Why I Stopped Using the T-Word: Transition

[traci_k]

Why I Stopped Using the T-Word: Transition

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephanie-mott/-why-i-stopped-using-the-t-word-transition_b_7279304.html?utm_hp_ref=transgender

Huffington Post Blog

Stephanie Mott Become a fan
Executive Director, Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project

Lately, I have stopped using the t-word with respect to people who are transgender. The t-word I have stopped using is not the pejorative that might come to mind. It is the word transition. For much of my eight years of teaching about what it means to be transgender, I was inadvertently teaching something I have come to understand creates a different understanding than the one I was trying to create. I talked about my transition. It made sense to me at the time. Today, I have come to know that I did not transition. I certainly did not go from being male to being female. I simply began to uncover the female who had been there all the time.

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So the question is, do we do ourselves a disservice in getting the cisgender world to understand that we are men or women  and we are not becoming the opposite of who we were, but becoming who we authentically are?

We got 17,000 plus members on this site, if this is the case, what, if any, better word or words could we come up with to describe our condition and subsequent rebirth as our authentic selves?

[suzifrommd]

Thanks for posting this Traci. It's an interesting perspective.

A perspective that I, unfortunately, happen vehemently to disagree with.

Policing people's language annoys them. And if we manage to get an ally's attention, don't we have better things to tell them than "Hey, stop using <word> and start using <other word>. Good. Thanks. Now go back to your regularly scheduled life"? I'd rather tell them about draconian rules for changing our documentation, about the way we're not allowed to serve in the military, about job and housing discrimination, about violence and harassment and that belief that we're choosing a lifestyle is still widespread.

We DO transition, from living as one gender to living as another, and casting about for another word for it and then trying to get the world to change seems like a big effort for a small (if not non-existent) payoff.

[traci_k]

Excellent point Suzi, that's why I thought I'd post this, to see if this was worth discussing, whether words can enlighten the cisgender populace or are there other more pressing issues. Or should those who focus on the issues as Stephanie Mott does as Director of the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project, try to find a better way to educate. We can't change the world, but we can focus on an aspect and work to improve that.

[marsh monster]

It seems that some want to keep changing the words to try and cloud things in an attempt to change perceptions and I think largely to make themselves feel better and I don't think it works. Be honest about it, its a big change, definitely a transition, why would we need to use another word.

[Lady Smith]

I know that when I made the journey to being fully myself all those years ago I accepted the language of the time about having the wrong body and changing from male to female.  At best those concepts were inadequately simplistic descriptions of myself and the journey I was making.  There was most definitely a process of change happening just as growing up, going through puberty and aging is a process of change where we still remain the same person, but also become different to how we were before.  As a catchall word I suppose 'transition' works, but I prefer to think of it as being a journey across the landscape of ourselves.

[Asche]

I agree with Suzi.

That article seems to turn the reality that we live with and the process many of us go through into a word game.  The people who don't understand what we mean by "transition" aren't going to suddenly understand because we start saying "uncovered the female who had been there all the time."  It reminds me of the way people try to erase the prejudice against the disabled or against African-Americans by constantly coming up with new words for them.

And where does it leave the people who don't transition?  Or the trans people whose relation to gender is not described by "the female who had been there all the time"?

[Lady Smith]

On the name game with disability I remember back when I was working in disability employment and some idiot from head office was talking to one of my clients. He said something about her being 'visually challenged' and she came right back at him with, 'Whatta ya bloody mean, - I'm BLIND!'

I worked a lot with blind clients and I very quickly learned to never never never assume they can't do something.  Good memories