“The house may be his, but the home is mine”: crossdressing, family relationships, conflicts and care

Abstract

This paper discusses data collected in ethnographic research with women who identify themselves as “wives” or “S/O’s” of men that are “practitioners of cross-dressing”. It is also an offshoot of previous research on how men who identify themselves as crossdressers negotiated this practice in their daily lives. I intend to analyze how the cross-dressing of their partners impacts their private lives, their sociability, their affective-sexual/marital relationships, as well as the broader family relationships. It is important to understand how the tensions that derive from gender and sexuality conventions and the management of secrecy impact these conjugal/family relationships and the issue of care, as well as sometimes unfold in oppression/violence and interfere with the dynamics of affections and companionship, implying by sometimes in renegotiations or ruptures.