Transgender = Transsexual ???? Since When?

[Candice Mae]

Ok, Candice, let's work that out for our mutual benefit.

I *do* have GD, but I'm in a special place where I don't have the slightest desire or need to 'correct' that.

I GET that people could do 'choice A' from column 1, I also understand that that is not the only available choice. Much less the best choice.

I can be a swishy girl all day long in boy-jean shorts and a T. I allow myself the room to wear girl clothes in order to validate myself. My wife is jealous of my 'girl mode' wardrobe. She gives me grief only because I can wear 'prettier' stuff than her, and that I get two wardrobes to her one.

I allow and enforce myself to be FEMALE while inhabiting an XY body. I FEEL female. I *interact* as a female. I am a girl in a stupidly male body.

I'm all here for discussion, sweetie.

- MM

MM, none of my comments have been completely directed at you. I referenced a CIS male CD, you've asked questions and I've obliged and answered them. I'm just giving examples based on what you've asked to convey my opinion, I can not speak for you or label you.

Not all TG people have to transition or transition fully (SRS).

As for the acting "girly", I've met a few gay men that act more feminine then some women I know, does that mean that they have GD or are TG? Vise versa I have a friend that is always right in there with the guys hunting/fishing/rebuilding engines/ and carpentry and she is 100% female. Societies gender norms and constructs can not be used to define a persons gender identity.

[mechamoose]

Hi Candice,

None of our members should feel compelled to go 'all the way or go home', (which is not what I think you want)

I don't have the slightest desire to transition. However, I have faced issues relating to identity for many years in the LGBTQ space trying to identify *where* exactly I fit.

I just know that 'sports' bore me. I'm an IT techie, but I could care less about the difference between a swordsmith and a jeweler.. they both were doing precise work with elements. Both have specific things which require focus. It is more (to me) about 'roles'.

I don't care which place it was, bi, gay, bear, het, poly, furry, cosplay, RPG.... it was always the same question... 'where are you in OUR spectrum?'

They *all* viewed me as a 'deviant'.

Gays thought I was trolling 'easy meat'.

Straights thought I was 'undecided'.

Bis? Bis were already too busy stuck on trying to figure out how to fit in.

I'm a bull-male who feels most at home presenting as (traditionally) female. You want to criticize that?... Which traditions? Which cultures? GREAT questions!!

Some of our kind were apostates, some were holy people. It all depends on the cultural lens, yes? (Click my SIG links, please)

I did last Thanksgiving in a floor length skirt (as the cook/host) and nobody said a word. Wouldn't you like to have that kind of acceptance?

- MM

[Lorileah]

MM I am a hell of a poker player BTW..

DeeAnn, you hit all the bullet points.

Gender is defined in two parts physically and mentally, the physical part can be changed to co-inside with the mental part to make TS's who they are in mind and body. To me some one that is a CIS gendered male and wears a dress and acts in his mind "Feminine" is as much TG as a cat is a dog. If there is no gender dysphoria is the person really TG? Or just an actor/actress wearing a costume and playing a role? Some CD's may like to think that their need to dress runs deeper, but in the end it is usually just for sexually gratification.

Missing the point you are making I guess. You have to transition or at least consider yourself a TS to have any gender dysphoria? That really smacks of elitism making people different class levels. Tell me, specifically, what exactly do you have to mentally feel to be trans (either sexual or gender)? Because if there is a test, I need to know so I can stay where I am. Sorry but in my path, sexual gratification was a HUGE part early one, so did I grow into being a TS or was I lying to myself at the time? I really do want to know what mental thing you have to have that makes you dysphoric.

One issue I see with the TG spectrum is the feeling of "I am more>>>>>than you." The distancing ourselves because we don't think someone is at our level.

OK you don't want to have everyone under your umbrella because you think something makes you different or better? But why? Again, I have to direct your attention to history. How certain peoples always have considered themselves "more". I do understand that CDs don't believe that things that effect the Transsexuals are important to them. I can understand that they may see this as an "I can quit anytime, thus I don't need laws, or rights or protections that the TSs need." But they are wrong. It isn't a transsexual rights thing, it is a HUMAN rights thing.

