Done with transgender

The word gender was originally a grammatical term. Words had gender: masculine, feminine, and in some languages neuter. Later, it took on two new meanings: a kind of euphemistic synonym for sex, and, as Merriam-Webster Online has it, "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex" (the "gotcha" there being the word "typical").

Trans people, and many others as well, use the word gender to mean our sense of ourselves as being male or female, distinct from our biological sex. Because we do have a biological sex. It's determined by external genitalia and reinforced by subsequent physical development. Male and female are scientific terms, with male animals having male sex organs and female animals having female sex organs. Those terms can get muddied by intersex conditions, usually determined by karyotype tests, but in general the biological categories of male and female are fairly clear. They aren't about how we feel. They're about how we're built.

The trouble is that our brain is part of our biology as well. It's not the part the obstetrician sees, but what our brain tells us matters a lot to our own lives. Our sense of ourselves as male, female, both, neither, or whatever doesn't necessarily match what we call our biological sex, as determined by our external genitalia. External genitalia are not actually sufficient for determining biological sex, but that's what is done. That's when we start to talk about gender instead. Brain sex, a result of in utero development, leads to gender, the sense of whether one is male or female or other. I was born male bodied, but my gender is female. I'm not phenotypically female—yet—but my brain says I'm female. My sense of self as female is an integral part of my personality.

Dysphoria arises in this situation because the body does not match the brain, the body keeps feeding the brain the wrong chemicals, and society wants to reinforce the gender that matches biological sex. This is what can cause stress, depression, and a lot of confusion. Imagine having a brain that was undervirilized in the womb for whatever reason. It's likely similar to the brains of women-born-female-bodied. Yet it gets bombarded with androgens, as well as bombarded with the idea that its sense of sex should match external genitalia. What's a brain to do?

There's a word for people like this: transsexual. Trans in this case means "so or such as to change" (thanks again, Merriam-Webster) as in the word transfiguration, with implications of the meaning "on the other side of," as in transatlantic. I have a brain that says I'm female, but a body with male sex organs that pumps out male hormones. I deal with that through hormone replacement therapy and, before too long, surgical reconstruction. I'm not about to have a personality transplant, so I change my hormone balance and my phenotype, as much as possible. I bring my body to the other side, where my brain already is.

When my dysphoria went from chronic to acute, I called myself transgender. It was a word that seemed to cover a lot of conditions, and I didn't yet know what I was really dealing with. Once I did know, however, I admitted the truth to myself: I was transsexual. It was my biological sex, the male genitalia and the result of having male genitalia, that needed to be changed. My gender was already perfectly fine, if sadly unmatched to my body.

I changed gender expression during my social transition insofar as I allowed my tendencies toward typically (there's that word again) female behaviour to be expressed. But those tendencies were there all along. People used to think I was gay because I had a soft appearance and a gentle manner. Only Sweetie knew that I was also interested in fashion and grooming among other typically female interests. Not all women behave and think in this way, but many do, and I did and do. So it was really a change in the level of gender expression. In the end, I could no more change my actual gender—my sense of my own sex—than I could change my basic personality. I didn't acquire a sense of being female. I simply stopped repressing it.

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. We assume we know. It's the "T" at the end of "LGB," right?

But trans means "so or such as to change," and "on the other side of." Change gender? Change one's sense of one's own maleness or femaleness? Change one's "behavioural, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex"? None of that makes sense to me.

There are people like me who come to terms with the need to change biological sex and, to a greater or lesser extent, our role in society, and follow through on that need. There are also people who would probably be better off, at least in some ways, if they did follow through, but who do not follow through for various reasons, including that they would be worse off in other ways. Both these groups can be called transsexual. But there are also men who have a desire to dress in women's clothes, either privately or publicly. We call them cross-dressers, but do they belong in a broader category, and if so, what is it? As well, there are people whose sense of their own gender is at variance with their biological sex but who have no need to undergo surgical and/or hormonal treatment for their conditions. We have specific terms—genderqueer, bi-gendered, androgynous, and more—but do those people belong in a broader category? And if that's not enough, there are nearly infinite variations in between, such as a cross-dresser who undergoes facial hair removal or even hormone therapy but who lives his daily life as a man.

Do all these people belong under one umbrella? Am I like a cross-dresser? Is a cross-dresser like an androgyne? Is an androgyne like me? I wonder.

The word transgender is not going away, of course. It's entrenched. But I really don't know what it means any more. I tend to use the term gender variant for people who don't conform to societal expectations about gender expression. But whatever transgender is, I don't think it describes me, and neither am I gender variant. I'm dealing with a medical condition, and when I'm done, my body will match (as much as possible) my brain. I might still behave in untypical ways, but that's separate from the physiological condition.

As I wrote, I called myself transgender before I realized I was transsexual. The evidence is in this blog, and I'm not covering it up. Some people who call themselves transgender will also come to the same realization. Others, not being transsexual, will not think of themselves that way. They will simply break societal taboos having to do with gender expression. And I'm glad they do. Society should never get complacent about gender.

I realize that in saying that I'm not transgender and don't even want to use the word, I'm agreeing with people whom I usually try to avoid because I find their behaviour abhorrent. Having turned their lives upside down in order to be happy, they seem always to be unhappy. Me, I'm happy. I have no plans to spend the rest of my life bitching at people and arguing over terminology. But I have always agreed with them on certain issues, so this is just one of them.

So, I'm not transgender, or transgendered, which makes more grammatical sense to me. I'm sure some people will refer to me as such, and I can't do anything about that. I'm sure many people will consider me to be under that large umbrella that includes lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, because there is a common experience of similar kinds of discrimination. But at heart, I am a transsexual in transition. My brain and personality always had female in them, now given free expression. Day to day living and hormone balance are now those of a woman-born-female-bodied. Body correction soon will follow. The end result is a female, biologically and legally. Not a claim. Not a wish. A fact.