"Transgender:" a limited construct

http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/6690
9/19/2008

"Transgender" therefore refers to a false, created notion of gender and "otherness:" a person able to transform from one gender to another by changing hir body and/or presentation. Issues then arise of whether a person is transgender or transsexual, of what clear distinctions exist between these two terms, and how one can categorize other people using these two supposedly distinct categories.

Many view their genders as fluid and transformative, but few understand their genders as connected to a transformation of one's body and appearance. To put on a dress does not mean my gender has changed, just as cutting off my arm does not change my gender.

Therefore, the term "transgender" is a falsely constructed ter.

I've always detested the term transgender simply because this word implies that I have crossed or changed genders, and personally I find that notion terribly misleading when applied to my person.  I have never changed genders; my gender has always been female.  What I have changed is my physical sex, not my gender.

tink

Quote from: Natasha on September 21, 2008, 12:50:20 AM
"Transgender:" a limited construct

http://www.wesleyanargus.com/article/6690
9/19/2008

"Transgender" therefore refers to a false, created notion of gender and "otherness:" a person able to transform from one gender to another by changing hir body and/or presentation. Issues then arise of whether a person is transgender or transsexual, of what clear distinctions exist between these two terms, and how one can categorize other people using these two supposedly distinct categories.

Many view their genders as fluid and transformative, but few understand their genders as connected to a transformation of one's body and appearance. To put on a dress does not mean my gender has changed, just as cutting off my arm does not change my gender.

Therefore, the term "transgender" is a falsely constructed ter.

Aside  from the semantics of it all, there is the exasperating grammar of it all. Transgender, a noun, that sounds as far from being human as it possibly can.

Transgendered, an adjective - as in transgendered person. That term really sucks IMO. Transgendered sounds like you went through some kind of machine that extruded you in a really weird form. That's why I like traswoman or transman, but there could even be a better terms than those IMO.

Margi