For the 100th time here I have to cite Neimoller

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

We are all in the same boat, it would make life easier if we all rowed together. Call yourself what you will, but don't marginalize any other part of our community. Like they say, "Don't muddy the water around you, you may have to drink it soon"

[Candice Mae]

Okay, its getting late... But I feel that I need to reply now or I'll have half the board accusing me of being the leader of the new third reich (been playing Wolfstein this weekend) when I wake up. First off, I want to say that there is nothing wrong with CDing, as long as you are not hurting anyone you are free to do as you please. Second please don't nit pick my posts, in my original post I said that I agree that CD's should have their place under the TS umbrella/Spectrum or whatever you want to call it. Go look its there in the second sentence, I'll wait while you do. Third my post seamed to be interpreted as that I think all CD's are not TG, but all I did was say that I believe that a CIS male CD is not TG. I was just trying to point out that even though I feel that CD's should have their place under the TG umbrella, not all CD's are TG.

Lets look at some definitions;

Transgender (TG);

Transgender is a term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex the doctor marked on their birth certificate. Gender identity is a person's internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or someone outside of that gender binary). For transgender people, the sex they were assigned at birth and their own internal gender identity do not match.

Cisgender (CIS);

Cisgender is a word that applies to the vast majority of people, describing a person who is not transgender. If a doctor announces, “It's a girl!” in the delivery room based on the child's body and that baby grows up to identify as a woman, that person is cisgender.

The point I was trying to make is that not all CD's have gender dysphoia, some are CIS males that wear a dress on the weekend and identify as male and their desire to dress goes away after their sexually gratified. So therefore not all CD's are TG, because as stated above to be TG you have a gender identity that differs from your birth gender. Too me it seams that some CDs think their TG just to make themselves accept their CDing and there actions while dressed. Its similar to how members post here that they only think about being with a man when they are dressed, the clothes you wear has no effect on your gender or sexuallity. The clothes just allow you to let your guard down and explore more of your self that was bottled up due to you being confined by social construct.

[Zylia]

Interesting discussion! I get what Candice is saying: someone who's cisgender is not transgender, that's because these words are literally mutually exclusive. The question is if someone who crossdresses can be cisgender. If you 'dress on the weekend' for sexual gratification, doesn't that imply some amount of ambivalence between your identity and biological sex? Is something sexual not real?

What's the difference between 'thinking you're TG' and 'knowing you're TG'? How do you know you're TG unless you think it? Is there something to be measured to determine your 'TG-hood'? The amount of TG blood cells in your blood? The size of your brain hemispheres? The length of your index finger?

[Nigella]

Going back to the OP, with due deference to all responses so far, Plain and simple response,

Do you equate the word Transgender to mean either

a. Transexual

or

b. An umbrella term for the whole community

simply put, would you say a or b?

[Marcelle]

Arrg . . . soup anyone?

As I stated earlier, I'll go with option "b" . . . umbrella.

. . . Gender is defined in two parts physically and mentally, the physical part can be changed to co-inside with the mental part to make TS's who they are in mind and body. To me some one that is a CIS gendered male and wears a dress and acts in his mind "Feminine" is as much TG as a cat is a dog. If there is no gender dysphoria is the person really TG? Or just an actor/actress wearing a costume and playing a role? Some CD's may like to think that their need to dress runs deeper, but in the end it is usually just for sexually gratification.

Candice,

I am sorry, did I get left off the mailing list for my TG welcome package with the checklist of whether you are or are not Transgender . . . hmm if you do A and B but not C, D, E . . . you are not in the club?

Perhaps the number one rule of Transgender Club should be "Nobody talks about Transgender Club and what it means"

Hugs

Isha

[ReluctantDebutant]

I believe by their very nature all those that are under the TG umbrella; CD, TS, genderqueer, ambigender, gendernoncomformist, etc, are very independent and individualistic. They aren't likely to be hemmed in by societal definitions so it is unlikely that all would settle under the new definitions. This is a group of people who want to define themselves. Debates on what transgenderism means will always have two sides the Dictionary definition or the more personal definition of the individual TG. The arguemnet boils down to which one means more to whom.


