Transgender

Notice, however, that our gender "norms" are not symmetric. Women have won for themselves the right to a wide range of gender expression. Men have not made a corresponding effort. Most men live within a much narrower range of "acceptable" gender.

Though our culture tends to group characteristics into "masculine" and "feminine," many people find some amount of gender transgression exciting, so there is some crossover between the two categories. Ultimately, gender is a "mix and match" mode of self-expression, and people within our culture are ever finding new ways to express their gender, with exciting subtleties and intriguing implications.

In general, it works best to think of all effects - sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual identity, and any others - as varying along a continuous spectrum of self-expression, rather than in just one of two or three ways.

Transgender 101

Drag Queen:
 Female-emulating male, usually campy, often (not always) gay.
Butch:
 Masculine-appearing person.
Femme:
 Feminine-appearing person.
Drag King:
 Male-emulating woman.
Intersex:
 Person born with mixed sexual physiology. Often ‘assigned’ at birth, such practice is coming under well-founded attack as a hurtful violation of a person’s well-being.
Transvestite:
Person who enjoys wearing clothes identified with the opposite gender, often but not always straight.
Crossdresser:
 Polite term for transvestite.
Transgenderist:
 Person who lives as gender opposite to anatomical sex, i.e. person with penis living as woman. Sexual orientation varies.
Androgyne:
 Person appearing and identifying as neither man nor woman, presenting a gender either mixed or neutral.
Transsexual:
Person whose sexual identity is opposite to their assignment at birth. Not all TS folk undergo ‘sex reassignment surgery’ (SRS), for various reasons, including personal preference. Sexual orientation varies.
FTM (female to male)
born female but see themselves as partly to fully masculine.
MTF (male to female)
born male but see themselves as partly to fully feminine
Transgender Community:
 A loose association of people who transgress gender norms in a wide variety of ways. Celebrating a recently born self-awareness, this community is growing fast across all lines, including social, economic, political, and philosophical divisions. The central ethic of this community is unconditional acceptance of individual exercise of freedoms including gender and sexual, identity and orientation.

www.ngltf.org/index.cfm.

Lynn Conway: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TS.html? Lynn is Professor Emerita in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Michigan. She was a pioneer in developing modern computers and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Hers is a remarkable story that only recently came to light when she revealed that she had been born male. Her web site is huge and comprehensive, although it is colored by her own views of transgender hierarchy and status.

Anne Lawrence’s Transsexual Women’s Resources: http://www.annelawrence.com. Lawrence is a transsexual physician, and her site focuses on medical issues, but has a large number of useful links.

The following is adapted from "TRANSGENDERISM: Transgressing Gender Norms" by Nancy R. Nangeroni, International Foundation for Gender Education, 1996 (Ninja Design).