Defining the Word "Transsexual"

By Jane Migliara Brigham

Four days ago,  I published the article “Why some trans people are reclaiming the term 'transsexual', and why I am one of them”.  I wanted to talk about the rise in the new language that many trans people are using to speak about themselves.

While I explained what the word meant to them (and to myself), this was ignored by many readers.  They insisted that the meaning of the word “transsexual” is the same as it was back in the day, when it was being used to determine who was ‘truly trans’, and therefore, who had the right to transition.  They then assumed that I, and the people now calling themselves transsexuals, held those same transmedicalist beliefs.

This is false.  I am not a transmedicalist.  I believe that anyone who wants to transition should be able to, and that no one is any ‘more or less transgender’ based on how far they medically transition.

I want to talk about this new definition of transsexual, and how to understand it.  

The short answer is this: a transsexual is someone who transitions their sex.  This is simple enough.  ‘Transsexual’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘transition’ and ‘sex’. Let’s break down the word.

Transition is easy enough to understand.  It means to go from one thing to the other.

Sex is harder to understand.  It refers to a number of bodily traits that, when combined, are used to classify someone as a man, woman, etc.  

In common usage, sex is a euphemism for what is between a person’s legs.  This can be seen in phrases like “sex change operation”, which conflate the moment of changing sex with the moment that a person changes their genitals.

In reality, sex is far more complicated.  It refers to a great number of biological traits that distinguish a body between male and female.  The more we study the biology of sex, the more we understand that the sex of a body can be changed in an incalculable number of ways.  Transsexual Medicine replaces the very molecules of the body with those of the desired sex.

By comparison, surgeries to change one’s genitals are downright cosmetic.

Knowing this, to transition one’s sex means to take steps to change one’s sex characteristics.  The most common way to do this is to take Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).  

Therefore, to take HRT is to transition one’s sex.  

The action of changing one’s sex is not a single moment in time, as with genital surgery.  It is an ongoing, never ending process.  Every dose of cross-sex hormones is a concrete action towards that objective.  It is how we control our bodies.

There ought to be a word for someone who does this.  Thankfully there is.  A person who transitions their sex is a transsexual.

Seeing as a transsexual is defined by the process of changing sex, when does someone become a practicing transsexual?  They become one when they take the first concrete step to changing their sex.  That means that a person becomes a Practicing Transsexual from the moment of their first HRT dose, their first surgery, etc. 

That’s all simple enough, but what of the trans people who want to change their sex, but are being prevented from doing so?  Or what about those who are actively pursuing a change of sex, but who have not yet gotten it?  Are these people entitled to be called transsexuals, and if so, how?

Those who aspire to change their sex, those pursuing a change of sex, and those who are actively changing their sex, are all united in a common interest, that being that the means of changing sex should be available to them.  They may differ in their material circumstances, but not in their underlying desires.

Assuming that the means of changing one’s sex were available to everyone, we could expect that everyone who wants to change their sex will eventually do so.  Those who aspire to change sex will plan to do so, and those who plan to do so will eventually put a plan into practice.  Therefore, the only difference between the groups is what timeframe they are on.

The language we use ought to reflect this fact.  A transsexual is someone who changes their sex, but in practice, it is also someone who would change their sex if they were able to.

Knowing this, I propose the following full definition:

Transsexual: noun, adjective

1. A person who, through taking cross-sex hormones, surgery, or through other means, deliberately alters their body for the purpose of changing their sex. (Practicing Transsexual)
2. A person who is planning to change their sex. (Aspiring Transsexual)
3. A person who would like to change their sex, but is being prevented from doing so by an outside force. 

This definition exists to unite all those who wish to change their sex under a single banner while providing the language to discuss the material differences between them.

Why is such precise language needed?

Simple.  People need words to talk about concepts that are important to them.  The more important the concept, the more pressing a need for a word.  If even a tiny amount of people feel they need a word for something, they make a word.  

Language is full of niche words which are unknown or unused by most, but which are crucial to a few.  The dictionary is full of examples of words most people don't need and will never use.

Language is very often so precise that there are terms for every individual person you meet.  These are people’s names, and not using them is considered very rude.

Just because you have no need for a certain term doesn't mean that the term is irrelevant, or that the term should not be used by others. 

The category of ‘transsexual’ is a subset of the category ‘transgender’.  Everyone who is transsexual is transgender, but not everyone who is transgender is transsexual.   

