Transgender rights are
being hotly debated in the United States.
This is largely because social conservatives have unleashed an anti-trans panic through relentless, unfair, and hateful bigoted attacks on a marginalized minority they dislike.
As these debates unfold, people sometimes struggle to understand transgender identity and the various terms transgender people use to describe themselves.
So, let’s take a look at these terms so we can better understand each other, shall we?
Today, we’re going to talk about gender identity and biological sex, two important concepts that are related, but distinct.
These are concepts people use to refer to the differences between men and women, or boys and girls.
Gender identity resides in the mind, whereas biological sex resides in the body.
Gender identity refers to a person's internal experience of their own gender.
Biological sex refers to the physical traits, such as sex chromosomes, anatomy, and secondary sex characteristics, that are associated with the physical differences between men and women, or boys and girls.
The various minority groups we will discuss today interact with sex and gender in different ways.
These groups are organized conceptually in the diagram below.
You can click on the diagram to see a larger version of it.
[UPDATE (Nov. 16): I made an adjustment to this diagram, in response to feedback. I discussed the change in "Feedback on the Diagram."]
Most people
have a gender identity that aligns with both their biological sex and the
gender they were assigned at birth, based on their anatomy. These people are
known as cisgender.
Some people have a gender identity that is different than the gender they were assigned at birth. These people are known as transgender.
Transgender
Monica Helms, an American transgender woman, created the transgender flag in 1999. It was first displayed at a Phoenix, Arizona pride celebration in 2000.
Helms assigned meaning to each of the colors that appear in the transgender flag.
“The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys,” Helms said. “The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional color for baby girls. The stripe in the middle is white, for those who are intersex, transitioning, or consider themselves having a neutral or undefined gender."
Helms, a veteran
of the US Navy, co-founded
the Transgender American Veterans Association in 2003.
There are two subcategories of transgender identities, binary and nonbinary.
Some transgender people identify with the binary gender that is different than the one they were assigned at birth.
Trans women are people who identify as women who were assigned the male gender at birth.
Trans men are people who identify as men who were assigned the female gender at birth.
Previous Coverage
This isn't the first time I've covered transgender identities on my blog.
I first discussed gender identity in a series I published from Nov. 2015 to Jan. 2016.
Decker Moss, a transgender man, and Rikki Arundel, a transgender woman, shared their experiences during Ted Talks that I featured in the first article in the series.
In that article, "Understanding Gender", I also provided a few of my thoughts on the limiting and stereotypical ways people often think and talk about gender.
Transgender people often experience a discomfort between their internal sense of their own gender and the ways other people interact with them based on their perceived gender or what other people believe their gender should be.
This discomfort is known as gender dysphoria.
In the second article in my 2015 series, "Gender Identity and Mental Health", I discussed gender dysphoria and other mental health problems transgender people experience. The article contains quotes extensively from a suicide note a transgender teenage girl wrote before killing herself.
In that article, I explained why it's critical for people to accept the identities of transgender people, including transgender children.
Later in this blog post, I'll discuss the remaining articles from my earlier series.
Nonbinary
Kye Rowan, a nonbinary and intersex person, created the nonbinary flag in 2014.
Rowan discussed the meanings of the stripes
of the nonbinary flag on their Tumblr account, in a post that can be accessed using the WayBack Machine from the Internet Archive.
The second category of transgender identities are the nonbinary gender identities.
Nonbinary refers to someone whose gender identity isn’t exclusively male or female.
There are many specific nonbinary gender identities, but some people use nonbinary as a stand-alone identity without needing to specify a more specific gender.
Sometimes people who identify as nonbinary will later identify as binary transgender, and vice versa.
It's not
uncommon for transgender people to later adopt a different gender identity
label after they learn more about themselves, or for other reasons.
Genderqueer
Marilyn Roxie, a genderqueer person, created the genderqueer flag in 2011.
Roxie discussed the history and symbolism of the flag on their Tumblr blog, "Genderqueer and Non-Binary Identities."
Roxie also shared their experiences as a genderqueer person.
Genderqueer is often used as a synonym for nonbinary that refers to someone whose gender identity or expression falls outside the boundaries of what is typically considered male or female.
The difference between the terms non-binary and genderqueer primarily resides in their connotations, rather than their definitions.
