The prohibition on wearing the other sex’s clothing uses terms that shift with culture – why leave it undefined?
Q. In sefer Devarim where it speaks about the prohibition of cross dressing the terms for male and female clothing are different and on top of that the terms used for the clothing is not gender specific.
The Torah is purposely ambiguous on this prohibition, because the definition of male and female dress differs from place to place and from time to time. Especially today in the western world, where there is a conscious and ideological statement involved, wishing to blur the gender differences, one should be especially careful regarding this prohibition, for it has direct and indirect influence on the already and unfortunately weakened family unit and clarity of identity, something very problematic for Jewish identity in the western world.
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