Vocabulary Dysphoria

[bcholmes]

Someone on one of the trans lists I read made this claim:

Technically, since I have had the surgery, I am no longer transsexual, as my body now is harmonized (anatomically) with my brain and gender identity.

This was buried in the middle of a lengthy post about proper use of term in the trans community. Feh.

Y'know, I really try to respect other people's labels. I really do. But sometimes... sometimes I think that certain claims are just dumb.

There's an increasingly vocal part of the trans community who have been arguing that the umbrella term "transgendered" is not an appropriate label for transsexauls. And I have great difficulty seeing that viewpoint.

I mean, my definition of transgendered has been this: someone is transgendered if their feelings about their gender put them into conflict with mainstream society's view of gender. By my definition, transsexuals are necessarily transgendered.

I've recently tried to get into the headspace of such "I'm transsexual, not transgendered"-types by likening the discussion to the claim that Canadians are also Americans because this is, after all, North America. (Yeah, I've heard people say that. And no Canadians that I know of are inclined to agree with that statement).

The problem seems to be that the brain perceives a category, and then tries to define it later. Teasing out just what the brain latched on to is a Hard Task.

Comments

[futabachan.livejournal.com]

Technically, since I have had the surgery, I am no longer transsexual, as my body now is harmonized (anatomically) with my brain and gender identity.

By any chance, did this person transition during the 70s or 80s? The "former transsexual" position was extremely common -- pretty much the standard, in fact -- back when I first tried to transition in 1989. Attached to it was an assumption that after SRS, one naturally would go deep stealth, drop out of pre-transition social circles, and never talk about That Awful Problem (tm) any more, 'cause That Brilliant Surgeon fixed it, y'know?