Just in case anybody sees this.
Terminology seems to be sorely lacking when trying to relate to people like me.
This word, for example. Back in the 1960's it was used by psychiatrists to describe someone living a life "opposite" their birth gender. Nowadays, the use of the word seems to depend on where you live. From various things I've read, it seems this definition is still in common use in at least parts of the U.K., and in the sourthern parts of the USA. Here in the upper midwest (USA), west and east coasts however, the definition has broadened to mean anyone whose mental gender varies from their birth sex. I've done some panel discussions with students at the Illinois Institute for Professional Psycholory, and that is how the school uses the term. I cannot speak for the psychiatric community. It would be nice if we could pin this down. I rather like the umbrella definition myself, as it fits me. But what I would like to know, is if the word should have tense? It's listed that way in many online dictionaries.
Okay, here's my thinking. From as far back as I can remember, I've been gender-variant. I remember sneaking one of my sister's plastic pants because they were pink and for girls. I couldn't have been more than three at the time. Of course I got caught, too but my mom just thought I was jealous of the twins. Anyway, because of several early events like this in my life, I believe I've always been transgender. (see, it works that way, doesn't it?)
Here's the deal. I believe I am a transgender. As in something. A person. One with certain qualities, of course, but something. The then, is a noun.
I don't believe I'm transgendered, or I have been transgendered. If that were the case it would be as if some process had been applied to me to give me gender issues. To believe this is the case would imply that maybe the process could be revesed somehow, and I could be "untransgendered" and "normal" again. To put tense on the word makes it a verb, which implies action of some sort.
I could go on and on, what do you think?
Comments
I Guess I Fall Into Another Subgroup
I have also taken the word Transgender to be an umbrella term. I feel that everyone has different ways of defining themselves that are personal to them. I just consider myself a woman with a birth defect that requires correction. I am a woman in my heart, mind and almost in body. I understand what you are saying with the idea of whether or not Trangender should have a tense. If you put an "ED" on the end it would imply that you were and now you aren't. It is a bit like parents thinking that being this way is a phase that will pass. Most all of us who live this know that it has been with us since we were a very young age and it will never go away.
Hugs,
Jen
I belong to another abused minority group
women.
Angharad
Angharad
Hardly a minority.
Aren't there more women than men in the population as a whole?
We're all in some sort of minority. In my case at various times, cyclist, bridge player, sailor, motor cyclist etc etc That's good because otherwise we'd all be the same.
I don't see why 'transgender' can't be used as a verb when coupled with 'to be'. English seems able to make any noun a verb eg to medal (as in winning in the Olympic games)
Geoff
Minorities
It depends on what minority one contemplates.
Women are a minority in Parliament, for example, or the US Senate, or among Ministers and Cabinet members, or CEOs and other "captains of industry," military officers of general rank, and every other position of power and authority everywhere in the world, just as many "ethnic minorities" are, even though they may make up global majorities when one counts sheer numbers.
The thing of it is, we don't count sheer numbers, except when it suits us, but pay great and fascinated attention to "important" people, who have a great tendency to be men.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Hmmm
I have to say... my monarch is female and so is my governor general. In fact the last several governor generals have been female and while some consider this to be a ceremonial position it *is* a position of extreme power (as it's the head of state). I would consider them women in power. There are also 35 female senators (around 34%), which is fairly good if you consider that senators are appointed and serve for a long long time. Meaning it's hard to get new ones in often! Also around 23% of the seats in the house of commons hold female MP's.
To wrap it up I'm not sure if I agree with the statement, at least for my country. While this was certainly true in the past it *is* changing and it's changing fairly quickly.
Minority of Pay?
Women, certainly in the U.S., are in the minority of the payscale as employees. Given two workers, doing the same job with the same responsibilities for the same amount of time, one of them male, one female, on average the female makes considerably less than the male.
It's time to pass that Equal Rights Amendment, people!
Valid point
That's a valid point over earnings. I did a little research and found an article:
Women who take time out of their careers to have children and raise families are penalized in the workforce. Women who choose to return to work after their allotted maternity leave are often unable to do the kind of overtime, travel or evening events required to get ahead in the corporate world. And so they lose access to the upper echelons of the business hierarchy simply because they have elected to have a family. Men are not similarly affected.
