Transsexual

The term transsexual originates from a 1949 article by sexologist David Cauldwell in which he refers to an individual requesting sex “transmutation” from female to male as a case of psychopathia transexualis. Today transsexual commonly refers to individuals who seek to live full time in a gender other than that to which they were assigned at birth. This transformation often is achieved with hormone therapy and surgical interventions. Transsexuals are distinct from “cross-dressers,” who dress in the clothes of the “opposite sex” but do not wish to permanently change their social gender identities. Transsexuals also are not intersexed, a term that refers to people with various genetic configurations that give them genitals and/or reproductive systems that do not fit with expectations for male and female bodies. Finally, while transsexuals often are misunderstood as being homosexual, these identity categories are distinct. Being gay or lesbian has to do with the gender one is sexually attracted to. Being transsexual has to do with what gender one identifies as. Transsexuals can be gay or lesbian, but they can just as easily be heterosexual, bisexual, or pansexual.

Transgender is an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of differently gendered identities, such as drag queens, drag kings, genderqueers, cross-dressers, and at times transsexuals. It comes from “transgenderist,” coined by Virginia Price, the founder of the first cross-dresser organization, Tri-Ess. Originally, transgender was used to make distinctions between cross-dressers and transsexuals. It took on its current meaning in the 1990s, when Leslie Feinberg, a gender activist and author, used it in a pamphlet entitled “Transgender Liberation.” The use of transgender as an umbrella term is similar to the usage of queer by groups like Queer Nation. The idea behind queer politics was to take apart identity categories and blur group boundaries so that bisexuals could find a common cause to fight alongside drag queens, gay men, [Page 860]and transsexual lesbians. Like queer, transgender abandons rigid identity categories—categories often associated with medical and psychological regulation— to allow for coalitional gender activism.