Even the beefy American actor Wallace Beery appeared in a series of silent films as a Swedish woman. For instance, Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel occasionally dressed as women in their films. This was proceeded by cross-dressing in motion pictures began in the early days of the silent films. Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin write that animation has always 'hint at the performative nature of gender' such as when Bugs Bunny puts on a wig and a dress, he is a rabbit in drag as a human male who is in drag as a female. This includes some characters listed on the list of animated series with LGBTQ characters page, drag queens, drag kings, tomboys, janegirls and others who cross-dress.Ĭross-dressing generally runs counter to established gender norms and can be seen as a form of transgender behavior but it doesn't always indicate such an identity, even though popular media often 'lump cross-dressing and homosexuality together.' There is also the phenomenon of 'situational cross-dressing' where heterosexual characters cross-dress as a plot device or 'other non-gender-expressive reasons,' especially superheroes and supervillains. This is a list of characters who cross-dress, whether LGBTQ+ or not, in animated series. Bugs Bunny, an early example of a cross-dressing character, appeared in ladies garb or cross-dressed in at least 40 cartoons.