I had assumed it meant someone who had undergone hormonal treatments, surgery, etc. and had actually changed their gender. But having read the figure of 1.4 million transgender Americans, including up to 15,000 in the military, I am wondering if it has actually come to include all who are uncomfortable with their “assigned” gender and might some time in the future undergo actual reassignment treatment.
Just the facts, please.
A trans person wouldn’t say that the surgery changes their gender; they’d say it confirms it. There’s a difference between saying “I am a man but I want to become a woman” and “I am a man trapped in a woman’s body therefore my body needs surgery so that it matches me”.
Also remember that, as with any label, there will be many individuals who reject the label because they see it as inaccurate and other individuals who use the label in a way you didn’t expect.* If you find someone whose gender is indeterminate, with some characteristics of both male and female, perhaps even a combination of chromosomes other than XX or XY, such a person may call themselves “intersex” or they may choose the “transgender” label, even though the dictionary definition given above might not precisely fit that person.
*For example, many people who don’t believe in god dislike being called “atheists” because they feel that the word implies a level of certainty which they don’t feel. Also consider that some people who have dark skin dislike being called “black” because “brown” is a more accurate description, or because “black” carries connotations of sadness or even evil.
Not even; many (I don’t know if most) of the countries which have a procedure to change gender in legal documents do not require surgery, and many people do not undertake genital surgery. IIUIC, what confirms gender (which after all is a social construct and different from sex) is - being socially accepted as the gender you consider yourself to be.
Intersex and transgender are two different things. Intersex refers to a group of physical conditions (such as testosterone resistance by which XY people develop as if they were XX, or being born with two sets of genitals); transgender doesn’t have a physical way of measuring it, it doesn’t have something we can pop into a lab machine and say “yep, this person is transgender”.
Like all words, “transgender” means what it means to the people to whom it has meaning.
It has a dictionary definition, embraced approved and promoted by inclusive-thinking transgender activists, of “a person whose gender does not match the gender to which they were assigned at birth”. And in that sense it not only includes people who view the body in which they were born to be wrong or inaccurate, but also people who choose, without undergoing physiological modification, to present as the sex that does match their gender so that people will assign to them the gender that they actually are, which is different from the gender assigned at birth; and it includes intersex people insofar as they identify, genderwise, as anything other than the gender to which they were assigned at birth whether they currently identify as a man, a woman, an intersex person, or something else; and it includes genderqueer people and gender atypical or gender variant people of any other conceivable variety.
But in real life, based on how it is actually used and what it brings to mind, it means what transsexual used to mean: a person born of one sex who comes to understand themself as being of the other gender, for which purpose they present as and/or make physiological modifications so as to live their lives as the sex opposite of which they were born: male to female, or female to male transitioning people.
ETA: Part of the reason it has that strong meaning is that “transsexual”, as a term, has fallen by the wayside. So “transgender” took over its meaning.
Most intersex people and a great many genderqueer people do not use the word “transgender” for that reason — it doesn’t convey accurate information about us, we have another more specific word or term that does, and we prefer that one instead.
As far as I know, transgender has never just referred to people after surgery–not that there even is one specific surgery anyways. It just means someone who had originally presented as one gender, but now presents at another gender. At some point, that “another” was “the opposite,” but we’ve started denying the binary nature of gender.
Because people enter the military at age 18, and most refuse surgery until the person is an adult, it is quite likely that most trans folk in the military did not have surgery before entering. And while some may need surgery to correct their gender dysphoria, many do not.
And, again, there’s no just a single surgery. There’s top and bottom surgeries, and then other things such as vocal feminization, facial modifications, etc. Many trans women only get top surgery, as creating a vagina is not easy. Because creating a penis is even harder, it’s my understanding that most trans men do not get bottom surgery.
Most people who are transgender and transition never get surgery, though most would like to. A majority do include hormone treatments, so a majority of transitions involve medical treatment but not surgical treatment.
The word “transsexual” is sometimes used to refer specifically to a person having transitioned with surgery. But it’s also sometimes used as an old-fashioned, clinical sounding synonym for “transgender”, which generally is deprecated. Vocabulary in this area is evolving. It’s probably better to avoid using the word, but if you come across it these are two possible meanings to try to extract from context.
“Transition” means simply to announce one’s true gender identity and live accordingly, if one is transgender. Transition is, at least, a social action. It may also be medical or surgical.