This does not state or imply that to be transsexual is to be ‘more transgender’ or ‘more trans’.  There is no such thing.  A person is either trans, or they are not.  It is a strict either-or situation.  Similarly, a person is either transsexual, or they are not.  Some people have more intense and/or invasive transitions, but that means that their transition was more intense, not that they are inherently more transsexual.None of this is a value judgement.

I have no interest in comparing the moral worth of trans people who transition medically with trans people who do not.  The act of changing one’s sex is a morally neutral action, neither good nor bad.  I didn’t care when I wrote that first article, and I don't now.  That was never the point.

The widespread belief that us transsexuals are calling ourselves that as a means of demonstrating that we are ‘more trans’ than the wider transgender population comes from people confusing the desire to use more more precise categories for the desire to create a hierarchy around who is the ‘most trans’.

The fact that transsexual is a subset of transgender does not make it a hierarchy.  The same is true of other subsets of transgender, such as intersex, non-binary, genderfluid, etc.  All these exist to provide precision as to what group a person is talking about.  None of these terms imply a hierarchy.

The same is true of the word transgender being a subset of the word queer (or the umbrella term LGBT…, whichever you prefer).  All transgender people are queer, but not all queer people are transgender.

The word transgender exists to provide precision when speaking of people whose gender is different from that assigned to them at birth.  It does not exist to imply that transgender people are more queer than cisgender queers, or that they are somehow better than the wider group of queer people.

The same is true of the word queer being a subset of all people.  All queer people are people, but not all people are queer.

The word queer exists to provide precision when speaking of people whose gender and/or sexuality is different from the norm.  It does not exist to imply that queer people have more worth than cishet people, or that they are somehow better than people at large.Within the category of all people, there exists the category of queer, without implying a hierarchy.  Within the category of queer, there exists the category of transgender, without implying a hierarchy.  Within the category of transgender, there is the category of transsexual, without implying a hierarchy.

If you can understand the first two statements, then it should be easy to understand the third statement.

Precise language does not imply superiority.

Let’s bring this all back to the controversy around the term “transsexual”.  

The argument, as proposed by many of my critics, that the term transsexual implies the self-proclaimed superiority of those using it, makes absolutely no logical sense.  Why then do so many people believe it?

I don’t think they are engaging with the idea itself.  They are engaging with a phantasm of what they imagine the argument to be.

They hear me and others call people who medically transition transsexuals, and call those who do not cissexuals.  They feel as if we are saying that people who medically transition are ‘truly trans’ or ‘the most trans’, and that people who don't are ‘not trans’ or ‘less trans’.  Their feelings lead them to fear, their fear makes their critical thinking skills falter, and without their critical thinking, they mistake their own fears for the positions of their opponents.  Thus, they come to believe that we hold a set of opinions that is completely different from what we are repeatedly saying that we believe.

They believe that the people calling themselves transsexuals are actually transmedicalists.  They cannot be reasoned out of that position because they were never reasoned into it.  

To stop the fear that this bad thinking stems from, you have to address the underlying anxiety.

They feel anxious about their idea that we feel that we are ‘more trans’ than them.  This leads them to accuse us of actually believing this about them.

In many cases, they feel anxious about the idea that we think of them as ‘less trans’ because they themselves feel that we ourselves are ‘less trans’ than they are.

The typical profile of someone who gets mad about people calling themselves transsexual, and mad at the idea of calling people outside that category cissexual, is a trans person who has not medically transitioned, typically while holding gender abolitionist beliefs.  

Gender abolitionism, in the simplified form that most people understand it in, is the belief that the best way to fight patriarchy is to not conform to the social roles of the sex you are living as.  Many people interpret this to mean that those who are fine with the gender roles of the sex they are living as are upholding the patriarchy.  This applies to both gender conforming cis people and gender conforming trans people.

From this perspective, they see a group of medically transitioning trans people who are choosing to align their sex and gender, most of them being trans women who are comfortable expressing femininity, and feel as if they are traitors to the cause of feminism.  

This is the root of all the anger.  They are guilty of treating us the same way that they accuse us of treating them.  

They are projecting the hierarchies they keep about us in their head onto our categorizations of them.  

Going forward, when people get furious at the idea of other people calling themselves transsexuals, and become impervious to logic about the matter, we should understand that they are acting from an irrational fear.  This fear is little different from what gender conservatives feel about people calling themselves trans as a whole.  

Both fears stem from a person’s unspoken hierarchy being acknowledged, named, and challenged.  Both fears should be ignored.