for those who insist on liking Dan Savage

[CanadianHippie]

a buzz word to mean inclusive of all genders. Instead of bisexual, which indicates there is only 2 genders of the world, pansexual is someone who, by their definition, does not pay attention to a partners gender or sex, but feels they can love anyone for any reason.

A buzz word? Seriously? I suppose all lesbian, gay and bisexual are buzz words too.

[CanadianHippie]

T is in no way inclusive of all gender identity. Sometimes Q also is genderqueer or third gender.

T is transgender.

Transgender includes genderqueer and third gender.

[emmiedahl]

Third gender? Last semester I wrote a paper on the hijras in India and one of my points was that we don't have a third gender in the US! Do tell.

[BlackHawk]

A buzz word? Seriously? I suppose all lesbian, gay and bisexual are buzz words too.

Woah calm down. I chose the wrong wording. Buzz word was an incorrect choice of wording. I should have chosen a better phrase.

[CanadianHippie]

Woah calm down. I chose the wrong wording. Buzz word was an incorrect choice of wording. I should have chosen a better phrase.

Ok then.

[CanadianHippie]

Third gender? Last semester I wrote a paper on the hijras in India and one of my points was that we don't have a third gender in the US! Do tell.

Third gender is neither male nor female.

[kamcho_papio]

Third gender is neither male nor female.

Across cultures, it's generally understood that third genders or two-spirits can be intersexed people, or to not conform to their societies' expectations of masculinity and femininity--sometimes correlating to transfolk, sometimes correlating to gay or lesbian.

Here's an example of a native organization:

http://www.denvertwospirit.com/

Here's a clip from a documentary about the life of a young nadleehi in Arizona (TRIGGER--Hate crime and violence)

http://twospirits.org/

Outside of many Native cultures, the concept doesn't quite exist in dominant North American society.

[Alecto]

T is transgender.

Transgender includes genderqueer and third gender.

No, it doesn't. As someone with intimate knowledge of that community, transgender is its own unique thing. That's like calling bisexual women and lesbians the same thing.

[Patsy]

I think a basic rule for modern presentations of transgender and genderqueer stuff is that you'll never be able to dig down far enough to get definitions for everything :) I just use the term "gender variant" to cover third gender/ both genders/ no gender and all the terms and variations for those that may/do exist. It's complicated and different from older definitions and continuous cultural concepts like hijra, because a lot of the concepts in western society (at least from my perspective) don't seem to have stuck in the same way. Homosexuality today might be something different from homosexuality 100 years ago in U.S. cities, say, but it's still the same baaaaaaaaasic idea.

'Sistergirl' and 'brotherboy' are some terms you could look at if you want to look at some other older terms.

[CanadianHippie]

No, it doesn't. As someone with intimate knowledge of that community, transgender is its own unique thing. That's like calling bisexual women and lesbians the same thing.

As someone who is part of that community, I have intimate knowledge of it as well.

What, exactly, do you think transgender means?

[Alecto]

As someone who is part of that community, I have intimate knowledge of it as well.

What, exactly, do you think transgender means?

I was engaged to a transman, and we were best friends almost our entire lives. Transgendered specifically applies to those whose biological gender does not match their birth gender, also known as those who have gender identity disorder (GID). Genderqueer refers to those who do not identify on the gender binary, which includes some third gender folks, but not all. There are also those who identify as non-gendered who fit into neither box. Some crossdressers also identify as genderqueer but not all.

The trans community tends to have a very narrow window of self identification, because the outside world wants to stick all expressions outside the gender norm as being transgendered, when it's not. Trans folks are not drag queens, cross dressers or anything like that, and lumping anything else in can cause a lot of hurt for those folks.

[Patsy]

I have always heard transsexual to mean GID/body dysmorphia stuff (gender/sex difference, the stuff that often leads to a sex change). Trans is a shortened form of that, but I have never heard transgender to mean the same thing. I have always heard transgender to mean transsexual, crossdressing, genderqueer and sometimes intersex, although intersex advocacy groups have been splitting off so these days it isn't always included under the transgender umbrella.

I am aware of a lot of separatism in transgender groups - transsexuals being a bit antsy about crossdressers and crossdressing groups, IS being antsy about genderqueer and transsexual people, and certainly trans people will be very clear that transsexuality is NOT the same as homosexuality, crossdressing, etc., BUT... I think you are working from a very different definition of transgender than I usually hear, because to me it has always been an umbrella term.

[CanadianHippie]

I was engaged to a transman, and we were best friends almost our entire lives. Transgendered specifically applies to those whose biological gender does not match their birth gender, also known as those who have gender identity disorder (GID). Genderqueer refers to those who do not identify on the gender binary, which includes some third gender folks, but not all. There are also those who identify as non-gendered who fit into neither box. Some crossdressers also identify as genderqueer but not all.

The trans community tends to have a very narrow window of self identification, because the outside world wants to stick all expressions outside the gender norm as being transgendered, when it's not. Trans folks are not drag queens, cross dressers or anything like that, and lumping anything else in can cause a lot of hurt for those folks.

"Transgendered specifically applies to those whose biological gender does not match their birth [sex]". Exactly, someone who is born male but does not identify as male consistently is transgender. Whether that person identifies specifically as genderqueer, transsexual, third gendered, pangender, bigender, etc is another issue all together. But transgender is someone whose gender identity does not match their biological sex at birth, it is not a specific term, it is a general category for those who are not cisgender.