Transgenderism Defined
Understanding Categories of Gender Variance
A simple focused primer on the language of diversity, that provides the reader with a foothold in the landscape of non-conforming gender.
Defining the ever-shifting landscape of gender identity while acknowledging the inherent contradiction in this process is a difficult task. Why do we need this extensive categorization…this hierarchy of sex and gender? Perhaps sexual apartheid exists for the sake of mass-marketing and consumerism, power and control.
In any case, proper understanding of the language of gender apartheid allows you to know whether RuPaul (you do remember RuPaul) is a transvestite, a drag queen or a transsexual. Only RuPaul knows the answer to that question, for gender is self-defined.
“Transgendered” is an umbrella term that encompasses all gendered expression. The following definitions require that we employ stereotypes of male and female personality traits, despite the fact that absolutes of male and female do not exist.
One saying describes the difference between sex and gender this way: one’s sex is between the legs, one’s gender is between the ears. Transgendered means that one's inner sense of maleness or femaleness does not conform to societal expectations based on perceived genitalia.
In general, societal determination of an individual 's sex is a simple and more primitive process–when masculine traits dominate, we assume the presence of male genitalia, when sufficient femininity dominates, the person must have female parts. The condition of being transgendered contradicts prescribed patterns of expression.
Transgendered expression offers an infinite mixture of masculine and feminine characteristics. In the process of transgendering, an individual integrates a variety of gender traits without regard for established norms.
On the spectrum between male and female poles one’s identity usually fits into three very broad categories; those born male or female who experience little variation from the "norm"; those who identify with a sex other than their own; or those who neither identify solely with their opposite sex nor are typically male or female.
The labels of "crossdresser" and "transvestite" describe the need to express one’s self by wearing clothes of the opposite sex. Both expressions are now somewhat passé, except for their power to devalue the people in those groups.
Using the old definition of crossdressing as a yard stick, we are all transvestites. Men wear kilts without fear of recrimination, as long as the material used isn’t pretty or comfortable. In a way that escapes rationale, the use of certain words convey gendered qualities. Masculinity is not pretty.
Identifiers like "butch," "dyke," "trannyboy,' and "transman," represent subdivisions of transgendered women who present “masculine characteristics’ in varying degrees. "Ladyboy," "she-male," "he-she," "transwoman," and "fem" describe males who exhibit varying degrees of “feminine” characteristics.
“Drag”, generally accepted as an acronym, serves a dual meaning–Dressed As a Girl or Dressed As a Guy. The terms drag queen and drag king usually refers to female and male impersonators respectively in the field of show business.
"Transmen' and "transwomen" refer to transsexuals. Transexuals exist as a separate, yet overlapping group whose identification with the opposite sex requires medical intervention in the form of hormones and sex reassignment surgery, also known as SRS. Beyond the realm of surgical modification, individual transsexual expression encompasses a vast range of non-conformist behaviour that defies categorization.
The area of androgyny, also referred to as “unisex,” reflects an individual’s desire to abandon, or reject their identification with any sex or gender stereotypes. The style known as Goth is an example of unisex presentation. Genderqueer, while similar in many respects to androgyny, carries a radical component. Genderqueer is the purposeful contradiction of gendered presentation generally with political implications.
Gender expression and sexual preference, while overlapping, are separate categories. Transgendered people are gay, straight or bisexual without regard to their gender presentation. The language of same-sex attraction varies considerably from the mere description of gender: it links identification with a specific range of behaviors that focus more on sexual activity.
The freedom we allow others to define themselves is ultimately our freedom as well. As the great statesman Ben Franklin–who was a little queer but definitely not transgendered–once so eloquently said, ““We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
