GLAAD is wrong on 'transgender' vs. 'transgendered'
Friday, March 18th, 2011
Pauline Park
http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2011/03/glaad-is-wrong-on-transgender-vs-transgendered/ (http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2011/03/glaad-is-wrong-on-transgender-vs-transgendered/)
Consider this item from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Reference Guide:
PROBLEMATIC: "transgendered"
PREFERRED: "transgender"
The word transgender never needs the extraneous "ed" at the end of the word. In fact, such a construction is grammatically incorrect. Only verbs can be transformed into participles by adding "-ed" to the end of the word, and transgender is an adjective, not a verb...
I hesitate to criticize what is in general a very useful guide, but on this issue, the guide is simply incorrect: 'transgendered' is clearly grammatically correct and 'transgender' is the term whose grammatical status is in question. It is certainly true that some transgendered people use 'transgender' as an adjective to describe themselves or others, but a review of the above will show that this is, strictly speaking, grammatically incorrect.
Good points.
Valid argument.
But whoever does the GLAAD media guidlines will be too married to their opinions to be able to change things.
This is about identity.
Transgendered sounds like a condition.
Transgender sounds like an identity.
Popular thought goes that conditions can be cured, identity cannot.
I should point out that we use nouns as adjectives all the time, so there's no particular reason this person should go out of her way to distinguish between "transgendered person" and "transgender activist." I see the distinction but don't find it especially compelling.
I prefer bigender. Physically, I am bigender, male body, female brain. Adding E and subtracting T altered my body somewhat so now my body is bigender and my brain is female. I'm closer to the female gender but I will never be there.
Trans is about crossing something and that requires action. Any action I have taken to get where I am is no longer necessary, with the exception of HRT. But since natal females are prescribed HRT for low hormone production, I'll categorize HRT at this point as not being part of the act of crossing.
Truly though, every group that has battled discrimination has changed the word or words that are used to describe them. Every new terminology is intended to escape the stigma attached to the previous one. I have no problem with our community doing the same.