29.

SURVEY OF VARIOUS ASPECTS OF TRANSVESTISM IN THE LIGHT OF OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE

BY

N. LUKIANOWICZ, M.E., D.P.M.

(((EDITOR'S NOTE: As part of our attempt to provide education not only to TVs but to others interested in the subject we will reprint such medical articles as come to our attention that bear on this subject. Many of our number have no access to medical literature and have no way of knowing what the state of medical opinion on the subject of TV is. The article reprinted here ap peared in the Jan. 1959 issue of the Jour. of Nervous and Mental Diseases and is about as complete a review of the subject as exists. As Editor I have taken the liberty of interspersing comments where I feel them warrented. This is a long article and cannot all be included in this issue. Comments on the article are not only solicited but requested as discussion is the only way we can grow. They will be printed in Letters to Ed. in No. 40)))

Introduction---Preliminary Remarks

The aim of this paper is to give a brief survey of various aspects of transvestism in the light of our pre- sent knowledge of this phenomenon, with a particular con- sideration of its etiology and symptomatology, and its cultural, social and legal implications. Very little may yet be said about therapeutic possibilities.

Transvestism is known, under various names, in almost all cultures and in all parts of the world. Its ubiquity led Ellis (29) to the conclusion that it "may possibly represent not...a corrupt or overrefined manifestation of late cultures, but the survivial of an ancient and nat- ural tendency of more primative man". If so, such cross- dressing might have had in the earlier cultures some mag- ical, ritualistic or symbolic meaning, now entirely forgotten The phenomon was already known in antiruity. it was described by Herodotus as the mysterious "Skythian illness" on the northern shores of the Black Sea. There, hitherto