Eonism
(ˈiːəʊnɪz(ə)m)
Also eonism.
[f. the name of the Chevalier Charles d'{Eacu}on (1728–1810), a French adventurer who wore women's clothes: see -ism.]
Transvestism, esp. by a man. So ˈEonist, one who wears the clothes of the opposite sex.
| 1928 H. Ellis Studies Psychol. Sex VII. i. 10 It was clearly a typical case of what Hirschfeld later termed ‘transvestism’ and what I would call ‘sexo-aesthetic inversion’, or more simply, ‘Eonism’. Ibid. 12 The Eonist (though sometimes emphatically of the apparent sex) sometimes shows real physical approximations towards the opposite sex. 1970 Times 5 Sept. 8/4 Today we can see that the Chevalier was an a-sexual transvestite. From his name Havelock Ellis coined the term eonism to describe this minor deviation. |