psychology and sexology often associated the practice with homosexuality, and sometimes included people who would now be regarded as having a transgender or non-binary, rather than a transvestite, identity, although each of these is now recognized as a distinct and separate experience or identity.
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the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > wearing clothing > [noun] > wearing clothes associated with opposite sex > person
berdache1806
hijra1838
she-male1842
female impersonator1857
transvestite1911
Eonist1928
transvestist1928
transvestitist1930
drag queen1941
moffie1960
TV1960
shim1973
cross-dresser1976
tranny1979
1911 Current Lit. Nov. 550/2 There are some who..point to the degeneracy of Rome under Heliogabalus, an emperor who preferred to wear the habiliments of the opposite sex. Recently Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld..devoted an entire book to the question of persons similarly inclined, whom he calls ‘transvestites’.
1937 Human Biol. 9 501 The transvestite must attempt to duplicate the behavior-pattern of his adopted sex.
1964 in W. H. Goodenough Explor. Cultural Anthropol. 490 The bate, male transvestites,..excelled women in butchering, tanning, and other domestic tasks.
1976 J. R. Smythies & L. Corbett Psychiatry Students of Med. xi. 211 Transvestites wear the clothing of the opposite sex to obtain sexual gratification.
2013 Toronto Star (Nexis) 28 Dec. e3 I'm a transvestite. It doesn't mean I'm gay, it doesn't mean I'm a girl. I don't want a sex change. I'm all boy. I fancy girls. And sometimes I fancy what they wear as well.
2. In extended use and figurative. Someone whose appearance, behaviour, etc., is changed in a manner thought reminiscent of cross-dressing. Chiefly with modifying adjective.
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1958 National Rev. 2 Aug. 119/2 Political transvestites were not new in 1944 and '48 when Dewey, the Republican contender for the key to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, echoed the blue-sky promises of the New Deal.
1961 Playboy Nov. 102/2 The author of eight books, he has yet to put his right name on one; he has even presented himself in the role of literary transvestite.
1997 S. Heschel in S. L. Gilman & J. Zipes Yale Compan. Jewish Writing & Thought in German Culture, 1096–1996 198/1 Balancing historical scholarship with Christian theology gave Jesus a deliberately blurred identity—a Jew dressed as a Christian, a kind of religious transvestite.
B. adj.
1. That wears clothes conventionally associated with the opposite sex.
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the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > wearing clothing > [adjective] > wearing clothes associated with opposite sex
transvestite1916
transvestitic1930
transvestist1933
transvestic1934
1916 A. L. Kroeber in Holmes Anniv. Vol. Anthropol. Ess. 272 Ko-tlahma is the tlahmanna or transvestite god.
1936 tr. M. Hirschfeld Sexual Anomalies & Perversions x. 207 A transvestite friend of theirs, who had..been in the army formerly, but had now for years been wearing exclusively feminine clothes, in which he carried on his profession as a detective.
1982 L. Olivier Confessions of Actor iii. xi. 205 Stuart Burge..known and respected since he had given his transvestite Player Queen to my first Hamlet in 1937.
2019 Times 29 Nov. 30/1 Prisoners were asked to specify another identity—15 identified as gender-fluid, eight as transvestite, seven as intersex, six as non-binary.
2. Of, relating to, or characterized by cross-dressing; characteristic of or involving people who wear or are wearing clothes conventionally associated with the opposite sex.
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1937 Human Biol. 9 501 An almost senile singer, said to be the last person to know the [Mohave] transvestite initiation songs.
1957 Observer 29 Dec. 9/1 According to scholarship, the principal boy in our transvestite pantomimes is a Saturnalian hangover.
2007 Wallpaper June 140/3 The kitschy La Perla is a shabby dive with fantastic transvestite cabaret shows.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2022).
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n.adj.1911