Words

Follows some words and various definitions or usages I have heard or inferred from books for them.

Transgender

1. Umbrella term meaning 'cross gender' and referring definitely to anyone whose gender identity does not match up with their assigned sex, whether their gender identity is male, female, or something else. May also include intersex people and/or cross-dressers, or may not.
2. People who were a. assigned female at birth and identify as male or b. assigned male at birth and identify as female. No one else.

Trans*

1. Umbrella term referring definitely to anyone whose gender identity does not match up with their assigned sex, whether their gender identity is male, female, or something else. May also include intersex people and/or cross-dressers, or may not.

Transgendered

1. Umbrella term referring definitely to anyone whose gender identity does not match up with their assigned sex, whether their gender identity is male, female, or something else. May also include intersex people and/or cross-dressers, or may not.  
2. A pejorative, outdated term for transgender.

Transsexual

1. People who were a. assigned female at birth and identify as male or b. assigned male at birth and identify as female. No one else.
2. People who have undergone physical transition, possibly including genital surgery, to match the sex opposite from the one they were assigned at birth.
3. A pejorative, outdated term for transgender.

Transvestite

1. Someone who, usually, identifies as male but dresses up as a woman for a multitude of purposes. Less commonly, the other way around.
2. A pejorative, outdated term for cross-dresser.

Cross-dresser

1. Someone who, usually, identifies as male but dresses up as a woman for a multitude of purposes. Less commonly, the other way around. 

Drag queen/king

1. Someone who identifies as male but dresses up as a woman (drag queen) or identifies as female but dresses up as a man (drag king), specifically for performance.
2. New definition I think I'll be using: The use of a gender expression distinctly different from one's own for purposes of performance, or the performance of a gender identity different from one's own. Somehow this has got to be differentiable from ordinary theatre, but I haven't thought of a way to word it.

Sex (ignoring certain uses, here)

1. The biological makeup of a person as either male or female as determined by organs, hormone makeup, chromosomes, and secondary sex characteristics.
2. An assignment at birth by a medical professional based on that medical professional's perception of the above.
3. The unique biological makeup of any distinct person, free of determination into categories.

Gender

1. The social construction which tells us that people are divided into men and women, usually correlated with sex.
2. The personal identity of male, female, or something else that is inherent to the individual.

Gender identity

1. The personal identity of male, female, or something else that is inherent to the individual.

Gender expression

1. An individual's use of mannerisms, clothing, hairstyle, makeup or lack thereof, and other attributes that tend to be associated with either masculinity or femininity.

Whenever I mention a definition as being pejorative and outdated, I include it at all because I have heard someone use it to self-identify.
These definitions come from memoirs of trans people, from surveys of trans people, from scientific studies on trans people, not from lay cis people. Is it any wonder no one can get the words right when we can't even agree on what they mean? Not enough time has gone by for the language to catch up. I'm not saying we should just let people get away with not bothering, but maybe give people a little slack for not using the exact wording we like.

A few less debated terms, for those just here for info:

MTF/FTM

1. Male to female/female to male. Respectively, people who were assigned male at birth and identify as female, and people who were assigned female at birth and identify as male. An imperfect term, as it implies there is some sort of change from one to the other. Many people always identified as the same gender, and the changes trans people make to their bodies vary widely in scope (from nothing to extensive, multiple surgeries). However, it's still in wide use, and important to know.

AMAB/AFAB/MAB/FAB/MaaB/FaaB

1. Various permutations of Assigned Male at Birth and Assigned Female at Birth. These encompass cis and trans people, and refer specifically to the sex assigned by a medical professional and marked on the birth certificate, without implying correlating gender identity or, in some cases, perfectly correlating biological makeup. These words are much more politically correct, as they avoid problematic ideas like gender and sex being binary, among others.

Genderqueer

1. (I think) An umbrella term to encompass people who do not identify as either male or female.
2. More commonly, a specific gender identity somewhere between the poles of male and female, as opposed to off this spectrum entirely.

