Considering that I'm seeing so many posts from people on my wall/feed recently calling out transphobia/transmisogyny/transantagonism, I wanted to try and write down some stuff on a fairly irregular basis to help give some insight to stuff.
All this is done with the caveat that unless I'm tossing out hard numbers, everything is opinion really. I can speak from my experience, and my experience is unique and mine. It is not the same experience any other transwoman will have, and certainly not the same as a transman. Some things remain universal, but so many are personal and individual.
There will be points I talk about...you know...sex...but hopefully from a more clinical standpoint. You have been warned.
Also, I'm going to be fairly surface level; unlike the Trans 101 posts my friend Zinnia Jones writes, which are amazingly deep and researched, I'm going to be looking at and discussing stuff that's a bit more immediate.
With all that said, let's dive in.
One thing that often gets thrown about is the purpose and necessity for labels. It is incredibly easy for people to say to a trans man or woman some or any or all of the following:
'Why do you feel the need to have a label?'
'Can't you just say you're a man or a woman?'
'When you say you're trans, you're just proving you're not a real (man)(woman).'
'You're just separating yourselves? I thought you wanted inclusion?'
Wow, let's unpack this, OK?
In a perfect world, yes, labels would be unnecessary. We'd just accept people for who they are, the world would be sunshine and butterflies, and rainbows would shoot out of my butt.
Also...in a perfect world I'd have been born with a functioning vagina, uterus, and ovaries.
Since neither of those things is a fact, we have labels.
Here's the thing about labels...yes, they can be divisive. They also signify a communal/community aspect. They express a set of lived experiences that are unique to that community, experiences that are often shared or understood better by those people in the community.
Saying 'I am a black woman' does not deny your essential womanhood; it does say 'My experiences as a woman are not lessened by being black; on the contrary, my being black and a woman gives me a set of experiences that are unique to my community. There may be, and often is, intersectionality with your community, but there are things that are unique to me because I am black as well as a woman.'
I do often preface my identifier with trans, usually in the form of transgirl (because despite the fact that I am a full grown woman, there is nothing at all diminishing about being a girl). I am proud of being trans...my experiences are coloured for better or worse by my transness. I will always be a woman, and I will always be trans. Erasing that part of my identity is erasing part of me. I don't stand for either, and no one else should. I am resplendent in my divergence and non-compliance.
Now, not everyone feels the way I do, I am sure. I am absolutely certain that there are many transwomen who think of themselves as women and women alone, and I think that's great. The thing about identity is that it is intensely and inherently personal and unique; just as you may like pumpkin pie more than apple, your identity is not lessened by the fact that I think pumpkin pie is of the devil. And mine is not superior because of that (even tho it totally is cos apple pie rules, pumpkin pie drools).
Having someone say that labels don't matter, and why do you have to call attention to your special snowflakeness, is the same thing as saying 'I don't see colour.' It's erasure. It's stating 'If only you could conform to my parochial belief system and be invisible, I'd be much happier.'
There are a lot of labels for us out there. It can get confusing. And I grok that know. When I was younger, and fighting with myself over my identity and trying desperately to be what I thought society demanded of me (and slowly dying in the process), I didn't get it either. It's much easier now...and as I meet people on here, my horizons expand even further. I never gave much thought to concepts such as genderfluidity, agender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, transfemme and transmasc, and so many others. Understanding that is like suddenly having more colours added to the spectrum...I can see better, and more vividly, as a result.
So...here's a list/glossary/thing. It is far from totally inclusive, and I am saying that up front. I am gonna have some words in here I hate. I don't use any of them. You really shouldn't either. I know some of them have been reclaimed, and I respect people who accept them. I am not one of them with the reclamation. I still respect the identity tho.
Here we go.
Trans: trans is a Latinate prefix that literally means "across, over, or beyond." For some of us, we use it to preface woman or man or girl or boy or boi or whatever.
Trans*: Really, probably don't use this. See, the idea behind this was to show that the trans community was more than binary...but the issue here is that the community is about as hegemonic as something that can't be hegemonic. I used to use it, I learned more, I stopped.
TERF: Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. A TERF is a hoofwanking bumblecunt. TERFs are a subgroup of radical feminism characterized by transphobia, especially transmisogyny, and hostility to the third wave of feminism. They believe that the only real women™ are those born with a vagina and XX chromosomes. They wish to completely enforce the classic gender binary, supporting gender essentialism.
Sometimes, "exclusionary" is expanded as "eliminationist" or "exterminationist" instead to more accurately convey the degree to which TERFs advocate for harm towards trans people, specifically trans people who were coercively assigned male at birth.
All TERFs are RadFems, but not all RadFems are TERFs. There are many radical feminists who embrace accept and protect their trans sisters and brothers. Do not call a RadFem a TERF unless they are actually a TERF. ALSO: most, if not all, TERFs are SWERFs. SWERF means Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist. I mention this because there is some cross over in the trans community between the two categories...the Venn Diagram is very interesting here...and trans men and women are this doubly excluded and stuff. Just a thing to keep in mind as we go along.
Autogynephilia: IS NOT A THING. Autogynephilia is the "mental illness" described by the theory that transgender women who aren't exclusively attracted to men actually have a sexual fetish for viewing themselves as female. This covers lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual trans women. It is discredited. It does not exist.