As to Candice's points I do believe if a born male cross-dresser identifies as male he is technically by definition cisgender. I mean if we are going by definitions. Perhaps cross-dressing is an overlap between the trans and cis realms?
Or maybe cross-dressing is like a tomato technically a fruit but often thought of as a vegetable. You don't put CD-tomato in a cis-fruit salad with all those cis melons, strawberries, banana, and grapes. No CD-tomatos go better with all those trans-vegetables like trans lettuce, onions, cucumbers, and cabbage, cover it all in dressing. And one thing we know about CDs is that they love dressing.

[Ellie52]

cover it all in dressing. And one thing we know about CDs is that they love dressing.

Totally true, and I love the satire. My kind of humor.......Ellie

[mechamoose]

MM, none of my comments have been completely directed at you.

I never thought they were, honey. I'm sorry if my replies made you feel like I thought that.

As for the acting "girly", I've met a few gay men that act more feminine then some women I know, does that mean that they have GD or are TG? Vise versa I have a friend that is always right in there with the guys hunting/fishing/rebuilding engines/ and carpentry and she is 100% female. Societies gender norms and constructs can not be used to define a persons gender identity.

I'm Bi. I'm not Straight, I'm not Gay, I like broccoli AND cauliflower. The only issue I *might* have is the either/or thinking. None of us are at the extreme ends of any scale we could use, we all lie somewhere in-between... not just in presentation, but in identity. This includes orientation as well as presentation. I challenge the idea that people need to 'choose' which end of that double-scale they inhabit. We all live somewhere in the middle.

- MM

[flatlander_48]

For the 100th time here I have to cite Neimoller

I think the strength of the Pastor's words is reflected in the fact that after all these years, the words are STILL true.

Like they say, "Don't muddy the water around you, you may have to drink it soon"

My corollary would be "Even birds know better than to shit in their own nests...".

The point I was trying to make is that not all CD's have gender dysphoia

This is a guess. My statement that I suspected that crossdressers probably do have a bit of dysphoria is also a guess. Sexual gratification may be a different subset, but I don't think so. For whatever reason, the person has decided to it is OK to cross that gender boundary. Clearly that is different from the population at large. Of the multitude of methods for sexual gratification, why choose this one? Most in the population at large would not consider this one. That's why I think a bit of gender dysphoria is involved. Unfortunately, analysis by a clinician is the usual way to determine dysphoria and it is a bit impractical for EVERYONE to do!

simply put, would you say a or b?

"b"

Perhaps the number one rule of Transgender Club should be "Nobody talks about Transgender Club and what it means"

I:

I think that would be a real WTF moment for Chuck Palahniuk!?!?!?

DeeAnn

[Kaitlyn Michele]

So how are transsexuals part of an "umbrella" with guys that like to dress on occasional weekends for pleasure?(sexual or not)..
HOw are women under the umbrella with men? nobody can answer this apparently..
This is the majority of crossdressers....

They are no more part of a gender rainbow umbrella with people that live as women than any member of the human race ...i'm all for kumbaya and world peace too but it just makes no sense...
and those folks i'm referencing are the ones horrified that their wives would ever think they'd transition like many ts do...they don't want to be included with me..

and as a ts woman, i realize in some ways it doesn't matter, and i realize there is not much i can do about what the media does with labels, but i simply reject that label because its simply off base from reality, i reject the label as a matter of principle..

the terminology is very helpful for gender queer and bi gendered people, and in force you are all here and accepting of the term...it makes perfect sense for you...i like the term for you folks

but imposing the idea of tg umbrella on men and women that are happily in the gender binary is nothing but the opposite of what you decry when a gender queer person is labeled as "man"
your feelings about the term include inability to really understand what being a guy in a dress or being a transsexual is all about..

that's not to say we can't all be friends...and like i said, there isnt much i can or need to do about it...its not talked about very much in my life (altho my gay daughter joined an LGBT group that ended up being disbanded over militant discussion over this very subject!!!!)

but If i was walking down the street and being harassed for my height and appearance as a ts woman how many would step up and identify themselves as being under my "umbrella", am i to be lumped in with the group of guys that dress enjoy she male porn or that would want to date me because i'm trans?

