The Beaumont Society
The UK's longest-established transgender support organisation, founded in 1966, with a confidential helpline.
Transvestite and dual-role transvestism
What the old terms meant, why medicine dropped them, and where cross-dressers find support today.
Transvestite is the older word for someone who wears clothes associated with another gender. Today most people say cross-dresser instead, and many find "transvestite" outdated or hurtful, though some older people still use it about themselves. This page explains the old terms so you know what they meant. For the practical guide, see cross-dressers in Blackpool.
Where the words came from
The word transvestite was coined by the German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910, from Latin for "cross" and "dress". For most of the 20th century it was used for anyone who cross-dressed, and often, wrongly, for trans people too.
The clinical labels
The World Health Organization's ICD-10 classification listed two related diagnoses:
- Dual-role transvestism: wearing clothes of another gender for a while, to enjoy the temporary experience of belonging to that gender, without wanting a permanent change or any sexual motive.
- Fetishistic transvestism: cross-dressing mainly for sexual arousal.
Both were removed in ICD-11, which came into effect in 2022. The WHO no longer treats cross-dressing as a disorder. You may still see the old labels in older medical records and books, and in some health systems still being moved to ICD-11.
Why the change matters
Treating cross-dressing as an illness pushed people into secrecy. Many cross-dressers, often straight married men, hid it for decades. The move away from these labels reflects what support groups had argued for years: cross-dressing is a form of expression, not a symptom.
Support then and now
- The Beaumont Society, founded in 1966, was for decades the main national network for people who would then have called themselves transvestites, and it still runs a confidential helpline.
- In Blackpool, the Renaissance group has welcomed cross-dressers alongside trans people for more than twenty years, at the Gynway guest house on Dickson Road, with overnight stays available.
Blackpool Renaissance trans support group
A long-running trans peer support group meeting twice a month at a Dickson Road guesthouse, open to trans people, partners and allies.
Cross-dressing is not the same as being trans
Cross-dressers don't want to transition; trans people's gender is different from the sex they were registered at birth. Some people start out cross-dressing and later realise they're trans; most cross-dressers don't. Both are welcome in Blackpool's groups.