Choosing the right words to describe your gender identity can feel tricky. For transgender and non-binary people, finding a label that fits is personal and important.
Using respectful language matters. Outdated or offensive terms can hurt, so it’s okay to set boundaries about how others address you.
At the same time, you are more than a label. What matters most is how you choose to define yourself, no matter where you are on the gender spectrum.
Do you have a label that feels right – like crossdresser, transgender woman, non-binary, or something else?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, so let’s continue the conversation in the comments below!
Love,
Lucille
I used to describe myself as a cross-dresser. Now I would probably say transsexual.
Dressing up is no longer my primary motivation.
I am beginning to think of myself more as a woman.
Elica.
I think a ”crossdresser” is a man who wears his
wife’s panties when she’s not home…
I consider myself a transvestite as I being feminine
is An art & lifestyle not easily attained & more than
dressing,its living & comes from the heart…..
In Political situations, like lobbying I identify myself as transsexual. Personally I identify myself as a woman. Transgender is just too broad a term for me.
Hi Lucille,
I know this is an old post but the topic is always timely. I love your blog but hate that you use the term ‘crossdresser’–like you once said, you want to help transgendered women gain more acceptance, but the term ‘crossdresser’ does not help in that. Not only does it bear a stigma, but it’s not an especially meaningful term. At best, it merely describes the act of dressing, but the qualifier ‘cross-‘ suggests that the subject is wearing clothes that are not appropriate for that individual’s gender. This might describe, say, an actor who, in the process of portraying a Victorian female, dons the clothing appropriate for a female in that period. Or it could describe an actress portraying Sigmund Freud. Neither performer feels he or she is that person after the show is over. But transgenders are different–dressing up has a much deeper meaning, in that the act of dressing is a means of expressing one’s personal identity, even if that identity not in synch with one’s normal role. My feeling is that the vast majority of males who willingly dress as women, no matter how infrequently and whether or not they remain closeted, really do want to become women on some level–even if they do not completely transition. Women’s clothing carries deeper meaning about femininity than male clothin does for masculinity; this fact is what makes dressing in women’s clothes truly about expressing the inner gender identity of those involved. In other words, those who dress as women have a strong female gender identity that tends to strengthen over time, which explains why many who start out as “crossdressers” eventually identify as transsexual, and may transition completely. No wonder; it was always about gender, and “crossdressing” was just a means toward fulfilling a need to express that identity.
Speaking of trans-ition, this is why “transgender” and “transsexual” are better labels (if we need labels at all) than “crossdresser” or “transvestite”, because the “trans-” part underlies the transitional nature of gender identity expression, while “cross-” suggests static categories and male and female that are taken on temporarily while dressing. But most experts believe that gender is a spectrum, after all, and transgendered people are those who express fluidity across that spectrum. That’s what makes TG and TS not bad labels, after all, because they are about a range of behaviors associated with open and fluid expression of gender. And for those men who do become women, as is the desire for many who simply start out as “crossdresser”, transgender is an appropriate and sensitive label because it describes the process they have undergone, the experiences they had on the way, to becoming fully who they are. It’s now believed that most transsexuals did not start out as women trapped in men’s bodies, as is erroneously repeated on talk shows, but men who started out as “cross-dressers” but, over time, began to identify more and more closely with the idea of themselves as women and underwent the changes necessary to become, in fact, women. This would be in the line with the trans-itional nature of gender that is embodied in terms like transgender and transsexual.
That is good comment Emily.
Some of what you say, is what affects me.
May i please copy and paste this for the edification of some of the supportive yet confused friends of mine to better understand my position. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
🙂
I’m a strawberry blonde, blue eyes. I’m completely passable, no makeup, twelve-noon right in the middle of the day boygirl. (The exact opposite of a tomboy.) I’ve been fighting this for a long time, kind of sort of. I remember going to the beach mid-eighties in teeny, tiny Daisy Duke shorts (still have them, they are 9.5 inches from hips to crotch, and slit up all the way on sides, absolutely darling.) I finally came to terms with myself a couple of years ago, and I now have so much fun being the real me. In pre-op state, flat as a board, guys are telling me that I’m hotter than post-op transsexuals they know. And when I found you I knew everything was going to be fabulous. Thank-you so much because after only one month, my teeny twins are perking up, and I still need to do the whole program. This is really working for me, thanks again they are really sensitive too. Don’t you just love it? I know I do! I’ll try to get some pics to you. If I could get the boys to stop getting busy long enough to take some good ones. I know you and the other girls know how hard it is to take quality pictures of yourself, with your cellphone in the mirror! Keep up the good work.
I’m just a housewife and that’s all.
Awwwww, Lucille, you’re just wonderful and so instinctively on-target.
As some others have also said here, I don’t like to dwell on “labels”. However, since society does use — and often abuse — labels like these, it’s always nice when people like yourself try to help educate those who simply don’t understand.
I’ve had a feminine self-identity from as early as I can remember, and I call myself a woman. I will sometimes add the adjective “transgendered” woman when speaking with others, since it does clarify that my experience hasn’t been that of the average (genetic) woman. But in my head, there is no qualifier. So “cross-dresser?” I don’t think so! If that subject comes up, I tell people that cross-dressing is what I used to do for those years when I was trying to conform to society’s expectations of me, and present myself as a male, just because I happened to be born with some boy parts.
Thanks for all you do for women like us!
Hugs,
— Taryn
I think of myself as trans or transgendered but when I get to where I want too be, ill be female . And that is what counts.