Matt Kailey

No, this isn’t a top-surgery post. It’s another language post, but it was inspired by a post at Life Right Side Up called “Done with Transgender.” A friend sent me this during a rather long discussion we’ve been having about the meaning of various words in the “trans dictionary.”

I encourage you to read the whole post, but one thing the author says is, “So I’m no longer using the term transgender about myself. I’m not sure how useful it is for anyone. It’s been kicked around so much and used so facilely that it’s becoming a word we accept without asking ourselves what it really means.”

I agree with her in many ways, because I have the same confusion myself. And, of course, I’m going to go into detail. Did you expect otherwise?

My definition of transgender(ed) has always been a person whose gender identity does not match his or her physical sex, either all or part of the time. Not only was that what I “learned” when I first identified and delved into my “gender issues,” but it made sense to me. It was a specific, identifiable, and somewhat describable “condition.”

Then I “learned” that a transsexual was a person who makes physical changes to correct this mismatch or who lived full-time in the gender that matched his or her gender identity. This also seemed very specific and identifiable. And, in my mind, once I changed my physical sex as much as I could, I was no longer transgender(ed). I had “become” a transsexual man.

I had the option of dropping the trans part altogether, but I wasn’t comfortable with that and preferred (and still prefer) to define myself as a trans man. The “trans” is short for transsexual, not transgender(ed). (But I don’t care if someone calls me transgendered or transgender, as long as they don’t call me “a transgender” or “fatty.”)

I also know that there are people who define transgender in other ways and particularly in a broader sense than I do, to encompass anyone who transgresses gender norms on a regular basis and/or someone who suffers discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, violence, or other negative consequences as a result of real or perceived transgressions.

And I have also recently come to understand that there are people who have been transsexual from birth — that they have never seen themselves as transgender(ed). That would fit under my definition of correcting a mismatch, but would not fit under any larger “umbrella” that has been created for our community (that’s okay — it’s getting a little crowded under here).

All of these definitions, and even more, are not problematic to me just because they don’t match mine. I make it a point when I speak or write to offer a variety of definitions and to point out that my definitions are not the only ones, nor are they necessarily the “correct” ones — because I don’t know who will decide what is “correct,” and I can guarantee you that it will not be me.

But my frustration comes in not at the multitude of definitions or language usage in our “community,” but because I sometimes feel stifled in my writing because of my concern of offending someone — and I generally always do, no matter what I say.

As I see it, the language issue in our community is enormous — understandable, but enormous.

When you take a population as large as ours (people who identify as transgender, transgendered, transsexual, transexual (one s), genderqueer, gender diverse, trans man, trans woman, FTM, MTF, man, woman, and many others that I will remember later) and try to put us together as a “community,” something is going to ensue, and it’s probably not going to be hilarity.

Many of us have only one thing in common — something to do with sex and gender — and because of that, we all got stuck under an umbrella, whether we were feeling wet or not.

I don’t mind being educated, corrected, disagreed with, or argued with. In fact, I welcome it. I learn from it. But I’ve found that I — and any other person out there who writes about trans issues — cannot please everyone, because there is so much diversity of opinion.

For example, are “male” and “female” sexes, genders, or both? Technically, they are sexes, but can someone have a “male” gender identity? Or can he only have a “masculine” gender identity, because male is a sex, not a gender? And if male is a sex, can I be a male (sex) without a penis and an XY chromosome, or can I only be a man (gender), but not a male?

I was “assigned” female at birth, but there were some damn good reasons for that. Does that mean that I was “assigned” incorrectly? I don’t think so. I had a female body — my gender identity just didn’t match. No one was going to know that when I popped out. They all just went with the odds and put “Female” on my birth certificate. That’s okay. It wasn’t their fault.

I consider myself to be female-born and male-identified (“masculine” might be pushing it — after all, I still can’t kill a spider). I consider myself a transsexual man. Other people might not agree with my self-definitions, but that’s okay — everyone has his or her own.

But, as we all do, I tend to use my own experience as a base for my writing, and I try my very best not to offend anyone along the way — but I know I will and I apologize in advance.

In the meantime, I continue to write and dodge bullets, and I try to be as open as I can. I try to make corrections when they are warranted, and I always welcome other viewpoints. I want my readers to hear as many voices as possible.

But I’ve told you how I see myself in terms of language. How do you see yourself?