What is it about?

Based on interviews and participant observations with male-to-female transvestites, this paper shows that transvestites do not simply seek to pass as members of the opposite sex or exaggerate stereotypical gender practices through drag, but combine a number of feminine, masculine and ungendered practices and attributes.

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Why is it important?

As transvestites simultaneously express masculine and feminine forms of embodiment, they may more obviously challenge dominant forms of gender and identity than suggested by previous research.

Perspectives

As a male-to-female transvestite myself, I can very much relate to the joy of transgressing the rules of passing and stereotypical drag, though this is perhaps a bit different from the irrelevance of passing which our participants emphasized.

Professor Torkild Thanem
Stockholm University

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This page is a summary of: Just doing gender? Transvestism and the power of underdoing gender in everyday life and work, Organization, August 2014, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1350508414547559.
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