Transvestism and transsexuality in Argentine medical journals, 1971-1982. / Travestismo y transexualidad en las revistas argentinas de medicina, 1971-1982.

This article deals with the discourses produced by the Argentine medical field relating to body transformation initiatives on the part of transvestites and transsexuals in Argentina from 1971-1982. Based on the compilation and analysis of a set of articles published in academic medical journals, it examines the meanings that health professionals assigned to these initiatives prior to the legal rulings and national legislation that recognized gender identity as a human right. This analysis helps identify the particular features of those body transformation initiatives during the period studied, as well as the ways in which the medical field in Argentina attached moral, technical and professional meanings to them.

Travestismo y transexualidad en las revistas argentinas de medicina, 1971-1982 / Transvestism and transsexuality in Argentine medical journals, 1971-1982

Resumen El presente artículo aborda los discursos producidos por el campo médico argentino en torno a las iniciativas de corporización de travestis y transexuales en Argentina entre 1971 y 1982. A través del relevamiento y análisis de una selección de artículos publicados en revistas académicas de medicina, se analizan los sentidos que profesionales de la salud asignaron a las mismas antes de la producción de fallos judiciales y normativas nacionales que reconocen la identidad de género como un derecho humano. El análisis realizado permite identificar las particularidades que asumían dichas iniciativas de corporización en el período de estudio, así como las formas en las que el campo médico argentino les imprimió sentidos morales, técnicos y profesionales.

Abstract This article deals with the discourses produced by the Argentine medical field relating to body transformation initiatives on the part of transvestites and transsexuals in Argentina from 1971-1982. Based on the compilation and analysis of a set of articles published in academic medical journals, it examines the meanings that health professionals assigned to these initiatives prior to the legal rulings and national legislation that recognized gender identity as a human right. This analysis helps identify the particular features of those body transformation initiatives during the period studied, as well as the ways in which the medical field in Argentina attached moral, technical and professional meanings to them.

Boyish Mannerisms and Womanly Coquetry: Patients with the Diagnosis of Transvestitismus in the Helsinki Psychiatric Clinic in Finland, 1954-68.

This article examines the case files of patients diagnosed with Transvestitismus [transvestism] in the Psychiatric Clinic of the Helsinki University Central Hospital in the years 1954-68. These individuals did not only want to cross-dress, but also had a strong feeling of being of a different sex from their assigned one. The scientific concept of transsexuality had begun to take form, and this knowledge reached Finland in phases. The case files of the transvestism patients show that they were highly aware of their condition and were very capable of describing it, even if they had no medical name for it. Psychiatrists were willing to engage in dialogue with the patients, and did not treat them as passive objects of study. Although some patients felt that they had been helped, many left the institution as frustrated, angered or desperate as before. They had sought medical help in the hope of having their bodies altered to correspond to their identity, but the Clinic psychiatrists insisted on seeing the problem in psychiatric terms and did not recommend surgical or hormonal treatments in most cases. This attitude would gradually change over the course of the 1970s and 1980s.

The inquisitorial trial of a cross-dressing lesbian: reactions and responses to female homosexuality in 18th-century portugal.

This article analyzes the inquisitorial trial of Maria Duran, a Catalan novice in the Dominican convent of Nossa Senhora do Paraíso in Portugal. Maria Duran was arrested by the Inquisition in 1741 and, after a lengthy trial, condemned in 1744 to a public lashing and exile. She was suspected of having made a pact with the Devil and was accused by many female witnesses of possessing a "secret penis" that she had allegedly used in her amorous relations with fellow nuns and novices. Her voluminous trial dossier offers a rare and fascinating documentary insight into the often extreme reactions that female homosexuality provoked from both men and women in early modern Portugal. Using the evidence offered by the 18th-century trial of Maria Duran, this article highlights female bewilderment when faced with female-on-female sexual violence and the difficulty that men (in this case, churchmen) had coming to terms with the existence of female homosexuality. It also discusses the case in light of the acts/identity debate among historians of the history of sexuality.

