ABSTRACT
This study has been concerned to generate grounded theory in the substantive area of male cross-dressing and sex-changing. Re-conceptualisation of the area in terms of the basic social process of male femaling has enabled justice to be done to the processual and emergent nature of much cross-dressing and sex-changing phenomena. Specifically, it has generated a number of conceptualisations which have highlighted facets of male femaling hitherto not studied. The study has explored some of the major possible and neglected shifting interrelations between facets of human sex, sexuality and gender; considered these in terms of the interrelations between self, identity and world; and situated both sets of interrelations within the interplay of scientific, member and common-sense knowledge. These issues are highly salient to the lives of cross-dressers and sex-changers, who consequently provide excellent case histories and case studies with which to examine them. We omit to study these matters at the risk of ignoring fundamental problems of relevance to us all.