It says that women make about 70.5% of what men make, which is lower than that of the US apparently *sigh*. But I suppose this takes into account the above? That they took time off for children and such? Still that doesn't account for all of it. So ya... I concede. As far as pay goes, something should be done about it. As far as I can tell women are mostly locked out of upper business because of children. On the other hand, men are participating more and more in taking care of kids and not just dumping it on their wives. I think we'll see a rise in pay for women in the near future as more men participate in raising the family. Although I know it's not the only issue.
C'est la vie.
If there is any natural phenomenon or a thing to it is and no mistake entitled. It is one of the major stages of knowledge. Not having given the phenomenon or a thing name it is impossible to study it. Well if the word "transgender" is not pleasant to someone -it doesn't matter. A word it is possible to think up another. The essence of this phenomenon from it will not change. And to people whom this phenomenon has touched to live begins is not easier at all.
P.S.Will change the essence of a cat if we her shall cease to name "cat"? We name her Felis domestica or somehow differently, but she remains a cat and anybody to another.
What is or was transgender
On one of the conferences organized by HBIGDA (bow --> WPATH) they described the terminology as this:
Transgender was said about a person that lived as close to the final operations as possible, but for any reason did not enter the op theatre.
Much later when I found out about my condition, the T-word had changed to be a description of all persons who for shorter or longer period wanted to stay in the other genders clothes or social roll. That included all from the Transsexual persons to those creossdresing in theatre or opera. Some male rolls are normally played by women.
With the explosion of the Internet it looks as if all those subgroups have found enough members to be able to have their own societies and do not need to have an umbrella word to cover them all. Today the problem mostly seems to be some "fighting" along the borders between the groups that once were satisfied with TRANSGENDER. So today the noun is almost not needed any longer, especially as different persons put different ideas into it.
But it is a real teaser in most groups on the net. Just type "Lables, anyone?" and the discussion can go on for hours.
For authors here I think it should be good to, early in the stories, have one carachter ask what TG is and then another carachter telling what it should be. In that way the reades can accept or refuse the use, but it is defined for that story.
Your Ginnie
GinnieG
We're all of us evolving...
Where does one draw the line between tomboys and butch dykes, between sissies and faggots, between any or all of these and transmen or transwomen? Does it matter?
If the tomboy becomes a wife and mother after all, do we rewrite her childhood, as if she were predestined to wind up where she finds herself?
If that wife and mother then comes out as a lesbian and runs off with her childhood sweetheart, do we rewrite it again?
And if, after years of same-sex wedded bliss, she comes out again as “transgendered,” must we really go back and rewrite the story of her life, which could have gone in any way at all, to pretend that it was all preordained, as if we were flies stuck in amber from the moment we take our first breaths?
Where's the fun in that?
Throughout history, there have been people who didn't fit into the stereotypes they were saddled with, and kicked against the traces in whatever way that seemed best and most possible to them. Shall we rewrite their history to include a possibility that didn't exist at the time? to conform to concepts that didn't exist at the time?
At this instant, in whatever place you live, there are a selection of labels and technologies that may or may not be accessible to you. Do you agree to allow someone else, with other resouces available, to stab a pin through your heart and pin whatever you are inside into the sterile interior of a glass vitrine?
Throughout the world, there are people without great resources, whether through personal poverty or societal obstacles, for whom “surgery,” or even minimal accommodation to their inner feelings, are as inconceivable to them as landing on the Moon, so must we dismiss their inchoate longings as “merely” frustrated “transgenderism?”
The world is very large, and the expanse of time is larger, and I doubt that any tiny word, however attractive, can capture anything but a crude snapshot of any of us, sharply cropped from the larger vistas of the world outside our windows.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process — an integral function of the universe.
--- Buckminster Fuller, I Seem to Be a Verb (1970)
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Puddin' -- I Just Love How You Carry On
I could listen to you for simply ever. Your logic is impeccable and your examples, exemplary.
