Whither the transvestite? Theorising male-to-female transvestism in feminist and queer theory

Bibliographic Data

ID4367329
AuthorsSamantha Allen (Emory University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume15
Issue1
Pages51-72
Publication date2014-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1464700113515171
OpenAlexW2136122877
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited34

Male-to-female transvestism is a complex phenomenon that is often confused with other manifestations of male-to-female cross-dressing, e.g. drag performance. As a practice, male-to-female transvestism remains under-theorised in feminist and queer literature. In this article I approach male-to-female transvestism from two different directions. First, I sketch out some of the meta-theoretical issues surrounding its place in feminist and queer scholarship. Second, I hone in on particular details of male-to-female transvestite culture in order to model the kind of attentive reading that male-to-female transvestism requires. The first section of the article presents readings of three foundational texts - Gayle Rubin's 'Thinking Sex' (1984), Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (1990) and Marjorie Garber's Vested Interests (1992) - to highlight the challenges facing the theorisation of male-to-female transvestism in feminist and queer scholarly traditions. In the second section, I turn to an online message board for male-to-female cross-dressers (crossdressers.com) and read practices of passing and photography through a theoretical framework informed by Alan Turing, Masahiro Mori and Silvan Tomkins

Fetishism · Psychoanalysis · Queer · Queer theory · Scholarship · Sociology · Transgender · Transvestism · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

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