Agender

1. A gender identity meaning without gender. 

Bi-gender

1. Someone who identifies as both male and female, not (I believe) at the same time, but who is in a fluid state that moves from one pole to the other.

Genderfluid

1. Someone whose gender identity is fluid and moves along the spectrum.

Cisgender

1. Not trans. Sex assigned at birth and gender identity match up just fine.

While we're at it, a few words for sexual orientations that still get confusing.

Bisexual

1. Someone attracted to men and to women.
2. Someone attracted to multiple genders.

Pansexual

1. Someone attracted to people of all genders.
2. Someone who experiences attraction as to people rather than to their gender. 

The difference is still hotly argued over, and the safest thing to do is ask people which word they use.

Asexual (Ace)

1. Someone who does not experience sexual attraction to anyone. Does not directly correlate with no sex drive or unwillingness to have sex--everyone's different.

Greysexual

1. Someone with sexual attraction between completely asexual and completely not asexual.

Demisexual

1. Someone who only experiences sexual attraction to people with whom they already have a close bond.

Asexual spectrum (A-spectrum)

1. Just what it sounds like, the spectrum of sexual attraction including asexual, greysexual, demisexual, and anything in between.

Allosexual

1. I think this one means not asexual in the same way cisgender means not trans.

And let's not forget romantic orientation! This is the ability to be romantically attracted toward people. It often, but not always, lines up with the sexual orientation. I've heard people use aromantic (not romantically attracted toward anyone) and panromantic (capable of being romantically attracted to anyone) most frequently, but I see no reason why people can't keep on combining prefixes with suffixes and use homoromantic, heteroromantic, and biromantic.

I often think of graphing the interactions of all of these--sexual orientation, romantic orientation, a-spectrum, gender identity, biological makeup, gender expression--and quickly realize I'm out of axes. Especially if I want to allow for change over time. The most axes I've ever seen is five over on www.gapminder.org, but one of them kind of has to be time. Not that I can actually use the software--though with enough time, it doesn't look hard to recreate.

Real Man Adventures

by T Cooper

Real Man Adventures is a collection of interviews, essays, lists, and other bits of snarkiness that T Cooper has assembled into what he calls "a mostly non-fiction book on the subject of masculinity with some biographical elements" (260). It discusses Cooper's experience of manhood and masculinity as a trans man, including his interactions with his parents, his brother, his wife, his kids, government officials, other trans people, and more.

Cooper is honest to a fault, owning up to his insecurities, his fears, his resentments, and his anger. And I do mean 'to a fault'. I seem to remember saying in a previous review to a previous book that a character's faults are most easily forgiven if the character owns up to and dislikes them. It doesn't work here. While I acknowledge Cooper's right to be angry when the passport office won't change his passport sex to M without genital surgery, I also think taking it out on the person on the other end of the phone (who, in all likelihood, neither makes the rules nor has the power to change them, and simply doesn't want to lose their job) wasn't the kindest or most useful thing to do. While I empathize with his insecurity concerning his wife's ample opportunities to find a cis man, he mentioned it enough times that I got frustrated and wanted to respond, "What more does she have to prove to you? She clearly adores you. You've adopted her children. She's transparent about what she's doing when she's out with other men (part of her job as a reporter). She's supportive and thoughtful about all the problems you come to her with, and she shoots you down the second you mention that she might prefer a cis man." I know these things aren't ruled by logic but by fear. I still wished he'd mention it less. His is a unique perspective--unlike many trans men, Cooper doesn't identify with 'born in the wrong body', nor does he have any single life-changing moment where he realized he was a man. He doesn't talk about his transition, he talks about his life after his transition, the parts of his life still affected by being trans even afterward. It's a good read if you've experienced similar frustrations and fears and need to know someone shares them, but not the sort of book you want to hand your mom to say, "Look! This is why you need to try harder to use the right pronouns!" There are some really good arguments about why you should try harder to use the right pronouns, but I recommend reading it yourself and rephrasing rather than just handing it over. The angry tone of it will likely put her on the defensive and you won't get anywhere. Much of it is amusing, some of it is confusing but stubbornly not elaborated upon. (In the chapter titled Ten Things People Assume I Must Understand About Women but Actually Don't, #1 is "The physical pain involved in menstruation" (59). There is no explanation as to why.) Not all of it is directly related to being trans, even though the experiences are necessarily colored by it.