[The fake lady on trial: transvestitism in psychiatry and the sexual sciences, or the regulation of public dress-code]. / Die falsche Hofdame vor Gericht: Transvestitismus in Psychiatrie und Sexualwissenschaft oder die Regulierung der öffentlichen Kleiderordnung.

With the publication of Carl Westphal's "die conträre Sexualempfindung" or "the Contrary Sexual Feeling" (1870), non-conform sexual/gender behavior, such as wearing clothing from the opposite gender, fell within psychiatry's field of activity; psychiatrists cooperated with law enforcement to maintain the public ordering of the sexes. On the basis of the Charité's medical records of a male patient, reported to have publically appeared in women's clothing and thereby making headlines in 1910 as the 'fake lady', the positions of psychiatrist Theodor Ziehen and sexual scientist Magnus Hirschfeld stand in contrast to one another--a development, which affected their forensic argumentation. As Hirschfeld had, in the same year 1910, introduced the concept of transvestitism to describe this very phenomenon, a transfer of competing interpretations out of sexual science and into psychiatry can be studied. The circulation of Magnus Hirschfeld's questionnaire to the vita sexualis allows for an investigation of the effects of such on the collective, biographical narration of sexual minorities, as well as on diagnostic capacity in psychiatry, in reference to transvestitism. An analysis of press-reports on the case and trials of the 'fake lady' approaches the question, how non-conform sexual behavior was to be recognized or identified in public and, for the sake of prevention, how it was explained. Such an analysis also investigates the role of the press in the popularization of Hirschfield's transvestitism concept.

A bioética e a prevenção da aids para travestis / Bioethics and Aids Prevention for Transvestites

O objetivo geral deste trabalho é produzir conhecimento acerca das estratégias de prevenção do HIV/AIDS, voltadas para as travestis, a partir da Bioética de Intervenção e da Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos (DUBDH). O alto índice de infecções pelo HIV e dos casos de aids entre as travestis implica no reconhecimento da gravidade da epidemia entre esta população, e, consequentemente, demanda questionamentos das estratégias de prevenção das políticas governamentais, com vista a atenuar os impactos deste fenômeno. Para tanto, este trabalho discorre sobre o fato de que as pessoas vivenciam seus corpos, gênero e suas sexualidades de diferentes maneiras, obrigando um novo olhar a tais processos, para definir o que é ou não é "natural" e agregar as "descontinuidades" e/ou "incoerências sexuais", inclusive junto as políticas públicas. Nestes termos, o trabalho evidencia ainda que as violações dos direitos resultam na expectativa de morte e no risco de adoecimento em decorrência da aids e compõem as experiências subjetivas, fazendo dialogar os nexos de causalidade entre as dinâmicas sociais e o elevado risco para o HIV entre pessoas trans. A partir do histórico das políticas nacionais relacionadas às travestis, de experiências dos encontros e de programas de prevenção, afirma-se a necessidade de que as especificidades das travestis sejam consideradas na elaboração, planejamento e consecução das políticas de prevenção do HIV/AIDS em saúde, de modo que os princípios de equidade, justiça social, o respeito a dignidade da pessoa humana, sejam respeitadas

The objective of this work is to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, targeting the transvestite community from the Bioethics Intervention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (DUBDH). The high rate of HIV infections and AIDS cases within the transgender community, is evidence of the seriousness of the epidemic among this population, and therefore demands prevention strategies of government policies to mitigate the impacts of this phenomenon. This paper discusses the fact that people experience their bodies, sexuality and gender in different ways, challenging the perception and definition of what is "natural" and reflecting their human rights in public policies. Additionally, the work shows that violations of rights result in the expectation of death and the risk of falling ill due to AIDS and compose the subjective experiences, using arguments of the causal links between social dynamics and the high risk for HIV among transgender people. From the history of national policies related to the transgender individual and from experiences and encounters of prevention programs, it is stated the necessity that the specifics of transgender individuals are considered in the design, planning and implementation of HIV-aids prevention policies on health so that the principles of equity, social justice, and respect for human dignity are respected