[Tina_gm]

Just want to give an opinion that I do agree that we should be able to differentiate between someone who cd's for whatever reason and a person who identifies solely as opposite their birth gender. It is a disservice to all if there is not an accurate way to do so due to a current PC trend in terminology. What is used today will be deemed derogatory tomorrow. So whatever the PC group think trends, it's the ability to accurately identify oneself which is important. I personally feel that using TG as an umbrella term then using different terms identifying the variations works well. There are baptists, Methodists catholics. .. all are Christians. TG/CD/TS Is a good Way to identify the different aspects of gender variance

[emma5410]

Kaitlyn

I could not agree more.

[Pat]

So how are transsexuals part of an "umbrella" with guys that like to dress on occasional weekends for pleasure?(sexual or not)..
HOw are women under the umbrella with men? nobody can answer this apparently..

Was there a failure to answer? Try this: they end up under the same umbrella because they have characteristics in common. What characteristic? They failed to meet the expectations of a simple social ritual that works 97-ish percent of the time. That ritual is the cursory examination in the first moments after birth when the shaman incants, "Congratulations, it's a boy!" When that incantation is made a whole bunch of expectations are set. The important thing is that the person of whom it has been said has no input to the ritual. It will be years before he is able to learn the difference between the two things he could have been pronounced (boy or girl) and even longer before he can register an objection.

In the case of crossdressers the objection tends to be mild and the corrective action seems to be occasional instances of adopting the other gender's external markers and behavior. In the case of transsexuals the objection is much more strenuous and the corrective action is more extreme. But they have this failure to be classified correctly using traditional methods (which, again, are generally reliable) in common. So we group them into a collective noun, transgender, to keep pediatricians humble when they make the pronouncement.

Does that answer how crossdressers and transsexuals end up under the same umbrella? I think it does, but you might not. This thread has made it very clear that there are a lot of individual thinkers on this forum. All I can say is we are enriched, not diminished, by diversity.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

There is a still a failure to answer. I was never a man. You are a man(assuming you are not ts)..or perhaps you are a transgendered man...

You were correctly gendered , i was not.
it is not just a ritual, its nature...

you choose to step out of societies "rules" for men... i am not a man
I accept your self identification as a cd male or a tg male or GQ or bi gendered male or whatever you choose...

You just can't seem to accept mine as a woman..how does this enrich me?
ending up in the same umbrella as its called is mostly out of my control..but its still not right.

[flatlander_48]

So how are transsexuals part of an "umbrella" with guys that like to dress on occasional weekends for pleasure?(sexual or not)..

Similar to:

• We call SMARTcars and SUV's cars
• We call one-person experimental aircraft and 787's airplanes
• We call a $20 knit acrylic article of clothing and $400 cashmere knit articles sweaters

Specific to this discussion, we're speaking about crossing the gender boundary from your assigned at birth gender to the opposite one. I think the WHY is really irrelevant as what is discussed is a question of presentation and activity.

HOw are women under the umbrella with men? nobody can answer this apparently..
This is the majority of crossdressers....

As we are essentially talking about the Male to Female situation, I assume that you are genetically a male. For purposes of this discussion, to me all that is needed is crossing the boundary.

Further, continuing to split hairs does NOT serve anyone and only serves to make the population at large more confused and potentially more hostile. A message split into 37 gradients doesn't help anyone; with the possible exception of those who wish we didn't exist.

DeeAnn

[Pat]

There is a still a failure to answer. I was never a man.