Genderqueer reflects a more rebellious and confrontational attitude toward traditional, binary, and transphobic beliefs about gender.
This confrontational attitude is exhibited by genderqueer people who resist attempts to make them conform to gender norms they find oppressive and limiting.
Nonbinary is a term that is more matter-of-fact. It reflects a self-understanding that doesn’t feel the need to prove itself as an inherent act of rebellion against limiting gender norms.
Someone who doesn’t identify as nonbinary could refer to themselves as genderqueer if they engage in gender expression in a non-conforming way, like drag queens do.
But I’ve primarily seen nonbinary people use the term to describe themselves.
There are many specific nonbinary identities, but today we’ll take a look at the two that are most common.
Genderfluid
JJ Poole, an American agender, genderqueer, and pansexual person, created the genderfluid flag in 2012.
Poole discussed the meanings of the stripes on the genderfluid flag on a Tumblr blog that focuses on genderfluidity.
Poole also discussed the genderfluid flag in an interview with Majestic Mess Designs.
Genderfluid refers to someone whose gender identity varies over time.
Some genderfluid people have a strong perception of their gender identity at all times, others do not.
Many genderfluid people experience fluctuations in their gender identity between male and female. Others are fluid between other genders, such as female and nonbinary.
Many genderfluid people would like to change their gender presentation back and forth and have other people’s perception of their gender reflect their gender presentation.
Genderfluid can also be used to describe someone who chooses to change or modify their gender expression or presentation at different times.
Keara Graves, a genderfluid person, described their experiences in a YouTube video they published in 2021.
Graves is fluid between female and nonbinary, and she uses both she and they pronouns.
Salem, an American agender person, created the agender flag on Tumblr in 2014.
Salem has subsequently deleted their Tumblr blog, with the exception of a single blog post about themselves and their flag.
Salem's blog post links to an interview with Majestic Mess Designs where Salem discussed the agender flag.
Agender is a gender identity where someone doesn’t perceive themselves as having an internal gender.
But this doesn’t mean they are ambivalent towards their gender identity, how others perceive them, or how other people interact with them in gendered ways.
An agender person may dress or present themselves in a way that is traditionally seen as masculine or feminine, but to them, these are simply things they do because they enjoy them, rather than because they view these things as expressing their underlying gender identity.
Chandler Wilson, an agender person, described their experiences in a YouTube video they published in 2015.
Regarding gender identity, there are two common nonbinary ways someone could potentially answer the question, “Are you male or female?”
These potential answers are, “both” or “neither.”
The most common identity for people who identify as both male and female is genderfluid.
Although, a genderfluid person could be fluid between other genders, instead.
The most common identity for people who identify as neither male or female is agender.
Transgender Updates
In the third article in my 2015 gender series, mentioned above, I wrote about nonbinary gender identities and featured YouTube videos where genderfluid and agender people shared their experiences.
The first three creators I featured in that article helped me understand my own gender identity for the first time in my life, in 2015.
I am eternally grateful that these creators publicly shared their experiences online, which allowed me to find, for the first time in my life, people who were like me, with regards to gender.
Each of these creators have continued to upload videos to their channels after I featured them on my blog in 2015.
I already discussed one of those three creators, Chandler, in the previous section.
The other two creators now identify as binary transgender, rather than nonbinary.
In 2015, Berry came out as Genderfluid on YouTube.
He now goes by Sebastian. Sebastian came out as a transgender man in 2018.
His 2015 coming out video is no longer available.
The third creator uses several names, but she often goes by Grace. She publishes videos on her channel, "Seadresa."
In 2014, Grace came out as Genderfluid on YouTube.
Grace later came out as a transgender woman, in 2019.
Both Sebastian and Grace are now receiving hormone replacement therapy.
Sebastian has also received top surgery.
They have continued to share personal and interesting things about their transitions.
If you are interested in learning more about transgender experiences, I highly recommend visiting their channels.
I might feature some of their videos in a future article.
Transmasculine and Transfeminine
Next, let’s talk about two more terms transgender people sometimes use to describe themselves, transmasculine and transfeminine.
Transmasculine
Transmasculine refers to transgender men, and to nonbinary people who were assigned female at birth, but identify with a more masculine gender.
Transfeminine
Transfeminine refers to transgender women, and to nonbinary people who were assigned male at birth, but identify with a more feminine gender.
