Exactly. Erasure. Every single persons experience is unique, labels are only useful descriptors if their meaning is clear and agreed upon. I'm totally willing to accept that my experience falls under the transgender umbrella, but only insofar as it refers to sociological conditions. It's not a useful term to describe my experience as an individual because it has no medical connotations. I'm a woman with a transsexual past. That medical term implies treatment of a condition. People can identify as transsexual and not undergo any medical procedures at all, that is absolutely fine and in no way contradicts a persons right to identify as transsexual (I prefer the term transsexed, if we're being picky)
A perfect example of this happened to me the other day, I had to out my transsexual past to someone. She looked at me with total confusion and asked "Are you a hermaphrodite?" I laughed and said "No, and people don't really use that word anymore...." My point is, I explained I have a transsexual past. I've had medical interventions that have altered the physicality of my body. This is not the same experience as a drag performer or recreational cross dresser or an intersexed person or a genderqueer or a butch or a femme or any other descriptor one cares to use.
I'm not for a second saying that takin hormones or having surgeries excludes or includes anyone. The point is saying "I have a transsexual past" is shorthand for "I've undergone, or perhaps intend to undergo, various medical interventions to make my body more closely aligned to how I feel as a human"
It's not political, it's not separatist, it's not exclusionary, its simply using language to acknowledge someone's right to self definition and actualisation.
