Eonism

Main Entry: eon·ism
Pronunciation: 'E-&-"niz-&m
Function: noun
: TRANSVESTISM
Éon de Beauámont /A-Oⁿ-d&-bO-mOⁿ/, Charles (1728–1810), French chevalier and adventurer. Fromthe start there were doubts about Éon. Although baptized as a boy, he was raised as a girl until seven. Then he assumed the role of a boy. At age twenty-seven as a secret agent for the Frenchking he was received at the Russian court as a woman. After serving several years as a special agent, he served for a time in the military—presumably as a man. Some years later while on adiplomatic mission in London he was ordered by the French king to resume the dress of a woman and to retire from public life. He refused to comply with either order and became involved in intrigues andscandals. Very much a public figure, he was the center of open and fierce betting regarding his true sex. Although he returned to France in the guise of a man, he was again ordered by the king to dressas a woman. With the personal assistance of the queen he was eventually presented at court in the full regalia of a woman of fashion. His last thirty-three years were spent as a woman. A postmortemexamination of his body revealed that he had the genitalia of a male but also that several parts of his body were distinctly female.

eonism

practice of wearing the clothes of the opposite sex (cross-dressing), generally to derive some kind of sexual pleasure. It is often mistakenly associated with homosexuality; in fact, however, transvestites may be either heterosexual or homosexual, and the practice of cross-dressing is sometimes even ridiculed among homosexuals. The transvestite must also be distinguished from the transsexual, who desires to become a functioning member of the opposite sex; most transvestites are men who comfortably fill male roles in society and are satisfied with their biological sex. Transsexuals, both male and female, are uncomfortable with their sex and are usually required to cross-dress for an extended period before they undergo surgery. That most transvestites are men is at least in part a result of the role of fashion in Western culture; in the mid-to-late 20th century Western women wearing trousers and other clothes once considered to be exclusively men's clothes are not seen as deviant.

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