[Bit]

Originally Posted by apretty

this just keeps getting better. not really.

That is, I think, because it's completely derailed from Linus' original topic, which was about transmen and whether we ever stop calling them "trans" and just call them men.

Originally Posted by Dylan

Which is why I (personally) DO try to make an effort to distinguish btwn transgendered and transsexed (removing the sexual part all together, because most people tend to meld transsexual into sex and sexuality...which is archaic as far as I'm concerned)

Thank you for the new word! I'll do my best to use it from now on. You're right, having the word "sexual" in there draws attention in the wrong way--just as attention is drawn in the wrong way by the word "homosexual." We've probably all seen people get totally hung up on the "sexual" part of "homosexual" and try to reduce us all to nothing more than our sex partners. I guess it's probably the same kind of dynamic in both instances. Maybe that's one reason so many people think it's okay to demand info about a transexxed person's genitalia, because of the word "sexual" in "transsexual." *sheesh, sometimes it seems like the world is populated by three-year-olds when otherwise-adults get so obsessed with other people's body parts*

Originally Posted by Kobi

Ok I have no idea what you just said but it looks important. Can you elaborate?

Kobi, what I meant was, there's this word Transgendered that many people use an umbrella term for all those who don't fit the gender binary; when used in this way and applied to the word Butch, it means a Butch who might otherwise be described as third-gendered, other-gendered, gender-queer, male-identified, or any number of other ways. What these different descriptions all have in common is that they are about female-bodied Butches who do not legally transition because they are not men.

The confusion arises because the wider Transsexed community uses the word Transgendered as a synonym for Transexxed (Transsexual), makes no distinction between the two terms, and doesn't always recognize the usage of Transgendered to mean "transgressing gender binaries."

What's been happening because of that, is that people in our community now mean different things when they use the term transgendered--it just causes lots of confusion, especially when Transsexed men use the word transgendered about themselves. Everyone doesn't know what they mean, because of the other definition of transgendered that is about female-bodied Butches, yanno?

What causes MORE confusion is that so many of us abbreviate and just say "trans" instead of specifying one or the other, transgendered or transsexed. I'm guilty of that myself, although I am consistent and only say "trans" when I mean "transsexed."

Of course, when someone says "Transman" or "Transwoman" they are referring to transsexed individuals. I don't think there's any confusion about that use of "trans."

Does that help?