Ghanaian youth and festive transvestism

'Festive transvestism' is an increasingly visible cross-dressing practice performed by young people in the Southern parts of contemporary Ghana. Based on participant observation in four cross-dressing events, 15 individual interviews and a focus-group discussion, festive cross-dressing is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Culture, health & sexuality health & sexuality, 2013-07, Vol.15 (sup1), p.48-61
Main Author: Geoffrion, Karine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Children & youth
Cross-dressers
cross-dressing
Cultural studies
Dress
Female
Fetishism (Psychiatric)
Focus Groups
Freedom
Gays & lesbians
Ghana
Homosexuality
Homosexuality, Male
Humans
Male
Males
Masculinity
Middle Aged
Performativity
Qualitative Research
Sex
Sexuality
Transvestism
Young Adult
Youth
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Summary:'Festive transvestism' is an increasingly visible cross-dressing practice performed by young people in the Southern parts of contemporary Ghana. Based on participant observation in four cross-dressing events, 15 individual interviews and a focus-group discussion, festive cross-dressing is understood as a contemporary ritual that mainly serves the purpose of reinforcing and reproducing gender binaries as well as heteronormativity in Ghanaian society. Nevertheless cross-dressing events also provide a subjective, creative and exploratory space - although temporary and circumscribed - for the transvestites as well as for the spectators to deconstruct sex, gender and sexuality through the performativity of transvestism. The opening of this exploratory space is made possible by the liminality of the social category of youth in Ghana, which grants young people, especially young men, more liberty and (gender) flexibility. Finally, the paper challenges the widely spread Western perception that feminine men and cross-dressers are necessarily homosexual by resituating the concept of homosexuality within the context of Ghanaian society, where it has recently started to occupy the public space.
ISSN:1369-1058
1464-5351
DOI:10.1080/13691058.2012.742928