Transgender: Difference between revisions

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** At the same time, historical trans people (from around the mid-20th century) would have self-identified as "transvestites" (an older term for cross-dressers) or "drag queens" at the time, both because the term "transgender" wasn't in common use at the time and because of historical oppression of trans people. This is why many figures from that era who identified as such (such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera) are commonly identified as transgender people in hindsight today. It's worth noting that an unknown transvestite kicked off the the famous Stonewall riots by refusing to show her genitals to police (yes, that was a thing), and in general trans people (often self-identifying as transvestites) were at the forefront of LGBTQ+ liberation.

* It's worth noting the various "LGBT" acronyms. All variations use the same letters which stand for the same things, but some use more letters to be more inclusive of gender and sexual minorities, and some less common ones sort them in a different order. Currently{{when}} the largest acronym in common use is "LGBTQIA+", but "LGBTQ+" is the most common form. The commonly seen "+" is added to the end of the acronym to denote that unlisted gender and sexual minorities are included as well. Those letters stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual. (Some but not all Native Americans and Canadian First Nations add "2", for [[w:two-spirit|two-spirit]], to the list - this is ''not'' something that non-Natives should call themeselves.)

** All kinds of people choose differing lengths in the acronym for various benign reasons, but one practice that is always met with suspicion is when someone ''omits'' the "T" from the acronym. This is particularly egregious because inclusion of the "T" has a long history and typically the only reason to remove it is to attempt to marginalize trans people. This is especially common with ~~[[TERF|~~TERFs]]<ref>Trans Exclusionary Radical [[Straw Feminist|Feminists]]</ref> and especially transphobic "political lesbians".

** All kinds of people choose differing lengths in the acronym for various benign reasons, but one practice that is always met with suspicion is when someone ''omits'' the "T" from the acronym. This is particularly egregious because inclusion of the "T" has a long history and typically the only reason to remove it is to attempt to marginalize trans people. This is especially common with TERFs<ref>Trans Exclusionary Radical [[Straw Feminist|Feminists]]</ref> and especially transphobic "political lesbians".

* "Transphobia" is prejudice against trans people in general, and "enbyphobia" is prejudice against nonbinary people specifically. Another term you might come across is "transmisogyny", which generally refers specifically to prejudice against trans women.

* All trans people are described as the gender they experience, not the sex assigned to them at birth. So for example, a person who was assigned male at birth and whose experienced gender is female is a trans ''woman'', and a person who was assigned female at birth and whose experienced gender is male is a trans ''man''. Similarly, sexuality is always properly described from this context; a trans woman who is attracted exclusively to women is a lesbian, and a trans man who is attracted exclusively to women is straight. This gets a little more complicated with nonbinary people who are not bisexual or pansexual; if unsure, it's better to ask than risk misgendering them.