Terminology

Carolynn · Post by **Carolynn** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:58 am

Tranny has its origin in low class porn in the US, insofar as I can tell from my researches. It is also the term that people like gay men who have no concept of why you dress like to use, and it is part of that subculture. Personally, I don't care to be equated to a porn movie extra.

To each their own.

We seem to recycle this topic on the board periodically. The terms, like many terms used to classify some phenomena in the English language, may be personal. While classificatory terms are needed in our way of thinking about and ordering the world from a "scientific/biological" world view, there are differences between cultures, subcultures, and individuals as to what is appropriate.

Depending on n individual's past history and what they are used to, some terms that one person or even one subculture or culture may use may be considered demeaning and insulting by another. And since there can be as many terms as there are crossdressers, CDers, Trannys, Transvestites, Gender queer, Drag Queen, etc. etc, etc., then I suggest that the topic is largely without a solution other than something to talk about endlessly.

Carolynn

Ralitsa · Post by **Ralitsa** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 1:18 pm

Well I think you're right Carolynn, it's just something to talk about endlessly. Very similiar to other labels. Some decades ago the medically accepted term for someone with impaired cognitive ability was "mentally retarded", a perfectly acceptable term in that it accurately described the problem. Until a whole plethora of derogatory terms, "tardo, retard, reedy, mental" etc. sprung up. So then they switched to using "learning disabled", and now that is turning into the same thing. So any term you pick will eventually be turned to mean something insulting.

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:16 pm

I'd agree with you about it being talked about endlessly, but it does need to be talked about some to alievate confusion. The whole why we do this topic is a very personal one with many different reasons, and what words we use to describe ourselves is a similarly vast topic.

I've always liked the study of origins of words. Tranny is from transvestite with I think it more or less Latin for crossdressing. Drag is from show business. Stage directions with DRAG an acronym for dressed as girl. Hence it's theatrical aspects. A closet queen is a drag queen who is secretive. Coming out comes from come out of the closet. But now gay folks just say out, with not real reference to the history of the word.

Anthony Simon · Post by **Anthony Simon** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:32 pm

Words have power - the meanings they convey have the potential to alter people's lives. You just have to look at Donna's post about "transvestite" to see that. If you just leave the words the way they are, you effectively leave others to determine the way you are described.

Apart from the fact that, like Zari, I like delving around into the meaning of words. It's one of the ways into a subject (anyway one of the ways I like to use).

Paula G · Post by **Paula G** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:05 pm

I don't like the term transvestite, not because of the sexual overtones, or the possible derogatory nature, no it's because to me it sounds like one of the tribes that Joshua expelled from Israel after crossing the Jordan, along with the Amorites, the Gibeonites, the Hittites and the Perizzites.

Joan · Post by **Joan** » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:52 pm

I do not like the word transvestite either. It is probably latin in origin and correct, sounds derogatory. Is it only males that wear vests, does that allude to vestite as male!

CD or crossdresser is OK by myself.

Joan

Anthony Simon · Post by **Anthony Simon** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:08 am

Joan wrote:I do not like the word transvestite either. It is probably latin in origin and correct, sounds derogatory. Is it only males that wear vests, does that allude to vestite as male!

Well, there's Vesta Tilley, famous male impersonator from a bygone era, so maybe. The thing about words is they have meanings related to their root - like transvestism just means wearing the clothes of the opposite sex, and left like that would be unexceptional. But those meanings also get chopped around and altered by social usage. So, no doubt, "transvestism" now carries allusions of sexually reprehensible behaviour.

You could argue that "crossdressing" (the word) is an attempt to bring us back to that root meaning - by coming up with a new, equivalent term that hasn't been corrupted by social usage. The trouble is (anyway IMO) is the social forces tending to see people like us as sexually reprehensible are still there. Because it's such a flat term (again IMO), "crossdressing" doesn't really do anything to address such forces. What I mean by that is that it doesn't really provide an alternative image of the CD to that already in the public mind - that of the sexual deviant. And this is such a powerful image that (once again IMO) it really does need fighting.

