Social-Psychiatric Aspects

of

Transvestism (Femmiphilia)

ARTICLE

Author's Note: The following is the paper that I read before the 2nd International Congress of Social Psychiatry in London August 1969. The paper is presented here for three reasons:

1) I feel that readers of Transvestia, members of Phi Pi Epsilon and particularly those who made donations toward this trip should have some idea of the kind of effort being put forth in my attempts to bring awareness and understanding of the problem of Femmiphilia (transvestism) to both the lay and professional public. 2) I hope that ideas and information presented here will provide some organized am- munition to readers for use in their own explanations of the field to others. 3) Hopefully eventually there will arise among you others with the willingness, oppor- tunity and ability to give talks, lectures, radio or TV appearances etc. in your own way and area. The material presented here may provide you some organized thoughts with which to begin.

I hope the general reader will not feel that printing this paper together with the report of "Expedition 69" is usurping too much of this issue for my activities but I do feel that this is worth it.

VIRGINIA

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Just as individuals can suffer from pathological or anomalous condi- tions arising either from external causes or from the internal functions of the organism itself, so too can societies suffer. Wars, pestilences, natural catastrophes are examples of externally caused disturbances of social functions which would act in almost the same way on all types of societies. However, other disharmonies arise directly out of the nature of a particular society. Other societies might not suffer from these same disharmonies because the circumstances of those societies would not bring them about. Homosexuality, prostitution, wife swapping, trans- vestism and transexuality are examples of patterns which arise out of the natural needs of human beings, and their interaction with the taboos and expectations set up by the society in which they live. Homosexuality, for

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