Em direito a um futuro trans?: contribuição para a história do movimento de travestis e transexuais no Brasil / ¿Rumbo a un futuro trans?: contribuciones a una historia del movimiento de travestis y transexuales en Brasil / Towards a Trans future?: contributions to a history of the travesti and transsexual movement on Brasil

Buscamos neste artigo reconstruir uma história do movimento social de travestis e transexuais no Brasil a partir dos relatos de suas lideranças. Partindo da emergência da "travesti" como categoria identitária, relatamos o surgimento das primeiras organizações, com destaque para suas conexões com as políticas de enfrentamento à epidemia da AIDS. Tratamos também de dois processos de disputa que foram cruciais para a configuração do movimento no Brasil: a luta pela inclusão de travestis no emergente movimento homossexual dos anos 1980-1990, e o embate mais recente em torno dos sentidos e dos usos das categorias "travesti" e "transexual".

Este artículo procura reconstruir, a través de los relatos de sus líderes, una historia del movimiento social de travestis y transexuales en Brasil. A partir de la emergencia de la "travesti" como categoría identitaria, se narra el surgimiento de las primeras organizaciones, destacando sus conexiones con las políticas de combate a la epidemia del SIDA. Se abordan asimismo dos procesos de disputa que fueron cruciales para la configuración de este movimiento en Brasil: la lucha por la inclusión de travestis en el movimiento homosexual emergente de los años 1980-1990, y el debate reciente en torno de los sentidos y usos de las categorías "travesti" y "transexual".

This article the history of the travestis and transexuais social movement in Brazil, based on narratives by its leaders. Starting with the emergence of "travesti" as an identity category, we discuss the emergence of pioneer organizations, and highlight their connections with public policy on the AIDS epidemic. We also explore two disputes which were crucial to the organization of this movement in Brazil: the struggle for the inclusion of travestis in the emerging homosexual movement in 1980 and 1990 decades, and the more recent controversies around the meanings and uses of the categories "travesti" and "transexual".

Genitals to genes: the history and biology of gender verification in the Olympics.

From 1968 to 1998, female Olympic athletes were expected to prove their "femininity," ostensibly to stop male "ringers" from passing themselves off as female competitors. Rumours that men were competing in drag had been around since at least the 1936 games. The sex tests started out as simple anatomical examinations--the "nude parade," but rapidly progressed to cellular-based tests (the presence of a Barr body), and eventually to molecular-based tests (the absence of the SRY gene). Women went from being defined by genitalia to cellular characteristics, and finally, by genotype but ironically, as the tests become more sophisticated, both sensitivity and specificity suffered. This paper reviews the science underlying the sex tests, their history, and the controversy that accompanied them.

"We share a sacred secret": gender, domesticity, and containment in Transvestia's histories and letters from crossdressers and their wives.

After WWII in the United States, gender and sexual minorities began to construct social identities in a cold war climate hostile to gender and sexual transgression. The coming of the sexual revolution in the mid-1960s and 1970s unleashed forces that provided opportunities for these groups to demarcate their differences from one another, achieve visibility, and court public favor in a more permissive and tolerant society. In this article, I examine how a cohort of white, heterosexual crossdressers and their wives forged a redeeming social script in ways that seem counterintuitive to the "spirit of the times." The presence of transvestism within the sacred, idealized space of the American home produced tremendous anxiety on the part of these transvestite husbands and especially their wives. To deflect the stigma of sexual deviancy and sooth feelings of insecurity, these couples utilized strategies of containment and embraced the domestic ideal, even well into the sexualized and swinging seventies. Their strategic yet curious retreat into domesticity compels a second look at the consensus, conformity, and containment narratives that once dominated our scholarly imagination of intimate matters during the postwar years. Might current revisionist histories have gone too far in discrediting these potent forces? How do gender and sexual populations beholden to whiteness and notions of respectability fit within the sexual revolutions of postwar America?

