Matt Kailey

For years now, I have called myself a transman — one word, one entity. Sometimes, if I’m being hip, I’ll say “transguy,” but at my age, the word “hip” is usually followed by “replacement.”

I consciously chose transman as an identity early in my transition when it became clear to me that “man” didn’t fit. Those of you who have read my book know that I was struggling through a “genderless” period (see photo) in which I was kind of flailing around, trying to identify completely with men and not able to, and trying to figure out where I fit in.

This is when my therapist suggested seeing myself not as a man exactly like those men who were born male, but as a transsexual man — a slightly different entity altogether — and it worked for me, and it continues to do so. Based on that, I have used the words transman and transwoman in my writing to differentiate trans people from non-trans people.

But I have recently read something that caused me to think about adding a space — trans man and trans woman — maybe not for myself, but for other trans people.

For me, transman does not signify “other than,” but it does signify “different from,” and that’s okay with me. I am different from non-trans people, and I like that. I am also well aware, and I have been from the start, that there are many, many trans people who, once they have transitioned, do not even identify as trans anymore, in any way.

They identify as men and women, and so they are. That identification is just as accurate and valid as my own. But because this is a blog about trans issues, I will probably continue to use trans as a descriptor, and out of respect for others’ identities, I will make every attempt to put in a space (at my age, “space” is often directly followed by “y”).

If I forget, you can call me on it, because I have realized now that some people probably hate being referred to as transmen and transwomen as much as I hate being referred to as “transgender” (because I think that word needs an “ed” at the end — transgendered).

But that brings me to another conundrum. In my mind, a person is transgendered when his or her gender identity and physical body do not match — in other words, when a person with a female body sees herself as male or vice versa. To me, this is a transgendered person. When I was female, I saw myself as a transgendered female — a female with a male gender identity.

But when a person corrects that mismatch by changing the physical body, is that person still transgendered? In other words, did I go from being a transgendered female to a transgendered male?

In my mind, I did not. I went from being a transgendered female to being a transsexual male (for some people, it would just be “male” or “man”). Once the mismatch is corrected, there is no mind/body incongruity anymore, so why is that person still transgendered?

I read about so-and-so, who is labeled a “transgendered female” or a “transgendered woman,” when, in fact, she has transitioned from male to female or is living full-time as a woman. So I can see that she is a transsexual female, or a transsexual woman, or a female, or a woman–but I can’t see that she is transgendered anymore.

This is where confusion comes in for me (and at my age, confusion seems to come in more frequently — in fact, the door is wide open). I would welcome some comments on this. I would love to hear other people’s positions.

(Photo: me in my genderless (and chunky) period)

(Thanks to Abigail Jensen for the link above and many other interesting links on similar discussions, including discussions on the use of cis, which I have to spend more time perusing.)