Norman Bates not a a transvestite but a ____________? P.S. spoilers?

Question

Now we pretty much all have seen the 1960 Hitchcock masterpiece "Psycho" starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, and John Gavin, also co-starring Martin Balsam and John Mcintire finally Janet Leigh as Marion Crane. So anyway, my question is if Norman Bates is not a transvestite because transvestites dress up ffor a sexual purpose and he was dressing up to keep his crime hidden from his mind. So what was he? Opinions?

Answer 1

Norman was a mentally disturbed young man trying to keep the illusion going that his mother was alive. If anything, it would have been like a multiple personality disorder aka dissociative identity disorder since he was unaware that Mother was taking over and doing horrible things. We are led to believe that Marion Crane was far from being the first victim.

Have you seen the two sequels? They're rather interesting, playing out Norman's life. The third is so sad because it appears that Norman, now cured, has fallen in love and will get married. I haven't seen the fourth, which is a "prequel".

Answer 2

Besides being a sociopath and likely having multiple personality dissociative disturbances caused by childhood trauma and long term abuse, Norman Bates would be defined as a cross-dresser. Cross dressers claim they do their thing not for sexual gratification but for identity reasons, as opposed to transvestites who get off on dressing that way.

Norman wore his mother's clothes when he took on her personality. Whether he was conscious of this shift is never divulged in the film. If he is "mother" when he puts on her dress, then he can't really be called a cross-dresser either.

Norman: "A boy's best friend is his mother."

Answer 3

The late Anthony Perkins was just perfect for that role, wasn't he?

Answer 4

He was a cornflake, plain and simple. Some call it criminally insane...