Transgendered (No, I Didn't Make That Up)

Comment by Randi R. on July 17, 2012 at 7:06am

Michelle,

I love to read your posts, pithy, funny, on point.

Comment by Caroline Grace on July 17, 2012 at 7:13am

Since language was never my strong point and I grew up where English was a second language (Jersey, which is never called New Jersey by its inhabitants), I probably used to say, " I am trangendered."  A friend corrected me, too, on the proper way to say it: "I am transgender." They did that whole "the verb here is 'am' and transgender is adverb, so how could it possibly be a past tense?" thing.  Funny that no one has yet figured out I was asleep during English class and didn't wake up from it until 45 years later.

Transition is a learning journey that requires courage on several steps. It is almost "boldly going where no woman has gone before". An exception between us and starship filled with the best and brightest the Star Fleet Academy can offer is that many of us face the music alone, without a single person saying unreservedly that we are going along with you on this journey. While some of us have ground support, that still means we will make mistakes and have to own up to them. My god, we are less than perfect!  (When did that happen?)

Enjoy the new worlds you will be discovering.

Comment by Dal Maxwell on July 17, 2012 at 10:55am

OMG Michelle STOP!  I almost peed myself and I am trying to get a broadcast script together!  I REALLY have to stop reading you until I get home on Tuesday evenings!

Comment by HELEN BRADY on July 18, 2012 at 12:09am

I just posted a dictionary for cisgenderED people on Literotica. The ed has the meaning of in the past it happened.

Comment by Allison Elizabeth on July 18, 2012 at 8:12pm

I have been thinking about this ever since I first read it. My thought is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying I am Transgendered. Think about it We say I am boreD, I am tireD, You are fireD, etc...None of them are past tense. And today I saw a roadsign that said Road work ahead. Be PREPARE to stop and that just seemed weird! I think it all has to do with the "er" sound at the end of the word. Now for my 2 cents worth...You would THINK that of all the hassles we have to deal with that we wouldn't worry about labels like that, but my final word here is that i doesn't matter to me what you call me....so long as it's not late for dinner!

Comment by Bethany Davis on July 20, 2012 at 1:47pm

Oh Michelle, silly you nobody makes a run of "shine" using coal. Everyone I know uses hardwood. And then sometimes the language does happen to run into obstacles. Once disgruntled can we ever be gruntled?

Comment by Lana Moore on July 23, 2012 at 9:42am

When it comes to the transgendered vs transgender, I'm still in the "transgender" camp. I'm not an English scholar, but my feeling is that it describes who I am, not something that happened to me. 

I personally had a brief discussion about this with Jenny Boylan and Mara Keisling. It was a few years ago when we were all at SCC. I can't remember our conversation verbatim, but the impression I got from both of them is that, although transgenderED had been the early standard vernacular of our community, "transgender" is actually more correct, yet they agreed a case could be made for "ED" and so it wasn't worth arguing incessantly over. 

Since that time, I started using only "transgender," but instances of transgenderED can still be found in some of my earlier writings.

Comment by Annette Brunette on August 10, 2012 at 7:18pm

Quite amusing. In a Yahoo group one of the ladies jumped all over another one for using the "ed" on transgender. As an androgyne/genderqueer (whatever) I don't give a rat's bee hind what anyone calls me...shemale, guy in a dress, cd, tv, tg, sir, ma'am...whatever. And for the record I'm not familiar with all those funky pronouns either. And if people ask what I am I tell them "crossdresser" even though I look exactly the same whether in male or female mode (really!) and don't really crossdress but "androgyne" or "genderqueer" (bi-gendered, ambi-gendered, a-gendered, multi-gendered...sheeesh does it ever end???)  just doesn't sound as sexy. 

Being gender ambiguous has its amusing moments such as the time I was in line at a New England Patriots game and the ticket taker told me I had to wait in the (very long) women's line. I told him twice that I was male and finally had to show him my drivers license before he would let me in the men's line. Then there was the time I paid for my card at a Hallmark store and the clerk (a lady in her 50's or 60's) said 'Thank you sir....I mean ma'am' and I looked at her, smiled and said, "Sir".  You should have seen the look on her face. Priceless. 

Comment