TRANSSEXUALISM AND TRANSVESTISM

licity a reasonably well adjusted transvestite could become greatly disturbed and fascinated by ideas of surgical conversion so that his emotional balance may be endangered.

RELATION TO HOMOSEXUALITY

Homosexual inclinations always exist in the transsexualist whether they result in actual physical contacts or not. The libido as far as sex activities are concerned is usually low and seems to be completely occupied with the sex conversion idea, indicating the close relationship to narcissism. The interpretation of the libido as homosexual is strongly rejected by the male transsexualists. They consider the fact that they are attracted to men natural because they feel as women and consider themselves of the female sex. For them to be attracted to "other females' appears to be a perversion. Transvestites on the other hand are in the majority heterosexual, although their principal sexual outlet seems to be auto-erotic. Some are married and raise families, but the marriage rarely endures. Others have understanding girl-friends with whom they sometimes share their wardrobe.

Kinsey and his associates (6) consider transvestism and homo- sexuality "totally independent phenomena." So they are, as far as overt behavior is concerned. Most homosexuals would not be interested in "cross-dressing" just as most transvestites reject homosexual relations. Furthermore, the transvestitic behavior is chiefly a social problem, non-sexual on the surface, affecting one in- dividual only, while homosexual behavior is an open manifestation of sex involving a second party.

However, I can see a relationship between the transvestitic and homosexual behavior in the fact that both are disturbances of the sexual unity of the individual, both constitute a split of soma and psyche in the field of sex, both are instinctive drives, quite beyond the individual's power to control or to change, no matter what the underlying cause may be.

ETIOLOGY

Speculations as to the causes of transvestism and transsexualism have led to much controversy in the past. There were, and still are, those who believe that all cases have an exclusively organic etiology. They consider transvestism in all its stages (as well as homosexuality) a form of intersexuality, an intermediate sex of

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