Don't let your schooling interfere with your education.
~ Pete Seeger

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Transpeople – not transsexuals

I've been uncomfortable with the term 'transsexual' for quite awhile – right from the start, really. We live in a prudish society (like it or not), and it seems to me that when you say 'transsexual,' people hear 'trans-sex-ual.' They think of it as about sex, the act springs into their mind, naked bodies, the whole works. Not the kind of connection and connotation I want, since transsexualism, to me, has little to do with sex, and everything to do with identity, gender, how I relate to others, how I think, the role I want to live in society, and so forth. Sex is a part of it, of course, as it is a part of every complete human. But I want to be seen in the fullness of who I am, not in the narrow confines of the part of my life that is most personal and private.

Therefore, my new semantics campaign: I am transgendered. I am a transwoman. But most of all, I'm a transperson, and we are transpeople.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank You, Seda!!!
I thought that I was the only one who hated the word "Transexual". I am very vocal about this and I know it doesn't seem to fly with a lot of Ts but I do not want any word describing me as some kind of "sexual". This is not about sex! It's about who you are. Thank you for expressing your thoughts! I wholeheartedly agree!
Luvs,
Deja, simply a Transgender (sfter all, what the heck does the "T" stand for in LGBT?)

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
~Helen Keller

Reading List for Information about Transpeople

  • Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green
  • Conundrum, by Jan Morris
  • Gender Outlaw, by Kate Bornstein
  • My Husband Betty, by Helen Boyd
  • Right Side Out, by Annah Moore
  • She's Not There, by Jennifer Boylan
  • The Riddle of Gender, by Deborah Rudacille
  • Trans Liberation, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transgender Emergence, by Arlene Istar Lev
  • Transgender Warriors, by Leslie Feinberg
  • Transition and Beyond, by Reid Vanderburgh
  • True Selves, by Mildred Brown
  • What Becomes You, by Aaron Link Raz and Hilda Raz
  • Whipping Girl, by Julia Serano

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.
~Hafiz