About the history of sexuality.

About 50 years of demolition work, it's time now for a return to the grand syntheses. Two of the great syntheses of the 19th century have now been shattered. Marxism lies in fragments. And psychoanalysis has largely drifted outside of psychiatry to find a new and doubtless temporary home in departments of literary studies. To be sure, the third of the great syntheses, Darwin's theory of evolution, remains intact. But otherwise, as far as the eye can see, there is rubble. The time for new attempts at synthesis is now nigh. After decades of pioneering work in the neurosciences, the fundamental importance of brain biology in the human condition has now become evident. Surely one of the new syntheses will draw upon neurochemistry and neurophysiology, and it is to the great credit of the Hungarian neurosciences that pharmacologist Joseph Knoll has now ventured a first attempt. This attempt will be widely discussed and will form the platform for other work that may end up building firm bridges between "neuroenhancers" and behavior - and, what's more, to show how this relationship has shaped the evolution of thousands of years of human destiny, a great synthesis indeed.

Early history of the concept of autogynephilia.

Since the beginning of the last century, clinical observers have described the propensity of certain males to be erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women. Because there was no specific term to denote this phenomenon, clinicians' references to it were generally oblique or periphrastic. The closest available word was transvestism. The definition of transvestism accepted by the end of the twentieth century, however, did not just fail to capture the wide range of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies in which women's garments per seplay a small role or none at all; it actually directed attention away from them. The absence of an adequate terminology became acute in the writer's research on the taxonomy of gender identity disorders in biological males. This had suggested that heterosexual, asexual, and bisexual transsexuals are more similar to each other-and to transvestites-than any of them is to the homosexual type, and that the common feature in transvestites and the three types of non-homosexual transsexuals is a history of erotic arousal in association with the thought or image of themselves as women. At the same time, the writer was becoming aware of male patients who are sexually aroused only by the idea of having a woman's body and not at all by the idea of wearing women's clothes. To fill this terminological and conceptual gap, the writer introduced the term autogynephilia(love of oneself as a woman).

The absolutely fabulous but flawlessly customary world of female impersonators.

Our editorial introduction to this volume on drag queens highlights what we believe are some of the most prominent and important themes of female impersonation in the past and today. Building on contributors' articles, a substantial body of literature on female impersonators/drag queens and the social construction of gender, and our own extensive ethnographic experiences in a multitude of drag settings, we first suggest that such individuals can be seen as symbolic representatives of the cultural ideals associated with the feminine and women and how they have changed over time. We next argue that the notion of the effeminate drag queen is more a myth than a reality with the contextual benefits many performers receive-status and power-being indicative of the hegemony of masculinity in male-dominated societies. We next explore how additional social identities, such as race, class, nation, and religion, often impact drag performances and how others interpret them. We end our introduction by offering a model that delineates what are some of the present transgressive limits and subversive possibilities of female impersonation.

A lovely war: male to female cross-dressing and Canadian military entertainment in World War II.

This article explores the Canadian military entertainment units during World War II (WWII), specifically those formed by the Navy, Army and Air Force from talent found amongst their own personnel. These entertainment units toured extensively in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe with the goal of increasing the morale of combat troops while encouraging the enlistment of Canada's domestic populations in the war effort generally and the armed forces specifically. By focusing on male to female cross-dressing in the performances of these entertainment units and their pre-WWII antecedents, it will become clear that the nature and importance of the representation of femininity within the virtually all-male milieu that existed near the battlefront changed over time in response to the demands of the audiences. Until the second half of WWII, soldier audiences were generally unwilling to form any ideological links between cross-dressing and homosexuality. Female impersonators were the key cast members in troop shows during the Great War, but eventually fell out of favor in the last years of WWII after women were recruited in large numbers into the Canadian military and thus its entertainment infrastructure. With women then on the military stage, men who persisted in female impersonation were decreasingly popular with audiences, ultimately under growing suspicion of being homosexuals and gradually removed from the productions.