But I'm assuming you were misidentified at birth because your minute-old body appeared male? Then everyone had to wait until you were old enough to enunciate the truth. So you fall into the category we call "transgender" -- what's the benefit to you about there being such a category? It gives us a way to tell society at large that this sort of thing can happen. I actually used a wrong number when I talked about the ritual of gender assignment -- it's actually correct 99.7% of the time according to the Williams Institute. That means we're trying to tell society they're wrong when statistics and experience tell them they're right and we're crazy. We are a vanishingly small segment of society -- 1 in 333 is the number for ALL transgender folks -- CDs, TS, Genderqueer, etc. It's like Horton Hears a Who all over again -- our tiny voices calling out to a giant society essentially unaware we exist. When I was a kid, transsexuals and transvestites were addressed under the heading "Abnormal Psycology." I.e. we were crazy. We could be institutionalized and medicated against our will. Now, decades later, we actually have Transgender Rights movements and Gender Identity protections (admittedly in the nascent phase.)

You just can't seem to accept mine as a woman...

Be careful about telling strangers what it is they believe.

[Candice Mae]

As I suspected I would wake up to members trying to blur the lines of black and white definitions, and thinking I mean them or all CD's when I've said time and time again that I was referring to CIS male genders CDs (NOT EVERY CD IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD). CDing is defined as the act of wearing clothes intended to be worn by the gender opposite of your own, I've already defined TG and CISgendered in a previous post. Those definitions are black and white your either one or the other, you identify 100% as your birth gender you are CISgendered, if you do not identify 100% with your birth gender you are TG. As I've said above I am not here to speak for you nor label you as either or, its just there's no way to deny the fact that there are CISgendered CD's so therefor there are not TG CD's. Clothing and cosmetics have no effect on your gender identity they can help express it, but you do not have to have gender dysphoria to wear/use them.

Definitions give us balance and order in the world, if we do not follow them we would be lost. If we want to continue down this path, I am now no longer a TS, I am now a GG we will just ignore the part of the definition that says GG's are born with vagina's not penis'. I am no longer going to argue this point as I got a busy few days ahead of me, I am going to go to the registries office and fix this M mistake on my drivers license, join the local woman's hockey team, and apply for access to the FAB forum....

Seams illogical doesn't it?

[emma5410]

As we are essentially talking about the Male to Female situation, I assume that you are genetically a male. For purposes of this discussion, to me all that is needed is crossing the boundary.


DeeAnn

You are missing the key point. TS may be genetically male but their gender identity is female. CDs are genetically male and most of them have a gender identity that is male. That makes us different. TS are not crossing the gender boundary. They are already on the other side.

[Rachel292]

The other thing is that we also use different terminology when talking amongst ourselves , and sometimes when 'muggles' use the same words phrases, we get offended. Additionally this is a worldwide forum and as language evolves. The meaning in one part of the world may be different to elsewhere.
Personally i'm still not sure how to describe myself (which pigeon hole to put myself in) . I am Transgender or Trans*. Crossdresser/transvestite ? TS?

[Nadine Spirit]

CDing is defined as the act of wearing clothes intended to be worn by the gender opposite of your own, I've already defined TG and CISgendered in a previous post. Those definitions are black and white your either one or the other, you identify 100% as your birth gender you are CISgendered, if you do not identify 100% with your birth gender you are TG.

Definitions give us balance and order in the world, if we do not follow them we would be lost.

I agree with your thoughts on definitions. I think that is what prompted me to write the OP initially. What I disagree about is which TG definition you used. What kind of confuses me is that some here pick which definitions should be followed. As a member here, foolish me, I looked at, read, and accepted the definitions provided by this site. Here is the working definition for TG as I see it.


Transgender: Adjective to describe a diverse group of individuals who cross or transcend culturally defined categories of gender. The gender identity of transgender people differs to varying degrees from the sex they were assigned at birth.


This definition clearly differs from what the media uses TG as and what is problematic for our discussion in this thread, is that many of us also clearly disagree with that definition. Personally I don't think it is problematic for me to read the definition of terms provided in the introductions section, and then say, hey if I am going to participate on this forum, then I will adhere to those definitions. In reviewing them again, I was struck by Reine's comment about how providing those definitions would put to rest to the endless debates about their meanings. Well Reine, that would only be the case if we could all at least agree to use those definitions at least while we are at this forum.

Oh well!

I do like Nigella's point that so many of you seem to have ignored. Your response to this thread could be a simple A or B.