Overall rating: 2.5/5

Project upshot: This one'll go back to the library. I feel duly warned against certain cliches, but that's it.

I Am J

by Cris Beam

J hides his feminine body under two bras and four shirts. He hides from being photographed by being the one behind the camera. He hides from the slew of dyke and suspicion by keeping to himself, only interacting with his parents and his best friend, Melissa. Then an ill-fated kiss and some poorly chosen words catapult him on a whirlwind adventure to drop all that, stop hiding, and become who he really is. A fascinating painter named Blue, a friendly hotel worker, a poet with boy troubles, and a successful trans activist all help to guide J into a deeper understanding of not only himself, but Melissa and his parents as well. Triggers for self-harm.

J's experiences are varied, and the plot believable. Some of the devices were a little less so--are there really queer youth shelters that come with fully functional, queer-only schools? And where I come from, college applications need to be done by the end of winter break, and J was talking about it getting warm outside (in, presumably, Pennsylvania). But the actual motivations were clear and well-supported, which I consider to be much more important. The characters had surprising depth. J's father is Jewish and his mother Puerto Rican Catholic, and on the surface, her reaction seems strangely accepting, but when you really take a look at their actions as a whole, I think it worked. Melissa, too, allows us glimpses of problems that help explain why she doesn't always act with perfect understanding. J was a little bit overly perceptive for me--it felt like this was for the benefit of the reader, to understand why everyone else acts the way they do. For this reason, he is a shell character, allowing the reader to slip in, view the world through his eyes, and not feel entirely out of place. However, many protagonists are like this, including Harry Potter, so I forgive I Am J. It also touches on self-harm, believably, if only briefly.

Overall rating: 4/5

Project upshot: This was actually the inspiring book for the whole search--in order to find trans coming of age books, I looked up this book (which I already owned) on Amazon, looked under the 'other people bought' list, opened up all of those, looked at the 'other people bought' list for each of those, and repeated until I got out of relevant territory. I decided to reread it, to see if I wanted to put it in the paragraph. I'm considering it.

Refuse

by Elliott DeLine

Dean is an angry college-age kid that sometimes identifies as FTM transgender and sometimes decides he hates labels altogether. When his (female) roommate complains about their placement, the housing department places him with Colin, the only other out FTM on campus. Colin will go on to define much of the next years for Dean. In some ways they are similar--both love The Smiths and music in general, and Colin agrees with things Dean says. But mostly they are opposites. Colin is social, generally likeable, the poster boy transgender artist torn between being out to serve as a role model and going stealth (allowing others to believe he is a cisgender male) to be treated as a normal guy. Dean is sullen, bad at social interaction, full of unpalatable opinions, and otherwise extremely reminiscent of Holden Caulfield. Together they experience a trans support group with a troubled woman named Teddy, the sudden coming out of Dean's best friend Vivian's sister, Colin's on-again, off-again relationship with his girlfriend, and Colin's band, Owl Eyes, whose lead singer is both not quite good enough and Colin's best friend. Deep inside, though, Dean is honest with himself while Colin is not, and Dean has principles which he will not cross, but Colin will. These combined with a brutally honest first-person narration set after graduation interspersed with third-person narration set during college attach the reader to Dean. His inability to find something he wants to do after college and unwillingness to settle for something practical are offset to the reader by his real anathema of the social construct forcing him to do so and his self-awareness of the problem. We do not necessarily agree with Dean, but we understand why he does what he does. Triggers for mental illness and suicide.