The theory is often accompanied by the notion that transsexual women attracted exclusively to men take an identical developmental route as homosexual, but are so overtly effeminate that they find it difficult to operate in life as even a gay man. And since these trans women are developmentally identical to gay men, they are labeled "homosexual transsexuals." (Never mind that trans people describe their sexual orientation in terms of their preferred sex, meaning that trans women attracted to men consider themselves heterosexual.)
It totally removes the existence of transmen. And since I know a few, they will be very shocked to know they don't really exist.
Transgender: Transgender is an umbrella adjective describing people whose gender is other than the one they were declared to be at the time of their birth. Under the umbrella are trans men, trans women, bigender people, those of a third gender, those who don't identify with any gender, and many more. To be absolutely precise, transgender is an adjective describing people who identify with a gender different from their assigned sex at birth (which often but does not always fall into the gender binary).
Transsexual: Transsexual is an adjective describing people who have physically transitioned to living with a different gender & sex than was assumed at birth, or desire to do so.
(Julie identifies as transgender, even though transsexual is in some ways a more cogent descriptor. See, identity IS personal!)
Crossdresser: A crossdresser, on the other hand, is a person who dresses as the opposite sex despite not identifying as such. The reasons for doing so vary, as it can be of a performance (drag), fancy dress or a sexual fetish.
Transfemme: A transfemme understands themselves, and/or relates to others in a more feminine way, but they don't necessarily identify as women. Feminine-of-center individuals may also identify as femme, submissive, transfeminine, etc.
Transmasc: Trasmascs understand themselves, and/or relate to others in a more masculine way, but don’t necessarily identify as men. Masculine-of-center individuals may also often identify as butch, stud, aggressive, boi, transmasculine, etc.
Transvestite: A transvestite is typically a male, often heterosexual, who regularly wears female clothing as a sexual fetish or as an act of expression of social defiance etc. It is totally not the same as a crossdresser.
Genderqueer: In addition to being an umbrella term, genderqueer has been used as an adjective to refer to any people who transgress distinctions of gender, regardless of their self-defined gender identity, i.e., those who "queer" gender, expressing it non-normatively, or overall not conforming into the binary genders, man and woman.
There are a lot of times Julie seems to present genderqueer rather than full femme, but that's because Julie is a lazy Trans girl.
Non-Binary: Often conflated with genderqueer. NOT AT ALL THE SAME THING, tho it can be. Non-binary includes such wonderful things as third gender, two-spirit, hijra, Fa'afafine, and more. Neutrois and agender can fit here, but not all agender people identify as non-binary and vice versa.
Enby: SEE NON-BINARY.
Agender: Agender is a term which can be literally translated as 'without gender'. It can be seen either as a non-binary gender identity or as a statement of not having a gender identity. Many agender people also identify as genderqueer, non-binary and/or transgender. However, some agender people prefer to avoid these terms, especially transgender, as they feel this implies identifying as a gender other than their assigned gender, while they in fact do not identify as any gender at all.
Preferred Pronouns: I really like the idea of just calling them pronouns, i.e., 'What are your pronouns?' but I am totally OK with preferred. Pronouns, like names, are huge. They are affirming. You should always ask if you're not sure. Many people are OK with the right binary pronoun. Some prefer the singular they. Others prefer non-gender specific pronouns such as ze, zir, sie, hir, co, ey and others. Respect the pronoun. And when in doubt, ask. Every time I have been asked it's told me that my identity is important to the person asking.
* takes deep breath *
Shemale: Oh god really please don't. Yeah, a LOT of porn is labeled as such. I get that. I know a more than small amount of trans sex workers (they are a huge part of my region of Trans Twitter), and they bemoan the fact that it exists, yet use it to have their work more easily found.
Tranny: * gags * I am not a car part that is an important part of the drive train. Yes, I use that line every time someone calls me that. I know this is a word that has seen some degree of reclamation. I won't be thank you very much.
Shim: *vomits* I also am not something used to keep windows in place. I can't believe this is really a thing but guess what? It is.
He/she: FFS if you're going to go that far use one of the ones above. I just got to see this one in use this week. I am not the least bit confused about my identity, but I am sorry that my identity gives you that same funny feeling in your stomach as when you were told you were getting ice cream as a treat. *skeeves*
Trap: Here's another one I've been called derogatorily, and yeah I was bothered by at while also feeling some degree of affirmation that they thought I passed that well. A slur for boys who dress like girls with the intent of 'trapping' innocent men thinking they were getting with a girl. Yes, it's also seen some degree of reclamation. Yes, it's used in porn too (one of the most famous trans sex workers, Bailey Jay, was once known as Line Trap).
There's more, I know. And I am sure some of my friends out there will point out where I came up short, and I will appreciate them for it and add their info to the piece.
I hope some of this was helpful. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below. I am open to questions, with the obvious caveat that there are some things that just aren't cool to ask.
Join us next time when we talk about names and how names are an important part of the self-knowledge process.
(NB: as always, this is posted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license with the intent that you may share it if you have found it informative, helpful, or enlightening. You may use extracts, properly attributed, as part of your work as long is it is openly shared under similar license.)
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