[Katey888]

Just A or B Nadine (and Nigella...) - but where would be the fun in that...??? And seems like I missed the overnight fun too...

I think this needs to be addressed:

To me some one that is a CIS gendered male and wears a dress and acts in his mind "Feminine" is as much TG as a cat is a dog. If there is no gender dysphoria is the person really TG? Or just an actor/actress wearing a costume and playing a role? Some CD's may like to think that their need to dress runs deeper, but in the end it is usually just for sexually gratification.

and

Those definitions are black and white your either one or the other, you identify 100% as your birth gender you are CISgendered, if you do not identify 100% with your birth gender you are TG.

I've felt before here that some of those who are TS see the world in a much more binary way than crossdressers do. I can imagine it must be hard to comprehend that an individual can have not just aspects of masculine and feminine, as we all have that to some degree, but that those aspects need to have distinctly separate expressions. We don't suffer GD - permanently... we have something similar but fleeting and partial that drives us to express this part of us and the most visible way of doing that is the same way that a TS also expresses their true identity: visually through clothing and appearance.

No - we're not the same. We have similarities, and while the underlying cause may be related, chances are it is probably quite different. Lori has it right with the Niemoller quote, but a pithier variant on a theme is available from one of your own countrymen:

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

The TG umbrella IS arbitrary and it does clump some disparate groupings together, and while I can understand conceptually what it means to be TS, but struggle to understand why I need to do what I'm driven to do, if I feel comfortable supporting this umbrella, why wouldn't you want me?

And a further misconception:

you choose to step out of societies "rules" for men...

After all that's written on here with so many of us that struggle with a 'middle path' of part-time presentation, why do you continue to believe that all of us 'choose' to do this? Seriously - I'd love just to be able to just dress up as a civil-war re-enactor at weekends if it was about being an actor, but it isn't - and it hasn't been for fifty, freakin' years... Please give a little credence to the possibility that we might actually have some sort of condition that drives us to do this - a lot of the time it isn't fun to experience the conflict we undergo and the confusion that either cis-gendered or transitioned mis-gendered folk don't have (anymore).

Katey x

[Bridget Ann Gilbert]

Wow, I went away for a weekennd vaycay thnking this thread had just about run its course only to come back with an explosion of posts. O.k. since this is all about definitions how about this one from Mark A. Yarhouse, a researcher on transgenderism and gender disphoria:

"Transgender: An umbrella term for the many ways in which people might experience and/or present, express (or live out) their gender identities differently from people whose sense of gender identity is congruent with their biological sex."

I know some folks here have issues with how things get defined, but I prefer a more inclucive definition that leaves room for sub-catagorization. Maybe we should approach this from a biological perspective where we (biologists) create taxonomic catagories that are organized on the basis of increasing levels of similarity and serve as a means of defining classes of organisms. We could set up "Transgender" as a Family (one that is slightly disfunctional at times) and then create Orders that reflect everyone's different modes of TG expression or experience. In particular I'd like to hear from our TS sisters on an alternate term for themselves rather than the umbrella term. That seems to be what caused all the hoopla in the first place.

Bridget

[mechamoose]

I am trans-gendered.

I don't care what 'bits' you show at birth, that tiny person doesn't have the experience or knowledge to have any idea of who THEY are. I feel it is too much to assume that *any* child has that knowledge.

I think the TG vs CD definition is too harsh. I feel that the standard definitions are far too limiting. I think that if you are a bull-male who wants to have his 'vulnerable' parts addressed in confidence, then you could qualify as 'TG'. You are seeking acknowledgement for an 'off gender' trait. There is too much black/white thinking going on here.

It is all about roles and responsibilities in a pair bonding, isn't it?

Without the relationship, the role doesn't matter. Within the relationship it is crucial. You both have to cover all the bases/responsibilities, regardless of genetics. Our whole community is focused on how we don't match our genetics. We don't need to match them in order to fulfill our family roles.

None of us exist in a vacuum, our 'acceptance' is entirely reliant on the other monkeys in our family/tribe. We *all* want to be IN, instead of OUT.