[Ads-l] Antedating "eonism" to 1920 & [1913] [Was: Antedating of "Transgender" and "Transgenderism"]

[Joel Berson]

I guess I won't browse through the few works of Havelock Ellis, since he seems to have instead chosen "eonism". 


Wikipedia claims that "eonism" goes back to 1920, and so it does, and also to 1913.  (OED not fully updated has 1928--.)


"Medical Review of Reviews", Jan. 1920, "Eonism" by Havelock Ellis.  The article begins "Many years ago, when exploring the phenomena of sexual inversion, I was puzzled by occasional cases I met with of people who took pleasure in behaving and dressing like the opposite sex, and yet were not sexually inverted" [p. 3]. Later, Ellis writes " I proposed the term 'Sexo-aesthetic inversion,' which I adopted as the title of the study, and I further suggested as an alternative the name 'D*Eonism' or 'Eonism,' after the Chevalier d'Eon, the most famous historical subject of this anomaly, to be used as comparable to the terms 'Sadism' and 'Masochism.' " [p. 4].

Apparently it wasn't as popular as the last two.

This article also has "eonist" [p. 10 and passim], also antedating OED2 1928--.


If in 1920 Ellis wrote that "many years ago" he "further suggested ... Eonism", can we find it those many years earlier, in a study titled "Sexo-aesthetic inversion"?  Perhaps.

"The Alienist and Neuologist", Vol. 34, 1913.  Article titled "Sexo-Aesthetic Inversion.*", By Havelock Ellis.  [p. 249]


* [footnote]  "Continued from the Alienist and Neurologist, May 1913."

"1.  [footnote]  D'Ionism should read D'eonism."

The footnote refers to the first part of this article, which has "It has, however, seemed to me that we might coin the name 'D'lonism,' after the well-known Chevalier D'lone, who exhibited this impulse in a well-marked form."   [p. 158, note 6]  I didn't see "eonism/eonist" in this first part.


Joel
      From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2015 10:57 PM
 Subject: [ADS-L] Antedating of "Transgender" and "Transgenderism"
   
The OED's first use for the word "transgender" is dated 1974, and the first use for "transgenderism" is dated 1983.

According to Wikipedia, "transgenderism" or "transgender" appears in John F. Oliven's book _Sexual Hygiene and Pathology_ (1965) and in an article by Charles Prince in the magazine _Transvestia_, December 1969.

Fred Shapiro

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org