The beauty and the beast: reflections about the socio-historical and subcultural context of drag queens and "Tunten" in Berlin.

In this article, I focus on two different faces found in Berlin's gay subculture: the Tunten and the drag queens. Both are commonly seen as "male homosexual transvestites," although many such individuals today prefer to identify themselves somewhere within a diverse transgender spectrum rather than as transvestites. Tunten and drag queens differ in their gender performativity, their self-image and their chosen role models as well as in the niches in which they have been able to establish themselves in German mainstream society. Based on ethnographic data, I argue against the widespread reductionist view that the differences between Tunten and drag queens lie primarily in style, behavior, talent and success. Nor can these differences be easily explained away as a result of subculture globalization. Instead, I show that there is a simultaneous coexistence of both a subculturally established, "traditional" local transgender culture and a more recently adopted and partly imported, new local transgender culture. The coexistence of these two urban transgender cultures also indicates the paradigm shift in German gay and youth cultures of the last decades. Thus, I will emphasize the importance of the socio-historical and subcultural processes in studying transgender cultures in Western societies.

Wigs, laughter, and subversion: Charles Busch and strategies of drag performance.

This paper examines the strategies of drag performer/ playwright Charles Busch. His performance aesthetic is explored and shown to be subversive even though its initial impulse is to entertain. Basing my arguments on the work of Judith Butler, Elin Diamond, and others, I argue that drag queens like Busch can not only entertain but also make audiences question and criticize through drag's power to create a Brechtian alienation effect and historicize the subject. After showing how he can be viewed as a drag queen, I give a brief biography and discuss such contested terms as "camp" and "gay sensibility." I then focus on Busch's staged reading of Ibsen's Hedda Gahler andA Doll's House, both done in one afternoon at Theatre for The New City (6 May 2000). By examining the performance of Busch and his fellow actors, I demonstrate how a contemporary relevancy is achieved by having the roles played by a female impersonator whose acting choices are filtered through a gay sensibility. The ongoing dialectic between spectator and performer creates a historicized moment in performance that underscores the gender dynamics in unexpected and stimulating ways.

Alfred C. Kinsey and the politics of sex research.

In view of the recent phase of political opposition to sex research and intense public interest in Alfred C. Kinsey, this paper considers the impact that Kinsey's research has had on the political process in the past 50 years. Initial reactions to Kinsey's research that remain relevant today include "normal" people don't participate in sex surveys, sex surveys are intended to promote homosexuality, and asking people about their sex lives in a nonjudgmental fashion promotes immorality. Episodes of political opposition are documented, and the long-running anti-Kinsey campaign and its impact on the political process are described and discussed. Reasons why people might still oppose sex research are considered, and conclusions are reached about how sex researchers might deal with this problem.

Sex research at the borders of gender: transvestites, transsexuals, and Alfred C. Kinsey.

Sex researcher Alfred Kinsey's vision of sexual taxonomy continued to evolve after he published his first landmark volume on human sexuality, and his research into sexual subcultures went beyond his initial studies of homosexuality and prostitution. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he developed a new interest in cross-dressing and cross-gender identification. This article outlines how and why he began to interview transvestites and transsexuals, and places his emerging vision of gendered behavior and gender identity within the scientific theories of his day. Kinsey rejected the prevailing views, preferring instead a behaviorist model of gender. He saw cross-dressing and crossgender identification as male phenomena and used them to speculate about sex differences in the capacity for psychological conditioning. In his usual style, he did not condemn transvestites or transsexuals, but he disapproved of the genital surgery requested by male-to-female transsexuals. It was here that Kinsey hit the limits of his well-known sexual liberalism in which he approved of all sexual variations that did not involve coercion.