Some nonbinary people don’t like these terms because they indirectly reference their gender assigned at birth, rather than their chosen gender.
But as a nonbinary person myself, I love these terms.
These terms allow transgender people to discuss experiences that are common to both binary trans people and similarly situated nonbinary people.
These terms are also a way of making nonbinary people feel included and seen during discussions about transgender topics.
Intersex
Morgan Carpenter, an Australian intersex man, created the intersex flag in 2013.
Carpenter is currently the executive director of Intersex Human Rights Australia. He has been involved with the organization since it was organized as a not-for-profit company in 2010.
Carpenter discussed the history and symbolism of the Intersex flag on his personal website and on the website for Intersex Human Rights Australia.
Intersex refers to people who are born with physical traits in between those traditionally considered male or female.
Some intersex people are subjected to genital surgeries as children, which they later wish they hadn’t received, in part because they weren’t able to personally choose whether to receive them.
Sometimes, parents and doctors don’t tell intersex people that they are intersex, in an attempt to avoid confusing or overwhelming them.
That can lead to intersex people feeling important information about themselves was unfairly withheld from them by their parents and doctors.
I discussed intersex people, and the debates surrounding intersex identity and childhood surgeries, in "Intersex Babies and Contentious Surgeries", an article I wrote in Jan. 2016.
Intersex people can identify as male, female, or nonbinary.
Their
biological sex and gender are separate aspects of their identity.
Regardless of whether an intersex person considers themselves transgender, they generally have thought deeply about their gender and how it relates to their biological sex.
This leads intersex people to have similar experiences to transgender people, even though they sometimes arrive at them from a slightly different angle.
We’re going to explore intersex identity much more thoroughly in the next article in this series.
Gender non-conformity
It's possible for someone to be gender non-conforming, but not transgender.
Once again, I define transgender as someone who identifies with a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth.
Gender non-conformity is an aspect of gender identity and expression that I haven’t discussed in my previous articles.
And it’s an interesting and important one, so I’m glad that I eventually got around to doing so.
I define gender non-conformity to refer to someone who has interests, personality traits, or engages in gender expression, often based on their how they dress, that is different than the social expectations associated with their gender.
Most people are familiar with the concept of a tomboy, a woman or girl whose clothing, interests, or behaviors is more masculine than social expectations regarding how women or girls generally behave.
In the U.S., society is far less accepting of feminine men than of masculine women.
Until recently, there was
no mirror concept for feminine men.
But now, there is.
The term femboy is short for a “feminine boy.”
Femboy can also refer to a
feminine man.
A femboy might engage in behavior traditionally associated with women, such as wearing feminine clothes, make-up, or painting their nails, while still identifying as a boy or man.
An older term that is often used interchangeably with femboy is crossdresser.
The term crossdresser is still in use today.
A crossdresser is generally someone who identifies as male, but who enjoys sometimes wearing women’s clothing.
The idea of women wearing traditionally male clothing is so common that it isn’t considered strange or even worthy of comment, but the same is not true for men wearing traditionally female clothing.
Often, clothing is either considered "women's" or "unisex."
Many transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people believe that clothes have no inherent gender, and anyone of any gender should be allowed to wear whatever clothes they want, regardless of their gender.
But we still live in a society where it's considered strange for someone perceived as male to wear traditionally female clothing, particularly in public.
A man or boy who does this will receive a lot of attention, and potentially become a spectacle.
Trans women don’t consider themselves crossdressers for wearing women’s clothing, and many will be quite upset with you if you refer to them that way.
They see themselves as women wearing women's clothing.
Although, to be fair, many of them started out considering themselves crossdressers.
Femboys have their own pride flag, which you might see online.
Vice published a great article in 2020 about teenage boys and young men who describe themselves as femboys in TikTok videos.
The article is titled, "Introducing the 'Femboys' Taking TikTok by Storm."
The article includes quotes from TikTok femboys, who shared their experiences.
Femboy is an emerging
identity, and people might use the term differently from each other.
Some transgender women use the term femboy to refer to themselves in photo captions and photo tags.
But when discussing identity, femboys and trans women are often considered two separate, but conceptually related, groups.
I don’t consider tomboys and femboys to be inherently transgender, because they still identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.
