Queersecrets Sucks: What not to call trans people:

queersecretssucks:

trbs:

Avoid: transman, transwoman, trans-man, trans-woman, etc.
Instead, use: trans man, trans woman, etc.
Why?: The one-word “transwoman” and hyphenated “trans-woman” imply that trans is a gender different from woman. The space indicates that it’s an adjective describing a woman, such as “Asian man”…

You know what’s even more interesting than my previous reply on this topic is that earlier tonight I was at a meeting of five FTM folk that agreed that “an FTM” is not only OK, but better than “trans man” or “trans male” because the latter do not describe all of them as accurately as “FTM”—and as a noun.

I am not binary gendered myself, so I will not try to claim that I completely understand the experiences of binary gendered trans men.

However, I have spoken to many-a trans man who feel completely insulted when they are referred to as anything other than “man” or “trans man”. Even “FTM” as an adjective was insulting to them, because they felt that the “F” has no place in their identity at all.  “An FTM” ungendered them further, by claiming their gender is not “male”, but defined by their trans status.  Because of their very valid reasoning and emotions, I am very opposed to the use of “FTM” or “MTF”, especially as nouns.

Are you and your friends similarly insulted by the use of “trans man” to describe your identity?

Actually, yes. I don’t complain because my distinction is a really nitpicky difference between “guy” and “man,” but yeah, we looked at the post when we were getting coffee last night and one of them flat out said, “OK, that’s offensive, because I’m not even a man.” We are not all 100% binary-identified either, BTW. I am in my own way, and the others are in their own way, but for some of us, it isn’t clearcut all the way, rather mixed in with two-spirit or other identities.

I presume a lot of this is coming from some FL groups. I’ve noticed they are their own subset of trans folk; they all discuss things very differently from the guys here, who by the way describe things really differently from the guys at Creating Change, or in San Francisco, or that we’ve brought in for the symposium. There are also age differences, race differences, etc.

I also really wish I could’ve shown you a Powerpoint that one of the grad students in Linguistics did about the history of a lot of these words and the continual evolution of them. (Which also was not out-group research since he himself is trans, as are many of them in that department.) I think it would be helpful.