Transgender

Transgender is a gender modality used to describe individuals who experience gender differently from their AGAB (assigned gender at birth). It is an umbrella term covering all gender identities or expressions that transgress or transcend society’s rules and concepts of gender. It is the opposite of cisgender.

Many transgender people have the binary gender identities of female (transgender women) or male (transgender men), as well as those who are masculine but not necessarily male (transmasculine) or feminine but not necessarily female (transfeminine). The transgender umbrella includes individuals with nonbinary gender identities. However, some nonbinary individuals may not call themselves transgender.

Some people who experience their AGAB in an 'atypical' way also label themselves as transgender. Some examples of this are multigender people who have their AGAB as one of their genders, genderfluid people who are sometimes their AGAB, and demigender people who are partially their AGAB.

Alternate Names

 * Transsexual
 * Trans
 * Trans*

Important note: ask a transgender individual which of these terms they prefer before using trans* or transsexual, as some transgender individuals are not comfortable with the term transsexual.

Definitions

 * Where the compulsive urge [to present as not your AGAB] reaches beyond [crossdressing] vestments, and becomes an urge for gender ('sex’) change, transvestism becomes 'transsexualism.' The term is misleading; actually, ‘transgenderism’ is what is meant, because [gender identity] is not a major factor in primary transvestism.-John F. Oliven, 1965


 * Trans is an umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. -Stonewall charity, 2019

History
Transgender was coined by psychiatrist John F. Oliver in 1965 to describe those who were in between transvestite and transsexual for his book 'Sexual Hygiene and Pathology'. He wanted to describe someone who didn't transition through surgery. It comes from the latin prefix 'trans-', meaning 'across', and the word gender in reference to people's AGABs. The term transgender gained popularity in the 1990s, by which point it was more popular than transsexual and considered the broader term.