Transvestism

Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons.
History.
Though the term was coined as late as the 1910s by Magnus Hirschfeld, the phenomenon is not new. It was referred to in the Hebrew Bible. Being part of the homosexual movement of Weimar Germany in the beginning, a first transvestite movement of its own started to form since the mid-1920's, resulting in founding first organizations and the first transvestite magazine, "Das 3. Geschlecht". The rise of national socialism stopped this movement from 1933 onwards.
Terminology.
The word has undergone several changes of meaning since it was first coined and is still used in a variety of senses. Today, the term "transvestite" is commonly considered outdated and derogatory, with the term "cross-dresser" used as a more appropriate replacement. This is because the term "transvestite" was historically used to diagnose medical disorders, including mental health disorders, and transvestism was viewed as a disorder, but the term "cross-dresser" was coined by the transgender community. In some cases, however, the term "transvestite" is seen as more appropriate for use by members of the transgender community instead of by those outside of the transgender community, and some have reclaimed the word.
Origin of the term.
Magnus Hirschfeld coined the word "transvestite" in 1910 (from Latin "trans-", "across, over" and "vestitus", "dressed") to refer to the sexual interest in cross-dressing. He used it to describe persons who habitually and voluntarily wore clothes of the opposite sex. Hirschfeld's group of transvestites consisted of both males and females, with heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual orientations.
Hirschfeld himself was not happy with the term: He believed that clothing was only an outward symbol chosen on the basis of various internal psychological situations. In fact, Hirschfeld helped people to achieve the first name changes (legal given names were and are required to be gender-specific in Germany) and performed the first reported sexual reassignment surgery. Hirschfeld's transvestites therefore were, in today's terms, not only transvestites, but a variety of people from the transgender spectrum.
Hirschfeld also noticed that sexual arousal was often associated with transvestism. In more recent terminology, this is sometimes called transvestic fetishism. Hirschfeld also clearly distinguished between transvestism as an expression of a person's "contra-sexual" (transgender) feelings and fetishistic behavior, even if the latter involved wearing clothes of the other sex.
Cross-dressers.
One of the fiercest activists to come out of the Stonewall Riots was Sylvia Rivera, who set up Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. In a 1971 essay, "Transvestites: Your Half Sisters and Half Brothers of the Revolution", Rivera wrote, "Transvestites are homosexual men and women who dress in clothes of the opposite sex."
After all the changes that took place during the 1970s, a large group was left without a word to describe themselves: heterosexual males who wear traditionally feminine clothing. This group was not particularly happy with the term "transvestism", and therefore took on the term "cross-dresser". Cross-dressers are men who wear female clothing and often both admire and imitate women, but self-identify as different from both gay men and transsexuals, and generally deny having fetishistic intentions.
When cross-dressing occurs for erotic purposes over a period of at least six months and also causes significant distress or impairment, the behavior is considered a mental disorder in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", and the psychiatric diagnosis "transvestic fetishism" is applied.
Culture.
In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional or ceremonial reasons. For example, in India some male devotees of the Hindu god Krishna, especially in Mathura and Vrindavan, dress in female attire to pose as his consort, the goddess Radha, as an act of devotion. In Italy, the Neapolitan "femminielli" wear wedding dresses, called the "matrimonio dei femminielli" (marriage of the feminine males), a procession takes place through the streets, a tradition that apparently has pagan origins.