Posted by Sarah T. on May 24, 2005, at 0:43:32
In reply to Selegiline and Reversible transvestic fetishism, posted by alienatari on May 22, 2005, at 8:03:22
I think it's possible that the patient discussed in the article was not engaging in real travestism. The article did not indicate whose clothes he was wearing when he began wearing women's clothes. If he was wearing his late wife's clothes, perhaps he did that in an attempt to feel closer to her, to feel as if she was still there. For several years after my mother died, I liked to wear some of her sweaters. It made me feel as if she was "with me" or that a part of her was still with me. Granted, I am female, so wearing my mother's clothes doesn't seem as bizarre as a husband wearing his wife's clothes. But let's look at it another way. If the patient had been a woman whose husband died, and she started wearing her late husband's clothes, would her physicians have given this a second thought? Would they have even noticed? Frankly, I think they just needed to publish something (you know, "publish or perish"), so they gave the man's behavior the diagnostic label "transvestism." I'd be willing to bet that this was "simply" an extreme case of unresolved grief exacerbated by Parkinson's Disease and Parkinson's medications.
poster:Sarah T.
thread:501115
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050521/msgs/502094.html