I'm a writer so I'm in love with words too, but in my mind, intent has always trumped semantics. Semantics are important, as they help to convey intent, but I've never felt it was right to get miffed with someone using words you don't like without malice.
Sarah, you make good semantic arguments, but at the end of the day trying to be overly semantically correct will drive you insane, probably after it drives everyone around you insane. Words are wonderful, but imperfect. We need to be understanding of those imperfections.
Remember, male and female are more than just genders, they are also biological sexes. Also remember that our society has constructed male and female gender roles. Even if you always identified as a specific gender, if you were raised in one role and transitioned to another, those terms describe that. Those terms also describe the people who choose to utilize HRT and SRS to transition biologically.
I don't think MTF or FTM were ever meant to describe a change in identity.
I think it's important to recognize that the terms male and female describe both gender and sex, and these are two things that are different and not always congruent. From a biological standpoint, there are physical features that define your sex as male or female, even if your gender is incongruous with that definition. Sex is a physical, biological thing. Gender is an identity. Your gender can be constant, without requiring your sex to be so.
I'm not denying it's not all so simple. Things get more complicated with intersexed individuals, for example. It would probably be better if sex and gender weren't so tied up together in language, but that's what we have.
Also, you are of course always free to not identify yourself with any word or phrase you dislike. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine. It's perfectly acceptable to reject a word or phrase for personal reasons and ask others not to apply it to you. That doesn't necessitate getting irritated with the word or phrase itself, however.
Again, words are imperfect. We can get into the thought experiment of whether my "red" is the same as your "red," and go from there to a point where we render words rather useless. At the end of the day, words are just tools, icons to represent ideas.
Certainly, we should strive to be as accurate and clear as possible, but we can't push it to a point where we need a new word or phrase to describe every individual situation, else the lexicon would become impossible to wield. I know a world without labels is appealing to some, but it's really not feasible. We humans do so love our categories.
I'm rather new to this community and I'll be the first to admit I have a lot to learn, so please realize these are just my thoughts and I'm not trying to sound preachy. I hope I didn't give any offense.
