While I wasn't looking, the terminology has evolved in the last few years -- probably in the wake of Julia Serano's excellent book Whipping Girl.
According to the most recent usage, as I understand it, social/interpersonal performance of gender is taken separate from personal perception of one's own sex. So there are named four states of being: cissexual and transsexual, which refer to one's perception of one's own sex, and cisgender and transgender, which refer to one's social/interpersonal performance of gender With genderqueer as a kind of a catch-all term to describe those who would describe themselves as somewhere in between those terms.
As I mentioned above I am "cisgender transsexual" in that I see myself as a woman (not as a man, as I was told I was since birth) but my social performance of femininity is not notably transgressive.
Why did this come about? Because many trans people felt they were being pigeonholed (mainly by transition gatekeepers like therapists and surgeons) into jumping from one pan to another without any allowance for transgression. Transsexual women were expected to dress, act, and behave in basically hyper-feminine ways in order to be deemed "successful" in their treatment.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 08:24 pm (UTC)According to the most recent usage, as I understand it, social/interpersonal performance of gender is taken separate from personal perception of one's own sex. So there are named four states of being:
cissexual and transsexual, which refer to one's perception of one's own sex, and
cisgender and transgender, which refer to one's social/interpersonal performance of gender
With genderqueer as a kind of a catch-all term to describe those who would describe themselves as somewhere in between those terms.
As I mentioned above I am "cisgender transsexual" in that I see myself as a woman (not as a man, as I was told I was since birth) but my social performance of femininity is not notably transgressive.
Why did this come about? Because many trans people felt they were being pigeonholed (mainly by transition gatekeepers like therapists and surgeons) into jumping from one pan to another without any allowance for transgression. Transsexual women were expected to dress, act, and behave in basically hyper-feminine ways in order to be deemed "successful" in their treatment.