35.

their reproductive organs, incurred by their exces- sive horse riding. This concept of traumatic origin of transvestism was revived at the beginning of the last century, when the impotence and effeminacy found among some Tartars was attributed to the same factor. Belief in the "demasculinizing" effedt of horse riding found a practical application in a different part of the world: The Pueblo Indians forced some cho- sen men to excessive riding and exuberant masturbation, which supposedly led to atrophy of their testicles and penes, and thus to a general femininization; in this way these Indians procured their "mumerados", a type of effeminate male transvestites, dressed in female gar- ments, and used for ritual homosexual orgies during their religious spring festivities (Hammond, 51)

Genetic and Endocrine Theory

This theory is based on the assumption that the chromosomal, or "genetic," sex (which is contained in the nuclear structure of all body cells, and has been detected and demonstrated in the epidermal nuclei of the skin), does not always correspond to the respective gonadal, or "endocrine" sex. It means that an "endo- crine" male may be a "genetic" female (and vice versa), withe the consequent inverted psychosexual make-up. Lang (65) believed that the male homosexuals were in fact "genetic females", whose body has undergone a con- plete "sex reversal" in the directions of maleness.

(((ED. Note: This night cover male inverts, but what about all the gay males who are not effeminate, not passive, and not interested in female attire?)))

The writers belonging to this school of thought regard transvestism as a kind of "intersexuality". mainly basing their views on Goldschmidt's findings in the gypsy moth and by analogy postulating the exist- ance of human males "undergoing chang". Similarly Dukor assumes in transvestism a "constitutional inter- sexuality," which may be due either to the basic poor differentiation of the sexual drive, or due to the "lack of equalization of the chromosome content of the hormonal balance." Benjamin also regards transvestism