ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to analyze the sexual culture and risk factors that place transvestites and their customers at risk of contracting HIV. For Freud, the implantation of sexual orientation takes place at such an early phase of development—between three and five years of age—and in such an unconscious manner that, once established, it is almost impossible to change. During the past two decades, however, a number of scientists have again tried to ground homosexuality in biology. Contemporary conceptions of transvestism originated in the nineteenth century. The phenomenon is as old as civilization itself, with ancient accounts of the practice surviving to the present day, despite the best efforts of Judeo-Christian religions to erase from history any evidence of men and women dressing in clothes belonging to the opposite sex.
