Referencing The Styleguides On The Terms Transgender And Transsexual

[Shana A]

Referencing The Styleguides On The Terms Transgender And Transsexual
by: Autumn Sandeen
Sat Feb 14, 2009 at 15:30:00 PM EST

http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9487

    Buy into anything transgender, you buy into it all.

    --SA-ET (of the blog Enough Nonsense) on the term transgender

As a new media journalist who identifies as transgender and transsexual, I write a great deal about trans people and issues. There is no Pam's House Blend styleguide, so I depend on external styleguides to help me "stay within the lines."

Such as, I personally don't like using the term transgender only as an adjective. I want to be able to say lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders, but the two lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) stylebooks say that calling transgender people transgenders is an incorrect usage of the term -- it's grammatically incorrect to add an -s or an -ed to pretty much all adjectives. So, I follow the LGBT styleguides (GLAAD and NLGJA) on how to refer to transgender people -- it's transgender people, not transgenders (or the transgendered). And, I pay attention to the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook too because the stylebook is considered the "Journalist's Bibl

[Alyssa M.]

It is an acceptable construction to use "the [adjective]" as a collective plural noun meaning "[adjective] people," as in "the rich," "the poor," "the sick" (as in the Beatitudes), "the disabled," etc. So why not "the transgendered" or "the transgender"?

I prefer "transgendered" to "transgender" as an adjective, because "gender" is a noun, not an adjective. (Though nouns are sometimes used as adjectives; that's a special construction that has a different meaning.) But Merriam-Webster prefers "transgender." It's not a big deal either way, in my opinion.

~Alyssa