H-o-w-e-v-e-r -- how do you stick a pin to a glass showcase?
Recently I've been working crossword puzzles to try to pump up my vocabulary. I just know "vitrine" will be in a puzzle one of these days -- right next to ewer and ell.
This medium is so hard to use. Puddin' I'm not being facetious. I agree totally with your comments in this thread and feel immensely better for having read them. As a society we do spend an inordinate amount of time applying false standards to others and demanding fairness regarding our selves.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Vitrines
almost all have bottoms or at least one side which are not glass.
Here, for example, is a panorama of three large vitrines containing impaled butterflies:
kasvitieteellinen-puutarha-botania2 in Joensuu
Cheers,
Puddin'
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P.S. I'm an artist, and work with artists, and have installed many vitrines, so am perhaps more familiar with them than many. They're not part of my "crossword puzzle" vocabulary, but part of my everyday working word hoard.
P.P.S. Many of us have vitrines in our homes, but perhaps we don't call them that (speaking of vocabulary) as they were originally any glass-fronted cabinet meant for the display of dishes, liquor collections, curios, and whatnot. Many call them "breakfronts" or simply "display cabinets" these days, and if not in your home, you see them in any department store. In the USA, one sees cartons of cigarettes displayed (and under lock and key) in vitrines to discourage pilferage and theft. I'm sure the word sounds entirely too posh in that context, but that's what they are.
http://tinyurl.com/nyp42e
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Vitranes Revisited
Damn clever -- those vitrane makers.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I was once Transgendered
From my birth until August 15 2007, I was Transgendered. Now, I am a woman and all that is in the past.
My whole life changed after the surgery. When I arrived home from Thailand, my friends knew I had done bottom surgery, but they also thought that I'd had extensive facial surgery. Some even thought I'd had deportation training. What ever happened in my brain post op is way outside my own understanding.
It would be interesting to see if there is a common effect upon post ops. I know that I am far less interested in Masturbatory fantasies. I even got lost on the way to the hardware store, and wound up shopping for shoes too. I want a pair of pink and white trainers with the cute little zips on the side. I just think that they are so darling. Now I have to think about what I will wear with them. Hmm Levis would be good with that little pink top and I was thinking ...
Khadija
Missing the point here.
To respond to the OP rather than the debate that followed. What you are saying makes a sort of internal sense... but what you are missing is that language evolves with usage, usually within long formed rules but occasionally with technical variations from industry or slang origins. Even if you got the entire gender community to adopt your concept, they would have to break their habit of using the word in the previous usage before being able to impact anyone outside it.
In actually, adding the -ed to the end doesn't imply tense at all. It's the means of converting transgender (standard noun form) into transgendered (the standard adjective form).
But even if it WERE a verb/action, having actions go in one direction does not automatically imply that you can reverse the process. When you burn a piece of paper into ash... you cannot unburn then ash and produce paper.
Thanks for responding to the original question!!
Actually thanks to everyone so far, but I really am interested in what our community thinks about this.
First of all, I didn't mean to imply that any of us were "a thing". I was simply trying to say that to call a person a transgender was to indicate something tangible, rather than a condition. Rather like saying someone is a gay, instead of saying they are a gay person. To me, being a transgender means I am a type of person, not a person with a condition. I am also short and left handed. All three of these could be symptoms, I guess, although probably unrelated ones.
The evolution of language seems to be both a blessing and a curse. Language must adapt as society evolves, as new concepts and social mores appear every day, and others fade away. Thanks for pointing out that the -ed doesn't necessarily mean tense, but unfortunately, the general public tends to not be near as literate as the readers here. I've heard several of the Focus on the Family/Jerry Leach types jump on this. These are the same people that would seek to "cure" homosexuality. Jerry Leach in particular has made a lot of money "curing" transsexuals. That would be a hoot if it weren't for the emotional damage done to his [strikeout]patients[/strikeout] victims in the name of reclaiming them "for God".
Your example of burning paper is excellent. When applied to us, it would help to explain things to the nature vs nurture arguers that come down on the side of nurture.
