Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and express oneself.
Socialization establishes social norms among the people of a particular society. With regard to the social aspects of clothing, such standards may reflect guidelines relating to the style, color, or type of clothing that individuals are expected to wear. Such expectations may be delineated according to gender roles. Cross-dressing involves dressing contrary to the prevailing standards (or in some cases, laws) for a person of their gender in their own society.
The term "cross-dressing" refers to an action or a behavior, without attributing or implying any specific causes or motives for that behavior. Cross-dressing is not synonymous with being transgender, though the word was once used by and applied to people known to be transgender—and even by sexologists like Magnus Hirschfeld & Havelock Ellis. The shift & clear distinction would occur later as the science evolved, and also as the word transsexual was coined & then made distinct from transvestite in the 1920s; Previously, crossdressers and transgender people were collectively called transvestites in Hirschfeld's studies. LGBT+ activist Jennie June (b. ca 1874), who makes clear of desire to live full-time as a woman—aswell as longing to be a house-wife & dreams of becoming a mother—also uses this term in the 1922 book "The Female Impersonators" to describe certain androgynes, a term referring to gay & bisexual men, aswell as what we today know as trans women.
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