Transgender (pronounced /trænzˈdʒɛndər/ ) is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to diverge from the normative gender roles.
Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, or neither) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex). "Transgender" does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The precise definition for transgender remains in flux, but includes:
- "Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender roles, but combines or moves between these."
- "People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."
- "Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth."
A transgender individual may have characteristics that are normally associated with a particular gender, identify elsewhere on the traditional gender continuum, or exist outside of it as "other," "agender," "Genderqueer," or "third gender". Transgender people may also identify as bigender, or along several places on either the traditional transgender continuum, or the more encompassing continuums which have been developed in response to the significantly more detailed studies done in recent years.
Evolution of the term transgender
The term transgender (TG) was popularised in the 1970s (but implied in the 1960s) describing people who wanted to live cross-gender without sex reassignment surgery. In the 1980s the term was expanded to an umbrella term, and became popular as a means of uniting all those whose gender identity did not mesh with their gender assigned at birth.
In the 1990s, the term took on a political dimension as an alliance covering all who have at some point not conformed to gender norms, and the term became used to question the validity of those norms or pursue equal rights and anti-discrimination legislation, leading to its widespread usage in the media, academic world and law. The term continues to evolve.
Transgender vs. transsexual
The word transsexual, unlike the word transgender, has a precise medical definition. It was defined by Harry Benjamin in his seminal book "The Transsexual Phenomenon". In particular he defined transsexuals on a scale called the "Benjamin Scale", which defines a few different levels of intensity of transsexualism; these are listed as "Transsexual (nonsurgical)", "True Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "True Transsexual (high intensity)". Many transsexuals believe that to be a true transsexual one needs to have a desire for surgery. However, it is notable that Benjamin's moderate intensity "true transsexual" needs estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation." There also exist people who have had sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) but do not meet the definition of a transsexual, such as Gregory Hemingway., while other people do not desire SRS yet clearly meet Dr. Benjamin's definition of a "true transsexual". Beyond Dr. Benjamin's work, which focused on Male to Female transsexuals, there are cases of Female to Male transsexuals for whom surgery is often considered to be not practical.
Outside of the above medical definition there is a wide range of gender expressions which are contrary to the norm. Cross dressers, drag queens, transvestites, transvestic fetishist etc. It is notable that many transsexuals go through one of those self identifications before realizing that they are in fact transsexual.
Some transsexuals also take issue with the term because Charles "Virginia" Prince, the founder of the cross dressing organization Tri-Ess and coiner of the term "transgender", did so because she wished to distinguish herself from trans sexual people. In "Men Who Choose to Be Women," Prince wrote "I, at least, know the difference between sex and gender and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former". There is a substantial academic literature on the difference between sex and gender, but in pragmatic English, this academic distinction is ignored and "gender" is used mostly to describe the categorical male/female difference while "sex" is used mostly to describe the physical act.
There is political tension between the identities that fall under the "transgender umbrella." For example, transsexual men and women who can pay for medical treatments (or who have institutional coverage for their treatment) are likely to be concerned with medical privacy and establishing a durable legal status as men and women later in life. Extending insurance coverage for medical care is a coherent issue in the intersection of transsexuality and economic class. Most of these issues can appeal even to conservatives, if framed in terms of an unusual sort of "maintenance" of traditional notions of gender for rare people who feel the need for medical treatments. Some trans people might express this by saying "I don't challenge the gender binary, I just started out on the wrong side of it."
Transgender identities
While people self-identify as transgender, transgender identity includes many overlapping categories. These include cross-dresser (CD); transvestite (TV); androgynes; genderqueer; people who live cross-gender; drag kings; and drag queens; and, frequently, transsexual (TS). Usually not included are transvestic fetishists (because it is considered to be a paraphilia rather than gender identification). In an interview, artist RuPaul talked about society's ambivalence to the differences in the people who embody these terms. "A friend of mine recently did the Oprah show about transgender youth," said RuPaul. "It was obvious that we, as a culture, have a hard time trying to understand the difference between a drag queen, transsexual, and a transgender, yet we find it very easy to know the difference between the American baseball league and the National baseball league, when they are both so similar." These terms are explained below.
The extent to which intersex people (those with ambiguous genitalia or other physical sexual characteristics) are transgender is debated, since not all intersex people disagree with their gender assigned at birth. The current definitions of transgender include all transsexual people, although this has been criticized. (See below.)
The term trans man refers to female-to-male (FtM or F2M) transgender people, and trans woman refers to male-to-female (MtF or M2F) transgender people, although some transgender people identify only slightly with the gender not assigned at birth. In the past, it was assumed that there were far more trans women than trans men, but a Swedish study estimated a ratio of 1.4:1 in favour of trans women for those requesting sex reassignment surgery and a ratio of 1:1 for those who proceeded. There is a school of thought that says terms such as "FtM" and "MtF" are subjugating language that reinforces the binary gender stereotype.
The term cisgender has been coined as an antonym referring to non-transgender people; i.e. those who identify with their gender assigned at birth.
Transsexual
Main article: TranssexualTranssexual people identify as, or desire to live and be accepted as, a member of the sex opposite to that assigned at birth.
Many trans people desire to undergo gender transition. People who have transitioned, who do not necessarily identify as transgender or transsexual any longer, may identify as simply a man or a woman. Those that continue identifying as transsexual men or women may not want to ignore their pre-transition life, and may continue strong ties with other trans people and raising social consciousness.
Many transsexual people have a wish to alter their bodies. These physical changes are collectively known as gender reassignment therapy and often (but not always) include hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery. References to "pre-operative", "post-operative" and "non-operative" transsexual people indicate whether they have had, or are planning to have sex reassignment surgery, although some trans people reject these terms as objectifying trans people based on their surgical status and not their mental gender identity.
Cross-dresser
See also: cross-dressingThe term 'cross-dresser' is not exactly defined in the relevant literature. Michael A. Gilbert, professor at the Department of Philosophy, York University, Toronto, offers this definition: " is a person who has an apparent gender identification with one sex, and who has and certainly has been birth-designated as belonging to one sex, but who wears the clothing of the opposite sex because it is the clothing of the opposite sex." This excludes people "who wear opposite sex clothing for other reasons". Also, the group doesn't include "those female impersonators who look upon dressing as solely connected to
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