Refuse is almost unrecognizable as the same story we left in the prequel, I Know Very Well How I Got My Name. Remaining are Dean's not-quite-fitting-in personality, his name, the shocking climax of the last book, and his best friend Vivian. Suddenly appearing are a snarky first-person narration, a love of The Smiths, writing, and music; and an attraction to guys. I'm also fairly sure Dean's parents were divorced before. These can't really be called flaws in this book so much as the last one, since this one (I think) was written first, and I've already written the review for the last one, so let this complaint stand on its own.
Dean was artfully handled to be sympathetic without being nice, and Colin, too, to be nice without being sympathetic. If there's any sure way to get an audience to accept or reject flaws, it's whether or not the character acknowledges and dislikes them. The plot tugged me ever onwards, and the organization didn't jar, oddly arranged in terms of time as it was. Definitely more engaging than the prequel.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Project upshot: Not sure whether this book works as a touchstone. I like it better than the other, but it's so different from the book I want to write. Dean's personality colors everything in this book, and Leandra isn't like that at all. I'm glad I read it for its own sake, in any case.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children

by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is the name of Gabe Williams' new radio show, where he gets to exercise his talent as disc jockey and hang out with his neighbor John, his musical mentor. It's the only part of his life that really makes sense--his family refuses to stop calling him Elizabeth, he can't see how to get a job or go to college as Gabe, and now that Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is getting popular at school, he's got to contend with some bullies making serious threats, the overtures from two girls who may or may not know what they're asking, and his best friend Paige acting weirder and weirder.

Excellent. I zipped through it. The characters are compelling and believable, at times walking masses of contradictions that still somehow make sense. The plot pulls you forward relentlessly. Cronn-Mills manages to slide some history in there without slowing down the book. Paige doesn't get a satisfying conclusion, but there's a fine line between concluding that something will remain unresolved (as happens for another subplot) and simply seeming to forget about it.

Overall rating: 5/5

Project upshot: This book is almost certainly going on the touchstone list.

Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue

by Nicholas M Teich

Transgender 101 does what it says on the tin--it's a simple explanation geared mostly toward family, friends, and significant others of transgender people explaining what being transgender is. It gives the best clear-cut, non-judgmental explanation of 'feeling like' some gender that doesn't match up with your assigned sex is, with a detailed explanation of the differences between assigned sex, gender identity, and gender expression, and their interactions. It gives descriptions of the hormones and surgery trans people can choose to take/undergo and their physical effects while emphasizing that everyone is different and not everyone will want hormones, surgery, or both. It's also useful for newly out (to themselves) transpeople who want a clear-cut explanation of their choices, the limitations surrounding those choices, and what is likely to be going through the heads of family, friends, and coworkers as they start to come out. Finally, it provides a brief history of the understanding of transgenderism and touches on the intersections with class, race, nationality, and sexism.

Its only flaw was some debate about terms--I'm not sure it's accurate in its definitions of 'transgender' and 'transsexual', and it didn't mention that these terms are used differently by different people. Also, it gave outdated definitions for 'pansexual' and 'asexual' and didn't touch on the romantic spectrum at all, but I thought it could be forgiven for that since sexual/romantic orientation wasn't its focus--in fact, it repeated several times that they were not the same thing and should not be treated as such. It used permutations of'gender assigned' and 'natal sex' but focused on the concept that the letter on a birth certificate is assigned by a medical professional or a parent, not something inherent and immutable. It's current, which is really nice--it provides descriptions of both the just-outdated DSM-IV and its Gender Identity Disorder and the just-in DSM-V and its Gender Dysphoria. Definitely recommended for anyone with basic questions about what it means to be trans, both in the 'definition' sense and the 'now what' sense. It focused on MTF and FTM transpeople, but did acknowledge other gender identities, specifically genderqueer, and other types of queering the gender binary which may or may not be tied to transgenderism for any given person, specifically, gender variant/gender nonconforming, crossdressing, drag, and disorders of sex development/intersexism.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Project upshot: Not eligible for use in the paragraph I need for the conference, this book will still be helpful in terms of what Leandra's going to find as s/he starts to do research, and for informing the reactions of various people in the story. I think I won't give it back to the library just yet.