But there are binary
transgender people who identify as tomboys and femboys.
There are transgender women (identify as women, assigned male at birth) who identify as tomboys, or more masculine women.
And there are transgender men (identify as men, assigned female at birth) who identify as femboys, or more feminine men.
I’m glad we have tomboys and femboys to add to the wonderful diversity of gender expression, identity, and experience.
People who deny the
legitimacy of transgender identities often try to tell transgender people that
they aren’t the gender they identify with, and are actually their birth gender,
but just gender non-conforming.
Most people are in a better position to understand their own gender and their own identity than someone else could.
So please, don’t refer to
transgender women (identify as women, assigned male at birth) as simply
feminine men.
And don’t refer to transgender men (identify as men, assigned female at birth) as masculine women.
Respecting someone’s gender identity is a matter of basic dignity and respect, and it shouldn’t be a matter for public debate.
Just don’t be a jerk.
To my knowledge, I don’t believe tomboys and femboys are generally inherently considered LGBT by virtue of their gender non-conformity.
They are very similar to groups that are LGBT, so they are at least LGBT-adjacent.
And there’s a case to be made that maybe we should expand our conception of LGBT identity to explicitly include them.
Sometimes people add a plus sign at the end of LGBT to include anyone who should be included who doesn’t have a specific letter in the acronym.
Femboys and tomboys have a strong argument that the plus should include them, because they are similar in many ways to the people more clearly covered by the acronym.
My Gender Identity
In May 2015, for the first time, I learned about people who had experiences with gender like mine.
After years of searching, I finally had the tools to understand a key part of my own mind.
In Dec. 2015, I came out on this blog as Genderfluid, and I shared my own experiences with gender and dysphoria.
I named that post, “Reflections of a Genderfluid.”
I still identify as genderfluid.
Specifically, I'm genderfluid between male and female.
I also identify as transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and transfeminine, all of which are defined above.
I am very grateful to have words that describe my gender well, which I didn't have for a very long time.
Like many transgender people, I knew there was something I didn't understand about my gender, but I didn't even have the words to describe what I was looking for.
Hopefully, in the future, it will become easier for transgender people to understand themselves, as information about transgender experiences and identities become more widely known.
I haven’t woken up feeling like a specific gender in a while, like I sometimes did back then.
My internal reaction to being referred to as male still changes from time to time.
Mainly, I
don’t like being referred to as “sir.”
Sometimes, it doesn’t actively bother me, but I generally dislike being called sir.
I suppose that’s just something I have in common with Peppermint Patty from the Peanuts comic strip.
But unlike Peppermint Patty, I don't believe I've ever corrected someone after I've been misgendered that way.
My two closest friends have a fairly good understanding of my gender identity. But it’s rarely something I discuss in the course of my daily life with other people.
I’d love to be able to physically transform back and forth between a male and female body, but that’s only possible in fantasy and science fiction.
I’d really love to be able to present as female about half the time and male half the time, and have people’s perception of my identity change from day to day, even though I can't transform my physical form to match.
I might not always want to have a binary presentation, but I would like people to understand that my gender isn’t simply “male.”
I have continued to adopt half measures in my gender presentation to reflect my identity.
My glasses have a more feminine design, and I’ve grown my hair out recently.
I’ve also painted my nails from time to time.
I haven’t ever kept my finger nails painted while I’m at work, but I have enough of a laid back job that I might try that in the coming months.
We’re living in the midst of an intense moral panic about transgender people.
For many reasons, I can’t ever envision actually being understood and accepted for who I am, in the society in which I live.
I want to be accepted as nonbinary and genderfluid, identities that few people have even heard of, let alone understand.
I also feel constrained in my gender expression by what would be socially acceptable.
I can’t see how it would even be possible for me to be understood in my daily life, and free to express my gender in the ways that feel right to me.
As always, I find this to be far more upsetting than the minor instances of transitory gender dysphoria that I experience from time to time.
I have enjoyed attending three pride celebrations over the past two years.
Being transgender has helped me better understand the experiences of other trans people at a time when transgender rights are a regular topic of intense political debate.
Hopefully, society will become more understanding and accepting of transgender people as they become more familiar with our stories and experiences.
And a good place to start is by learning the terms trans people use to describe themselves, as you have done today.
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