And the reasons why they don’t get surgery vary, too. For some, it’s simply financial: They may or may not have insurance, and the insurance may or may not cover surgery, and even if it does, they might consider the co-pays too high. Some might not want the risk of complications that always come with any surgery. Some might consider the current state of the surgical art to not be good enough, and might prefer a perfectly good penis to an imperfect vagina, or vice-versa, or might want to wait until the medical technology advances further. Some might consider the surgery irrelevant, since it won’t affect how society regards them, and the only people seeing their genitals will be those who’ve already accepted them for what they are. And some might even prefer to be “a woman with a penis” or “a man with a vagina”, and wouldn’t even want surgery if it were cost-free, risk-free, and perfect.
So when did the term come into widespread use?
Thx. Ignorance (mine) fought.
The 1990s to the present, according to Google Ngram.
(I threw the term “transsexual” in as well, as I seem to recall it can be considered both as an archaic term and as a way to differentiate between fully transitioned men and women and people claiming a nonbinary identity.)
Well, “transsexual” was in use since as least as far back as the 1950s: Christine Jorgensen. In 1979-80 when I was sorting out my own gender issues the “poster child” for being transexual was probably Jan Morris (Conundrum: From James to Jan).
I don’t recall when I first heard “transgender” instead, but 1990s seems about right. As it came in, “transsexual” became associated with a lot of negative stuff, objectifying porn stuff and so on. I’m pretty sure “transgender” was intended to be a much wider umbrella term right from the start: that it wasn’t supposed to apply only to those who were taking hormones or obtaining surgery, or even to those who might wish to, but instead meant anyone whose gender was other than conventionally expected. Problem is, that’s a complex notion for a lot of people: “Whadda fuck’s that mean, ya gotta dick and ya say yer a chick but yer keepin it, then what makes you a fuckin chick huh?” And as “transsexual” became tagged as a slur or an offensive term, “transgender” was used everywhere “transsexual” had formerly been used, so all those new meanings stayed kind of hidden in the shadows.
There are a fair number of people who not only haven’t transitioned yet but who furthermore haven’t the vaguest interest in doing so, who do not regard their bodies as wrong but identify as the opposite (or at least a different) gender, who do indeed identify as “transgender”. But they aren’t always readily accepted by transgender people who are indeed transitioning (or did, etc etc).
And, as I said before, there are also a lot of us who fit that identical description but who don’t identity as “transgender” and choose some other term.
It’s hard to see in the date range I selected in the link, but the chart for “transsexual” does show a couple of small blips in the late 1940s and in the mid 1950s. These seem to match up with the initial Jorgensen story, along with Cauldwell and Benjamin getting published. The term seems to take off a few years later.
I see transgender being a preferred term. Transexual emphasizes the sexual part (attraction, equipment, and acts) rather than the identity part of the person.
The current term prioritizes what in in the person’s mind over what is between their legs.
A bit of a hijack here.
What’s the preferred term for a person who identifies with the gender assigned at birth but gets sexual stimulation from presenting as the other gender? I have a former BIL like this – assigned male, identifies male, but gets sexually stimulated by wearing women’s clothing.
Also, I’m under the impression that people like this are almost entirely men dressing as women*. Why aren’t there more women who find dressing and acting like a man a sexual turn-on?
A woman who dresses like a man is regarded as mainstream, or very close to it. You can’t make a big personal statement by doing something that millions of other people not making that statement also do.
As to your question, if they’re doing it via clothing, then the term is either “transvestite” or “cross-dresser”. The former is more clinical, but I’ve been informed that the people involved generally prefer the latter. I don’t know if either term applies to non-clothing forms of presentation (hair style, makeup, etc.).
The association of dress with gender is very much a social thing. When I was a kid (a loooong time ago), a woman wearing slacks would have been considered a cross-dresser. Even longer ago, it was common for toddler boys to wear dresses. So being a cross-dresser is just about pretending to be of the opposite sex. I’m not sure how a woman can be a cross-dresser nowadays. Maybe a brushcut? But that’s not something you can put on and take off.
I’ve known several female extended family members who were excommunicated from the Mennonite Church for wearing pants … there’s a Biblical prohibition somewhere about cross-dressing (first covenant stuff) … for these women it was the simple practicality of better leg protection while working the fields …
I think what we see is women taking the basic men’s clothing and feminizing them to some degree … mostly by bring in at the waist and pleating the hips … a businesswoman in business attire is still clearly a woman … whereas a cross-dressing woman will wear clothing cut for men, loose in the crotch and straight down thought the waist and hips … men’s haircut, no make-up … and of course the most important is a man’s bearing, thus one of the many transgender rolls …
My ex-wife had a body image problem, so to be helpful I decided to prove to her it was all in her head by donning one of her dresses … unfortunately I make a size 12 dress look hot … [sigh] … she never forgave me for that …
OK, so a Mennonite woman might be able to make a big personal statement by wearing men’s clothes, then.
Does it have to be sexual stimulation, though? Are there not guys who like to dress up as women, but not as part of a sexual act?