From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation​, FTM and Beyond

by Morty Diamond
This book was too complex and I have too many quotes and feelings to write this as a typical book review. But I'll try to be reasonably...ah, what's the word...it means going from A to C by way of B instead of Kumquat. I can hear the voices of almost everyone I know asking me why I'm going to bother. A few things you'll want to note while you're still up here at the top. There's a lot of quotes in here. They're all formatted by author of piece, page number. They're good quotes. But if you're not interested in quotes, there's still more writing at the bottom!
     "I started off my life as a boy with a slight disadvantage, nothing so big that it could not be overcome with a little ingenuity and spunk, but a setback, nonetheless. You see, despite being a little boy from the very start destined to become the handsome and talented man I am today, I happened to have had the unexpected surprise of being born a girl. I’ve yet to come across a reasonable explanation for this mix-up, but there’s no sense crying over spilt milk." ~Eli Wadley, 99
I am calling this book Inside Out because like a lot of nonfiction, it has a ridiculously long title. It's a fitting one, though. This book is a collection of personal essays, poems, and one entry that included parts of both, all by people on the trans* spectrum about their experience being there. They identified in ways that would be countless if there were infinite chapters, but they all had one thing in common: They were labeled female at birth and have had some form of complaint about that. Some identify as FTM. One complains about that term because he was never female. One wonders how much of his desire to be a boy came from being trans* and how much from the patriarchy, and refrains from giving himself a label at all. Several found themselves most comfortable somewhere between gender extremes.


"I’ve been blessed to have my physical form be an educational experience for the rest of the world. It’s a truly beautiful existence, riding the line of gender and seeing everything from both a female and male perspective." ~Rocco Rinaldi Kayiatos, 74

"My mom and practically the rest of the world assumed I now identified as FTM female to male) transsexual, but that was a false accusation. First off, I was not going from F to M. Whatever gender my parents chose to raise me was their choice but the gender I truly am is not my choice…It’s just who I am, and who I was meant to be. I never felt I was F because I never was, and therefore the FTM identity does me no justice. Recognizing this helped me form my MTM male to male) identity." ~Johnny Giovanni Righini, 78

  This book could be Transgender 201. 101 gave you the basics: what does my parent/child/lover/friend mean when they say they're trans? They want to be a boy/girl? Doesn't everyone sometimes? But you're still a girl, you haven't had *that* surgery, right? This book takes you beyond, to answering the questions that can only be asked of indvidual people, rather than the community at large. Do I say 'transgendered'? Many people find that objectifying, but some still use it as self-identification. Best not to use it in larger contexts, but respect people's wishes one-on-one. Is it accurate to say someone 'used to be a woman'? Same answer.
There are people in this book who have had no surgery or hormones, some who have had 'top' surgery, and everything else. There's a person who uses 'he' pronouns as a way to screw with people's expectations even more than as a comfortable fit. Many of the authors never say what pronouns they use. One author writes about black boys, one describes growing up in a traditional Hispanic house, and one blatantly admits to having a life made easier by being white middle-class. The last essay is a neat transition into the beginning of intersectionality and queer of color critique, which has its roots in women of color feminism, queer studies, native studies, and more. I took a course on queer of color critique and it's worth studying, but you'll want a strong background in gender and sexuality first.
Anyway. I think this is a must-have for a trans* person trying to find their identity, or words to describe it.

     "One of my MTF friends has spoken of transition as crossing the fear barrier.” We feel commanded to do this crazy thing, to slash the ropes of family ties and crush the bones of our previous values. As we start to walk through the fire, we have the opportunity for a reprieve, as Abraham also received, we do not have to be murderers and no one has to die. We can transition safely and usually less catastrophically than we feared. But by our willingness to have made the worst possible sacrifice, we are reborn and have a new relationship with the powers that be."  ~Tucker Lieberman, 24

     "We are diplomats. We are go-betweens for men and women. This is true whether we embrace or deny it. We are here to make peace with ourselves, our lovers, other transgendered people, and to carve out a home in the cliffs that sprang up between the sexes. We belong to the holy order of the self-sacrificing diplomats." ~Tucker Lieberman, 25

