8 Comments

Thank you for this! More please!

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You def of "passing" was thought provoking. "A trans woman cannot pass as a woman, for she is one. However a trans woman can pass as a cis woman."

Very well stated!

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I also loved that. What a great turn of phrase!

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I’m happy to say I knew all of these. Having a transgender family member keeps one in the know. The only thing I’ll add is that term transsexual was def used back in the old days (70’s for this oldz). I would never use it now and am glad to see reassigned to the dustbin.

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I kinda thought it conveyed a whole process - emotions and physiological. A doctor with who, I worked "went through the change" and had a substantially different appearance and behavior. Why do't we use this nowadays? (said the old man).

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Some do! But generally people who came out after 2005 or so will not, ever, use transsexual for themselves. It's only people who came out earlier -- mostly before 2000 -- that use transsexual to describe themselves.

The reasons for its current disuse are complicated and will certainly be the subject of an entire essay at some point, so stay tuned!

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I think you might be confusing "transexual" and "transsexual" (the activist version has only one "s"). Transsexual was indeed used in the old days, at least as far back as the 1930s.

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Well, somehow I never heard the word, "GAY" until I was about 22, so I fall into that pre-historical group.

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