Question

The use of which of these elements makes Twelfth Night one of Shakespeare's transvestite comedies?. A) mistaken identity

Answer 1

The correct answer is B) cross-dressing.

Indeed, a transvestite is a male or a female that dresses up in clothing from the gender opposite to their biological gender. They also adopt the normative opposite gender’s mannerisms. The word’s etymology is very explicit. It includes the prefix trans, which means across, through, beyond, in Latin; then the root word vestite, which comes from Latin vestitus, which means clothed.

Viola is a transvestite in as much as she disguises herself as a man and speaks and acts like one, while she is actually a woman.

Answer 2

Since transvestites are men who dress up as women, I am going to assume that the use of cross-dressing makes Twelfth Night one of Shakespeare's transvestite comedies, and there are many of those, actually.