eonism

Definitions

The pretence of being the opposite sex, especially that by a man of being a woman; transvestism.

uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The chief of these intermediate sexual anomalies are: (1) physical hermaphroditism in its various stages; (2) gynandromorphism, or eunuchoidism, in which men possess⟳ characters resembling those of males who have⟳ been early castrated and women possess⟳ similarly masculine characters; (3) sexo-esthetic inversion, or Eonism (Hirschfeld's transvestism or cross-dressing), in which, outside the specifically sexual emotions, men possess⟳ the tastes of women and women those of men.”

“Ellis seems, however, to regard this 'less common but more complete⟳' type⟳ as embodying the essence of eonism, and he objected to the term transvestism because it focused attention solely on the element of cross-dressing.”

“2013, C. N. Armstrong, 12: Transvestism, D. Robertson Smith, William M. Davidson (editors), Symposium on Nuclear Sex, Elsevier (Butterworth-Heinemann), page 88, Homosexuals do not as a rule⟳ want⟳ to change⟳ their sex and identity. This is the fundamental anomaly in eonism.”

CEFR level