They wore 'gowns, petticoats, head-cloths, fine laced shoes, furbelowed scarves, and masks some had riding hoods some were dressed like milk maids, others like shepherdesses with green hats, waistcoats, and petticoats and others had their faces patched and painted' (Trumbach, p. Many of the mollies wore women's clothing as both a form of self-identification and as a means of attracting sexual partners. London's homosexual subculture was based around inns and public houses where 'mollies' congregated. By the eighteenth century, many cities in Europe had developed small but secret homosexual subcultures.
Even before the twentieth century, transvestism and cross-dressing among men were associated with the act of sodomy.