What I am trying to understand is whether we, the community of people who experience gender variance, can find a way to positively effect how the press treats us. It would seem to me that if we as a group cannot even come up with a term that describes us, how can we hope that the general public can ever gain an understanding of who we are?
Is this a hopeless topic? After all, we have a self-appointed spokesperson for the transwomen of Albuquerque NM telling the press that any crossdresser that isn't a transsexual is into sexual fetishism. I find this extremely offensive, as my sense of gender has very little to do with my sexuality.
For those of us who cross or crisscross the gender lines but cannot, decide not, or haven't a desire to transition it might be helpful if there was a standard way to describe who we are. After all, if you are in a restroom and get read, do you really want everyone present to assume you are a sexual deviant? This is a real risk many of us face often enough, even some of us that have legal ID matching our identified gender.
Labels aren't always a bad thing. Often they help identify something or someone with a minimum of language.
I can understand those who don't want to be categorized, for fear of being further marginalized. But if I'm going to be marginalized anyway, I would like to be categorized with people like me.
Does this make any sense?
Sadly, it isn't words
... that will solve this issue. The simple fact is that one of the most difficult challenges facing those of us with gender issues is that identity is one of the least understood things on the planet. It's a ridiculously complex issue that an individual can spend their entire life trying to resolve to the point of really seeing who they are. Everything that happens (from the worst storm in the tropics to the lightest touch of a breeze in the arctic, from a smile on the face of a stranger as you walk into your office building to the muscle you pulled in your junior year of high school), impacts how you live your life and the way you perceive yourself and others.
Because of the sheer complexity involved, we can can't hope to really identify the specifics of what makes someone take certain actions or react to events in the way they do. But instead of accepting this lack of power, we insist on proving our control by generalizing and stereotyping. The irony is, no one ever really matches a stereotype... and at the same time, their existence makes it harder to think outside them (to see the true unique nature of the individual) than if they didn't exist at all.
I have spent many years trying to understand who I really am and what purpose my life serves. Sometimes I even think I'm making some headway in the process. Other times I despair that I'll ever find the answers I seek.
To some extent, our problems with gender reach an even greater scope. Not only is there the abstract search for identity, there is a physical difference that cannot help but be a barrier by which people instinctively narrow the field conceptually. As there is a difference between those who lead and those who follow, between those who learn by listening or watching and those who learn by doing... there is a more visible difference between those who are young and those who are old. And those who are male and those who are female. And we believe our physical senses... we have to, because if we accept that these senses are not a valid means of perceiving differences; our whole grasp on reality is shattered.
So when confronted with someone visibly male who believes themselves to be otherwise (or some other similar variation), it challenges the entire paradigm. For those grounded solidly in the five physical senses, it can be almost impossible to overcome the disruption that this causes an established sense of 'order' in the mind. Rather than allow it, the mind refuses to accept... goes into denial and reacts with fear or anger. This triggers basic instincts to fight or flee... and things go downhill from there. The more the mind has been trained to accept one set of beliefs, the harder it becomes to pass beyond this stage. Only when someone has been taught to evaluate new ideas on their own merits and constantly learn new ways of understanding, can they accept something that falls outside the old.
To define us all in one way, to consolidate terminology into one easy to apply word or phrase; would be a great disservice. What we should be seeking is opportunities to show how different every one of is truly is. Not just those of us with gender issues but everyone. Don't accept that you know who someone is simply because you know what they do for a living, or you've gotten glimpses of their choices in clothing, or know what hobbies they pursue. Odds are, there's something you wouldn't guess... and you're missing out on learning something new about life if you ignore it.
Wow, Thanks!
Geez, I could have written that myself.
And to think I started this discussion to see if we could agree on a term to describe those people who do not fit neatly into Western civilization's bipolar ideas about sex and gender. I believe most of the readers of this site fall into the category as "variations to the norm", and I also agree that there really is not a good way to define what that is, or how to calculate it. This is not a simple statistical exercise.
