Warmest Greetings, BruceChris,
(FYI--about a week ago, I posted a response to your 2005! response to one of my long missives. Gee it only took me 5 years to do so
::blushing purpled::. Wouldn't you know it, the post evaporated into the ether & I was too exhausted to even attempt to rewrite).
You've posed a very interesting question and I do have an answer: yes! Someone has cross dressed, a man in women's clothes, in order to murder. It's Brian De Palma's (1980) "Dressed to Kill," starring a completely nude and voluptuous 49yo Angie Dickinson and a brilliant performance by Michael Caine as her psychiatrist. Since I do not want to 'spoil' the classic film, I can't write who's the actor that cross dresses to kill whom.
Within the friendly parts of the TG constituency (note I deliberately resist the word 'community', since time has proved to me it is anything but one), film depictions of loony or crazed TG characters bring out the wrath of those who speak to one another or write.
Primary examples of negatively stereotyping TG or TS characters, if it can even be qualified as 'stereotyping' per se, are 'Roxy' in "Basic Instincts," (Sharon Stone's live-in girlfriend who liked to watch; and, the biggie of all time, the TS wannabe abductor-murderer of women whose skins he was using to sew a woman's bodysuit for himself, in the ever so classic, "Silence of the Lambs"--starring one of the most famous out Lesbians of our generation, Jodie Foster, and one of the finest British actors who made the character of Hannibal Lecter all that it still is now: Sir Anthony Hopkins.
The reason I write with definite doubt that either of the latter two films were actually stereotyping is because in order to be stereotyping the characteristics being displayed have to already be strongly associated with the GROUP of people they are being attached to.
For instance, stereotyping a woman as hysterical is playing right into the old myth that women had "wandering wombs" which made them act hyper-emotionally or hysterical. Women were even diagnosed with "Hysteria" in early 20th century psychiatric medicine. Women have been type cast as being hyper emotional in contrast to equally type cast men who are portrayed as callously reasoning, emotionally distant and unfeeling. These are gender stereotypes being played out. A similar sort of stereotyping happens that is highly racist (across many ethnicities). Note, how Clint Eastwood, in "Gran Torino" is cast deliberately as a primary bigot! Hardly a word exudes from the character he plays that isn't supremacist. But, by doing so in the context of this film's brilliant plot, Eastwood's bigotry is revealed to be so totally obnoxious and toxic to HIM that this is the film's great achievement. (In his character's case, he's a WWII veteran who's still anti-Asian at the very least). His neighbors are Asian. His neighborhood has turned into "the hood" loaded with minority-statused youths acting out violently--which Eastwood's character is opposed to THEM DOING. However, the plot starts to twist considerably when Eastwood's character becomes openly protective of his Asian neighbors.
The film should be a classic and withstand the tests of time because it is literally like a snap shot of inter-generational variations that are truly being played out in too many sectors of US society today. Classist stereotyping is also a central theme thread throughout the film. For instance, the Asian teen boy who's been set up by a gang to steal Eastwood's character's classic Ford Gran Torino, is playing right into that ghetto minority-statused teen stereotype who is a thief associated with a gang of teen thugs up to no good. But, his sister turns those stereotypes upside down while she's interacting with Eastwood's character, ball-busting his pre-conceived notions of 'All Asian People's' characters.
I've waxed on as usual... which is why I won't write often on any of the forums here or elsewhere. However, you posed a GREAT question, BruceChris. I went off associatively after answering that question. But to wind up my actual answer: "NO WAY, I DO NOT KNOW A MAN OR WOMAN WHO HAS CROSS DRESSED IN ORDER TO ASSAULT A WOMAN OR ANY ONE OR THING ELSE."
I know the filmography of such a portrayal, however ("Dressed to Kill," 1980, is the most classic depiction I know about, of a man dressing as a woman for the specific purpose of killing a woman). And, let's not forget that in "Basic Instincts," there was a woman who kind of cross dressed in order to murder a man detective. More of a disguise, but still with gender leanings (because her disguise remained as a woman but also as a cop who could easily be assumed to be a guy).
Waxing on, your question is so infectious, Shakespeare's "green worlds" are much more fascinating gender benders to consider; because in them men actors playing women, cross dress as men who, by so doing, are able to transcend the Renaissance roles of women to become as influential or powerful as men! (Thinking of the most well known example of a man actor playing a woman, going into a forest with their chamber maid in order to transform into a guy & rescue her sweetheart from having to cut a "pound of flesh" out of himself, to pay a debt to a merchant, in "The Merchant of Venice." But, that's double reverse gender bending! Guys playing gals (because there were no 'known' women actors in the 1500's doing Shakespeare's plays) DRessed As Girls (hence, the word DR.A.G was Shakespeare's plays' written costume instructions' anagram & could have originated from the great playwright).
My point is that even in some of the most choice classic stage plays of all time, cross dressing is used as a means to create fantasies that have eventually become actualized. Obviously, Shakespeare knew tons of guy actors who dressed as girls on stage. All of his gender benders were done in order to provide women with equal power as men.
When Gene Hackman does it in "The Bird Cage," and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon cross dress in the all time Bill Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond classic, "Some Like It Hot," it's hilarious comedy precisely because they are not trying to be women. They are only wearing gender variant disguises in order to escape unwanted attention (in the latter instance, being gunned down by the Chicago mob).
Thanks for offering a scrumptious question. Very kindly, m~d (michael~deborah Gray)
(...nso, BruceChris, when & where do you want to discuss that commonality, I believe you mentioned in 2006?, we may have--likely for very different reasons--for having chosen to expose ourselves with double 1st names? Name the Soulforce forum, I'll join you, whenever and if ever you're game).