I think it makes a difference to the health care community and health insurance. There needs to be a distinction between individuals who want surgery for cosmetic reasons (i.e. they want boobs with no other surgery and they do not experience significant distress and impairment over presenting male), vs. those who need the surgery because without it, they would experience significant distress and impairment over being, presenting, and living male ... which is the DSM definition of Gender Dysphoria. So should these two groups of people be identified the same way for the purpose of health insurance?Originally Posted by flatlander_48
Also, spouses and partners need to know if their other half identifies as a man, woman, sometimes one and sometimes another, both, or neither. I agree that to the general populace, anyone who is not cis fits under the transgender umbrella (see my note below), but you do need more precise definitions when communicating to healthcare professionals, spouses/partners, and even among ourselves if you want others to gain an appreciation of who you are, exactly.
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Note about being classified under the "Transgender" Umbrella:
When my SO dresses and goes out, people don't stop to ask if my SO is a CDer, TG, TS, Drag Queen, Androgynous, or whether my SO has had her penis removed, or whether my SO lives like this all the time. lol. It is likely they classify my SO a number of different ways based on their personal knowledge, which likely is limited to what they read in the news. Since the media insists of calling transitioning TSs "Transgender" and transitioning TSs are more in the news than CDers, it is likely the people we run across believe my SO to have transitioned, like Jenner, which means they likely see her as they see Jenner: someone who used to be a male and who now lives as a female, vs. someone who was born female. Also, my SO is not about to hang a sign around her necks proclaiming to strangers that she is attracted to women and lives as a male most of the time, and so really, anyone who is in my SO's shoes just needs to allow strangers to come to the conclusions they will come to which is, the person they are looking at is "transgender", whatever their definition of that term is.
That said, if a CDer who identifies as a straight male is out to friends and family, he is perfectly free to tell these people he is not TG like Jenner, he does not plan on living full time and he is not asexual like Jenner (I heard her say this in a video), nor is he male-attracted, etc. Anyone can control the message they give about their identity to the people they know. It may take 10 words instead of one, but it's doable.
Likewise, a person who identifies as gender-fluid and who does not intend on fully transitioning is perfectly free to communicate this to family and friends, and to correct their impression of what "Transgender" means if these family and friends take it that it means eventual legal and physical transition and living full time.
