Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/227

Rh the feminine with Phyllis. For the latter was conspicuously womanish: beardal growth sparse and always clean-shaven, if not eradicated; breasts as large as in some women; hips very broad; spine disproportionately long and legs correspondingly short. "Hisher" body approached the feminine to a higher degree than that of any other androgyne I ever set eyes on with the possible exception of myself. Phyllis surpassed me in meagreness of beardal growth, sissie voice, feminine strut and gestures, and craze and taste for feminine finery. As a cross-dresser and female-impersonator, the bisexual now to be portrayed was one of the two or three extreme hermaphroditoi, while ranking low in erotic furor.

[In a physical male, cross-dressing is the instinctive wearing of feminine apparel, or, in default, of the loudest and fanciest male styles. In a physical female, it is similar adoption of masculine habiliments, or in default, of feminine attire and aspect approaching the masculine as nearly as possible: hair bobbed, stiff linen collar, a man's neck scarf, and always severely plain tailor-made waist and skirt. The reader will recall such photographs of brilliantly intellectual women, particularly authoresses. Cross-dressing is generally an earmark of sexual intermediacy. It is not at all due—as bigots claim—to moral depravity, but entirely to irreproachable instinct. It is not at all due to childhood's training, such as the stories of parents' bringing up their boy or girl as a girl or a boy when they particularly wished a female or a male heir. Such child, as soon as he or she became old enough, would wholeheartedly rebel against such a travesty. In nearly every case, cross-dressing is due to the fact