     "Whatever gender current or gender vector we have, whether our birdhouse hollow points toward the rising or the setting sun or the harvest moon, we are all pursuing the question of how to be at peace with our bodies in the world and to realize, through that peace, the true meaning of it all. At that point, gender is no longer about navigating one’s life between two categories."~Tucker Lieberman, 25

     "It isn’t about becoming” another person—I already am who I am—I just want my body to reflect that. It’s not like I am suddenly changing from the person you’ve always known—this is more about your willingness to see who I’ve always been." ~Cooper Lee Bombardier, 28

    "I am not sure which is worse, feeling invisible as a tranny when being perceived as a butch dyke or feeling invisible as a queer when being perceived as a man." ~Cooper Lee Bombardier, 29

     "I don’t want to disappear into the world as a straight man." ~Cooper Lee Bombardier, 29

     "For awhile, I was swindled into thinking, as many of us are, that there is a correct” way to be trans, we have to take hormones, get surgeries, get a GID diagnosis, change pronouns, pass, feel like a boy in a girl’s body, and get a preppy haircut. My inclination is to break rules or flee from them, and if this long list of rigorous requirements was what it took to be trans, I didn’t want that." ~Boots Potential, 33

     "I know what is acceptable once I leave the comfort of my genderqueer microcosm where self-identification takes precedence over body parts, voices, and names. I know that there are ways that I can act, ways that I can present myself when I step outside of my door so that people will not question who I am. It’s hard not to fall into that." ~Wyatt Swindler, 67

     "I think it is sad that even the most enlightened people seem to think that gender stereotypes are what makes people want to transition. I used to be guilty of that myself, when hearing about the decisions of my trans friends. In fact, my belief that only sexists would want to transition was the main reason why I fought so hard against coming out to myself and anyone else. In fact, it’s the notion that anyone who transitions is antifeminist and patriarchal which kept me from dealing with this for so many years."  ~Gavriel Alejandro Levi Ansara, 92

     "I am transitioning not because I think men and women have different characteristics, because I am emphatically NOT a gender essentialist. I am transitioning because I feel most comfortable when people refer to me in male terms and because I feel most comfortable and liberated in my body as a man." ~Gavriel Alejandro Levi Ansara, 93

One of my favorites was about a man who was wondering about the fact he attended a women's college, and whether this would continue to haunt him on job applications. He finds it ironic, being a man and being an alum of Bryn Mawr.

Yes, Bryn Mawr! I go to Bryn Mawr! And I have such a lot, statistically speaking, trans* friends there. I want to call them all up and tell them I found a brother of theirs who went before them. This fellow talks about how he learned a lot there, how to be a feminist, what it is like to be a woman in those circumstances, and is he expected to just forget four years of his life in order not to be constantly haunted by his past?

“Will I switch my memories to the coed college a mile down the road?”~Daniel Ray Soltis, 128

I know exactly which college he's talking about, and have been there several times. No, I want to tell him, you will be a proud queer Mawrtyr, for isn't it just this past Plenary we started rewriting our constitution to include gender-neutral language, isn't it here people have asked me my pronouns, not, I think, because I present very masculine, but because my name is Phoenix and even the slightest hint of gender non-conformation is enough to make people here want to check, isn't it here that despite years of roots as an all-women's college my friend group is the most inclusive place for trans* people that I have ever seen?

Now, I know my trans* friends have their problems with it, with the casual use of 'garden party girls' and 'freshwomen', and I don't want to act like we are some kind of utopia for trans* people. But--and this is why I am not an activist--I want to compare it to the way I grew up and the way most of my high school people live and the blank looks my parents give me when I throw out 'sy' as a pronoun and explain that there is more than one way of being agender or asexual (or anything else, but those are my pet peeves right now), and celebrate how good it actually is at Bryn Mawr. I'm so freaking proud to be here.

Overall rating: 5/5

Project upshot: I think I'll get a lot out of this book for the project!