52.

if 2 things or circumstances have one property in com- mon then they have all things in common and are ident- ical. Continually it is repeated one who cross dress- is a transvestite. So he may be by the latin deriva- tion of the word, but he is by no means necessarily a TRANSVESTITE as a defined clinical entity. We are simp- ly going to have to get a different word--even Eonism is no longer sufficient--one is suggested in the "Ed- itorial Emanations" of this issue.)))

It may be useful to divide transvestite phenomena into the subjective claims of patients that they "always wanted to be a woman," and the objective manifestations of transvestite behavior, such as cross dressing, avoid- ing the plays and games appropriate to one's own sex, and adoption of mannerisms and behavior characteristic of the opposite sex.

Such subjective claims as "I always wished to be a girl" are referred by patients to a very early but unspec- ified age, usually "ever since I can remember." However, on closer scrutiny it may be established that very many transvestites discover in themselves this desire"to be a woman" only after reading of cases of "change of Sex" in newspapers and popular magazines. Then their fantasy be- gins to play with imagining themselves in "beautiful female dress, high-heeled shoes", etc. A wishful falsi- fication of memory takes place, the patients begin to re- call and to misinterpret various insignificant incidents in their childhood, till they finally firmly believe that "ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a woman" (The incessant progress of these emotionally overvalued ideas resembles the relentless development of delusions of paranoia.)

It should be easier to verify the first objective manifestations of transvestite behavior, and in partic- ular the first attempts at cross dressing. Yet even here one has almost entirely to rely on the information sup- plied by the patient himself. Thus also this part of