Clothing is an important means of adaptation in terms of protection throughout human history. However, while clothing has retained its basic function, it has also developed into a significant cultural symbol that helps individuals express their identities and define people.  Clothing, as an integral part of culture, defines social classes, gender roles, and ethnic/religious identities among individuals or groups. In terms of gender, cultural codes have established distinctions between men's and women's clothing. Therefore, in this context, the real messages of clothes are about how women and men perceive their gender identities or how they should be perceived. Cross-dressing, as the subject of this study, undoubtedly refers to the relationship between dress/clothing and gender.

In the study, the concept of cross-dressing (men wearing women's clothes and women wearing men's clothes) was discussed through theatrical village plays called Maşalama. The primary purposes of maşalama plays are theatricality and entertainment. However, the theatrical plays performed in village squares are not available to women's participation as actors and sometimes even as spectators due to public morality. Although women are excluded from this male entertainment culture, they are also included. The way women are included in these games is by the way of men wearing women's clothes and playing women's roles; in other words, cross-dressing is the practice of males physically dressing like women.. Thus, it will be possible to make an analysis of heterosexual relationships with the image of men and women represented in performances displaying the male body dressed in women's clothes or the female body dressed in men's clothes. The study also argues that gender roles are culturally constructed through clothing, but this construction is turned upside down through cross-dressing.