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this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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Mostly true, but I am a transexual in my 30's. I agree that trans is the best term to use for our community. But when I refer to myself transsexual is the term I use. Transgender is still accurate of course, but it doesn't quite feel right as I talk about the differences between sex and gender to people.
But that's just me, and you are absolutely right that everyone should use whatever term they are comfortable with.
Please forgive my error, I think you are the first I've personally met under 50 that has embraced the label. I must admit that there is a bit of me that twinges with the carrying on of it but also recognize that's partially a me problem. Trans medicalism and the distinction of having to possess a fully changed physicality to be accepted by both outside and inside the trans community has traditionally been the hammer weilded by binary trans folk against the non-binary trans community as a "you're not a REAL trans person" style accusation so it generally makes me personally a bit skittish hearing "trans sexual" from anyone my age or younger.
But it's largely the fault of pressures that effect us all. When someone is under pressure to glean any amount of respectability to survive cracks form in solidarity and some will take the opportunity to point to the next person down the line that's even harder to understand and go "Oh, I'm nothing look at them. Aren't I just reasonable by comparison? " I think nowadays I see more growing solidarity inside the community than a decade ago but the memory of those divisions and the language used still makes me twitch.
But inside the non-binary trans community we have a similar bit of friction with people who use it/its pronouns... Like for a lot of us that is very VERY unwelcome because it has dehumanizing connotations but for some that is legit what they feel best supported by in their experience. I know some inside the group have the gut instinct to feel kind of undercut by that minority inside our minority for creating a "bad" example to the straights but the world is full of nuance and it can probably afford some extra.
It's just unfortunate even when there's a lot of us around in a place a lot of cis folk don't know the very basics of what is common good practice versus what is kind of a special case. It drives the instinct to self police more then we should have to.
I also prefer transexual and wish it hadn't been discarded for transgender. Feels like a euphemism train, but transcending the idea of what gender I am, versus the boundaries of biological sex isn't as strong of an idea or conceptual framework to me.
Apologies if this comes off as too explain-y and mentions some of what you already know. I am a queer history nerd and I don't get many opportunities to trot this out.
A lot of the reasoning of the shift to transgender came with the transition away from focusing on the strict sexual characteristics of the people involved. Trans sexual was seen as either implying heavily the medical involvement of alteration of sexual characteristics was always the intended goal or defining factor that disqualified people from being properly trans or referenced the highly discredited and now generally considered transphobic connotation of someone being sexually attracted to the characteristics of the opposite sex so much that they they treat transition as a fetish which had "moral" considerations. Basically the whole auto ando/gynophillia stuff. They varied their approach based on whether they thought you were in it for kink and were generally more lenient if you were trying to model what they considered heterosexual norms.
Gender was selected as the more blanket friendly term which applies to how someone self conceptualizes themselves. This does include in it's definition gender euphoria and dysphoria so by it's definition it featureshow one feels about their personal physical sexual characteristics... It just places zero emphasis on how one chooses to respond to those forces leaving the door more open to a wider range of different transition presentations including purely social ones.
It's less a euphemism and more a widening and restructuring to shake up the old harmful preconceptions that existed in old DSMs...it also had a particular historic use for trans people.
Functionally some of the lesser known history is it had a temporary practical purpose of providing red flags for patients of medical and psychiatric professionals who remained out of date to the rather durastic changes to the DSM that retired notions of sexuallity and attraction as a set of Freudianeque assumptions to the underpinning of behaviour that happened between 1990 and 2013. Basically if the doc was still using the term trans sexual you knew they were probably making a lot of their recommendations and limiting your choices based on whom you were sexually attracted to. If you knew your doc was not keeping upto date it gave you some level of personal advocating power in a system regularly stacked against trans patients.
Regardless of how one personally feels about the term it is not a euphemism.
/phew I was a little worried that you would just tell me 30s count as old. 😉
But I understand completely where you are coming from, and let me just take a moment to entirely refute the entire concept of "truscum transmedaclist non binary erasure", it's gate keeping bigotry that has no basis in understanding of gender and just pure outdated hogwash. Very much not an ideology I agree with nor support. You are absolutely allowed to feel however you like about the term transexual, we all have our own personal history that comes with emotional responses. Yours are very understandable, and even if I couldn't understand it, you would still be valid in those feels.
For me, this type of conversation comes up a lot around the term "queer", which I prefer to use as a more encompassing alternative to LGBTQIA+ acronyms. But at the same time, I also recognize that there are people who have had the term applied to them in a defamatory way and I don't blame em an inch for feeling reticent to reclaim the term for themselves.
At its core, it's just the pedantic in me that feels like transexual is the best term to describe my body when I look in the mirror. I haven't, and don't have plans to, have any trans related surgery. But with my particular combination of secondary sexual traits, transsexual just feels "right". However, I also know that because I haven't had surgery there are transmedaclists out that will say I'm not a "real transexual" either. Far be for me to think I am any different from any other trans person, no one is more or less trans based off their medical history or diagnostic requirements and that is a terrible metric to use for identity. Much less identity policing of others.
Yeah no worries on the 30's thing. I am pushing 40 and have actually had the "Ummm yaaa Aren't you a little old to be a non-binary?" levied at me... Like it's a fad for edgy teens and not something that I had to shelve for 20 years because I figured people would think me a loon for outwardly expressing because nobody talked about it.
I am lucky to be in a place were I have been able to meet older trans folk because the community where I am has been a stronghold of queer identities since before it was more widely accepted as cool. There is a bit of reverence inside the community to be had for anybody who survived the AIDS epidemic and the rough persecution of those times, particularly trans activists over 60 who have been out aince rocks were soft there maintains a "I eat roofing nails instead of cereal for breakfast and honey badger don't give a shit" vibe about them. From that very select demographic "trans sexual" almost seems to have like a "badge of honor" status where heaven help the little shit who tries to call them "transgender" because they will turn you inside out with a stare and incinerate what's left with words.
Like I have gotten some real bad enbyphobia off of one of them and have had secondhand warnings regarding others but the general concensus amoungst others in the Pride volunteer realm is kind of like they get a free pass.