Who am I? Well, it took over fifty years of introspection (like most of us, I spent most of my life "daydreaming" trying to figure myself out), but I think I've been on the right track for the last few years. I simply am. Just like everyone else. They simply "am" too. We are all some sort of logical summation of our genetics, the variations in our mothers' body chemistry during gestation, the physical and cultural environment, our experiences, physical interactions, and our intellectual pusuits. Like many of the others, I would like nothing more than for people to just accept me for who I am, without trying to catalog me like a specimen in one of Pudditane's vitrines (sorry, had to put that one in).
I do tire however when I find people with whom I identify cast as objects of ridicule or humiliation by Hollywood, and I pale when I read stories like the recent string of murders in New Mexico. It galls me to read about people who would supposedly represent me, or categorize me, when it is obvious they are quite ignorant. There are still states in the United States where gender variant people have no real legal rights--you could get fired for expressing your true gender preference, with no recourse. But unless we can find some language to explain who we are (as complex an issue as that is), I don't believe we have any hope that our legal situation will improve, or that our right to "just be" will be universal. Perhaps I'm just dreaming too much.
What part of speech is it?
Trying to use "transgender" as a noun applying to a person simply doesn't work for me. Using transgendered as an adjective works. It's definitely an adjective since it's gradable - more transgendered, less transgendered, etc.
However, using "transgender" in the phrase "transgender activities" does seem to work. I'm not sure what it is, but it's clearly not a verb since it doesn't conjugate, and it's not a gradable adjective either since it doesn't compare. It's not a mass noun, count noun or proper noun. Maybe it's an adverb?
Go figure.
Xaltatun
Transgender Yes
I do not know how psychiatrists or psycologist use the term. As I hate labels and avoid contact those groups and others that like to label people. (I grew up in a very class conscious environment, a New England mill town. I experienced first hand the bigotry and hate that comes from labeling.) I consider it a form of stereotyping. It dehumanizes patients and encourages the use of formulaic diagnoses and solutions which may or may not be appropriate.
First is transgender a verb, adverb, a noun or adjective? It can be used in a number of differnt contexts.
In my view, transgender describes a state of being (hopefully temporary)not a person. It denotes a condition of dissonance between your core gender identity and your physical gender manifestation. This incongruity leads to problems, both personal and social, when acting from your core identity varies from what is expected from your physical appearance and vice versa. HRT and SRS are means for aligning core gender identity with physical gender identity. Once these steps are completed, the person is no longer in the state of being transgendered. The conflict is resolved. The person has achieved the goal of internal and external gender congruity and has become normal. This person, who is now whole, was transgendered. I hope transgender doesn't become a politically correct term.
I digressed in reference to how or the appropriate way to use the word Transgender and if it has tenses. The word applies to so may different states and variations. I can only relate to how I am affected. My point of view is Acultural. It lets me be more objective by not assuming inbeded cultural biases.
When I finally achieve transition, I want annonymity. I just want to blend in as another normal woman, focusing on the future not the past. I consider myself a human being not as a transgender or transgendered.
A Loose Cannon by choice,
Trish-Ann
~There is no reality, only perceptions.~
PS: I can came up with a list of derivatives for the Term.
Transgenderize- forcing someone to take on the characteristics of the other gender.
Transgenderization - the process of transgenderizing
UnTransgenderization - the process of reverting back to original gender.
Hugs,
Trish Ann
~There is no reality, only perception~
I'm not sure I see...
I'm not sure I see things things your way.
I've had two different shrinks over the years, and come to know a number of people who are "labeled" transgendered. Both of my shrinks made a point of saying that most, if not all, people have aspects of their personalities that reflect what is generally accepted as "male" or "female" to differing degrees. Some are "mostly" way out one way, and others way the other. What is considered "normal" (activities, attire, etc.) for male and female is generally defined by society. This has little to do with what sex one is assigned by one's genes or by some physician at birth. (Now, I'm sure I'm mucking this all up, and I apologize to anyone that's read this far...) Though, there IS generally a "high" level of correlation between the two. When your feelings and thoughts do NOT match your sex, as defined by a single pair of chromosomes (XX vs XY - yes I'm ignoring all the other variations), you are considered "transgendered" Not as in you're taking a trip (transportation) but as in your "gender" spans things.
