'As a Man I Exist; as a Woman I Live': Heterosexual Transvestism and the Contours of Gender and Sexuality in Postwar America.

Abstract

While historians have written about gay, lesbian, and feminist identity and community formation in the United States, they have had little to say about the emergence of “transgender” social formations and collective activism. Through extensive archival research I have uncovered a vibrant underground print culture and organizational network created by a subculture of white males who practiced crossdressing and who identified as heterosexual transvestites in the decades following WWII. Using methods from history and gender studies, I consider how the social and cultural construction of heterosexual transvestism from the ground level enriches our understanding of the contours and meanings of postwar masculinities and femininities.