The jargon used in the transgender community can be confusing to outsiders and is hotly contested within the community. This page sets out Mercia’s spin on some common terms.
Admirer – a non-trans person who is attracted to trans-people. They are often courted by trans venues, which advertise nights for trans people and their admirers, in fact the trans venues require them, as they usually buy the drinks.
Cross-Dresser [CD] – an English translation of the Latin derived transvestite. This is by far the largest group among the transgendered community. Technically, a transsexual is cross-dressing when they dress as their birth gender.
Gender Binary – the notion that there are just two genders, male and female, and that society should distinguish between these two genders in a in absolute way, without any allowance for those who do not fit the society’s normal defintion of male or female. The gender binary is usually defended as something that is beyond question, because males and females are physically different, but this ignores the many people with one or other of the conditions that are often termed inter-sex. At the non-physical level this binary is also challenged by those who either do not want to accept the place on the gender binary assigned to them (e.g., transsexuals or some butch lesbians) or those who reject the restrictions of the gender binary (e.g., cross-dressers or gender queers). Most societies in the world, however, are organised on the basis of the gender binary, and that binary tends to be supported by the vast majority of the population, including many who identify as trans or inter-sex.
Gender Variance – a term used increasingly (especially in legal and medical circles) as a neutral alternative to the negative Gender Identity Dysphoria. Some transsexuals reject the term as they see variant as another word for deviant. On the other hand, gender variance has the advantage of including the full spectrum of gender, whereas Gender Identity Dysphoria is an offical diagnosis of wanting to switch from one gender to another.
TGDOR – see Transgender Day of Remembrance
Trans [T] – In the United Kingdom, the preferred catch-all term as transgender meant different things to differnt people.
Transgender [TG] – originally meant someone who lived as a (wo)man, but did not have their (fe)male genitalia surigcally altered. It has now come to be used as a catch-all term for all people of gender variance, including transsexuals, tranvesitites, cross-dressers, androgynes. In general, the term does not include inter-sexed persons, although an inter-sexed person may also have gender variance. In the United Kingdom, the preferred catch-all term is now trans.
Transgender Day of Remembrance – held on 20th November around the world, although many places choose to have a Transgender (Sun)Day of Remembrance if the actual day falls mid-week. See http://www.transgenderdor.org/
Transvestite [TV] – cross-dressers often seek to assure people that they are not transvestite, but this is in fact an older term drawing on Latin words. Cross-dresser is a translation into English of transvestite. Trans is Latin for cross and vest is from the Latin word for clothes or dressing. Being an older term, tranvestite has gathered some negative connotations that some wish to be distanced from and so use cross-dresser instead. For a definition of tranvestite see Cross-Dresser.
Transsexual [TS] – those whose gender variance is such that they identify as being a different gender to the one they were raised as. It should not be limited to those who must seek surgery as many transsexuals live fulfilling lives as themselves, despite being unable or unwilling to undergo surgery.