I don't believe "untransgendered" is possible. That said, it IS possible to "convince" someone that is transgendered to a small extent that they are mistaken. It IS possible to "convince" a transgendered person that they need to "conform" to what the XY / XX genes say. It is even possible to make it "look" like such a person is happy, and no longer transgendered. However, and I'm using my own experiences/background here and not any scientific evidence, without reinforcement, someone so "convinced" eventually reverts and realizes they are TG (again/still).
There is circumstantial evidence (that my wife & I believe is credible) that I was "hypnotized" or some such at a young age, and "convinced" that I "really" was a guy... (My activities were VERY different from one year to the next - and my "ability" to perform them. MUCH more than can be explained by a year of growth. And, it gradually wore off. I've managed to "self suppress" several tines over the years. I don't have permission to do that again (My wife insists!!!!) And, talking to my shrinks, both times... What I've described above IS possible, and not unlikely given the time frame.
So, can one be "untransgendered" or "cured" of being "transgendered" ? I really don't think so. I think it IS possible to "adjust" most transgendered people so that they can live in their xy/xx assigned gender, and appear happy. But, I also believe that a very important part of what makes them who/what they are is lost, when this is done, and they are almost a different person. (These were the words my wife used with me.)
Sorry for the rambling.
Annette
Being Transgendered Makes Me "Tense"
. . .sometimes.
Past? Yes, I was tense as a child. Present? Not so much.
"Transgender" seems to beg special "ed".
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Right on!
You crack me up, girl. You always seem to cut to the chase.
It was never used in the 60s, or the 70s for that matter
Because it didn't exist. The term "transgender" was coined in 1987 by Virginia Prince, a transvestite (crossdresser) from the United States of America. The word you're thinking of is "transsexual" which WAS used in the 60s, and even today, to describe someone who is living a life 'opposite' to their birth gender. The term 'transgender' was coined in order to have an umbrella term to cover all of the different flavours that are neither fully 100% female or fully 100% male.
As for verbing nouns -- it happens constantly. "Access" is an excellent example. Access was something you could acquire. A something, when it first started being used widely. Now, if it is spoken, it is just as likely to be something you do as something you have: "I don't have the access to access that widget."
You're arguing the proper use of an ENGLISH word?!? That's downright silly -- English is the most swiftly evolving and suddenly changing language on the face of the planet. What it comes down to, in this particular case, is that you should use it as you think it is right, and allow other folks to do the same -- I know, I know, I'm the same way when I hear a word used "wrong" (okay, "wrongly"), but if it doesn't affect me (that is, if it has no effect on me), what does it matter, really?
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Tanstaafl,
FrACTured FrIEND
Thanks for the clarification.
So if someone asks, how do we describe ourselves? It ain't easy bein' green, y'know!
I'm sure you're right about the speed with which the English language is evolving. But I'm not sure most English teachers are ready to throw out their printed copy of Websters just yet. Whatever that means.
Oops
Perfect example of the problem! If Kermit were to sing the song today, people would think he was having trouble starting his hybrid lily pad.
IMHO a verb
May I add my opinion for what it's worth.
For most of my life, I regarded myself as transsexual (adjective). If pushed on the subject, I now, post transition, refer to myself as a woman with a transsexual history, in that I was born female but with the body of a male - as I see it, a birth anomaly.
I do know a number of people who refer to themselves as transgendered (adjective); all living in the female role but some who have had surgery, some intending to have, and some who will not or cannot contemplate it. I have friends who, after surgery, identify as transsexual. I have no issue with how anyone identifies themselves.
I understand the view that a verb implies that something was done. I believe, in the absence of other evidence, that my transsexualism was antenatal; i.e. I was born with it, I didn't just wake up one morning and decide that I really wanted to be female. It was caused, by what, I don't know. I know what caused my congenital cataracts and other vision problems; you may also call that a birth defect or anomaly.
Of course, all is not black and white. There are lots of combinations of chromosome and hormone imbalances that count towards the variety of creation. It's a shame that society doesn't seem to be able to cope with more than two and tries to squeeze everyone else into whatever boxes are deemed appropriate for the times in which we live.
Susie