With me, and I think with a lot of other people, there's a big element with the dressing up which is to do with managing stress. If you're a believer in the "sexual deviant" view of the activity you'd immediately jump all over that and say "Relief" - masturbatory activity. But I think the "sexual deviant" view also adds a element of sexual violence to it. If I were asked, I'd say that's the core element of "transvestism", as the current social usage has it. This is the image that, on some level, all the lurid stories in the papers uphold (or, equally, the very popular images of men dressed up as women getting in fights).

I don't think either the sex or the violence are necessary elements of CDing (at all). But I think the violent element is the most pernicious - and, at the same time, the furthest from the experience of the ordinary person who dresses up. There's no doubt that if you're suffering extreme stress and blocked-upness the fantasies a CD has may involve violence - and I've had them, years ago. But they're essentially a corruption of the core. You wouldn't know that from that longtime film and TV standby, the murderous transvestite.

So, for me, the heart of the problem - of the public idea of what CDers do - has to do with "relief". And it is misconceptions about this, albeit unstated, that colour the word "transvestite", and unless combatted are going to end up colouring the word "crossdresser" too.

Anne Bonny · Post by **Anne Bonny** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:50 pm

Transvestite is a clinical term and the connotations it carries are all negative, abnormal, perverted, etc. Tranny is kind of like the southern term "Neked" (using a short e and a dirty southern accdent to flesh it out!)which also carries dirty connotations as opposed to Naked which is fine. If we have to label ourselves I do prefer Crossdresser, because the connotations are not too bad....

Carolynn · Post by **Carolynn** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:13 pm

Transvestite is considered a paraphilia, along with pedophilia and other sexual deviency, in the bigoted eyes of the APA. The term has latin roots, of course, meaning to wear the clothes of the opposite sex, rather literally, which equates to crossdresser, which does the same but makes it a bit gender neutral so that women dressing as men to deliberately present as men are also covered. However, by placing it as a paraphilia in the DSM5, Blanchard et.al. have brought it back to sexual deviency. It is becomming more common even in paych lingo to lump trasvestism with Transgender, along with everyother disorder of cross gender behavior.

Absaroka · Post by **Absaroka** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 7:59 am

I think Carolynn's first sentance gets to the heart of a lot of things. "paraphilia, along with pedophilia and other sexual deviancy"

Lot's of folks are sexually deviant, in that deviant merely means to deviate from the norm. Most deviations from the norm, such as same sex attraction, asexuality, transvestism, B&D, and probably a great many other things, are not something to be denigrated. They are simply variants. Pedophilia, because it involves someone who is unable to consent, falls outside of such parameters, as does rape, necrophilia, bestiality and so on.

I like the fact that this site is not sexually oriented. If it was, I probably would not participate. However just because we are mostly interested in the non sexual aspects of crossdressing does not mean that consenting adults who use crossdressing as a part of sex, with or without a partner, are doing anything we should look upon with distaste.

It's sort of like the discussion of mental illness. Physical illness can range from a cold to Ebola. Few of us get Ebola, but some will get cancer or heart disease. Virtually all of us will catch a cold at some point. Likewise mental illness can run the gamut, from the equivalent of a cold to cancer. It is likely that most people at some point in our life will experience a degree of mental and emotianal disturbance that would qualify as mental illness, even though it would probably be anxiety or depression or some other equivalent to the common cold. And as for myself, I have several long term diagnosis available to me in the mental illness spectrum, although currently all my mental dis-eases are in remission, for which I am quite grateful.

Perhaps it's a question for another thread. How did words like mental illness or deviant become dirty words in the first place?

Zari

Ralitsa · Post by **Ralitsa** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 9:01 am

I was trying hard not to get sucked into this conversation, but the point about sexual deviancy did it.
I have a good deal of regard for most medical and scientific disciplines, but sadly, not for psychiatry. Admittedly, the brain is a mind-bogglingly complex thing, and using a brain to understand a brain necessarily introduces some uncontrollable biases and presumptions, so it's not a simple feat. If that were the only problem it would be bad enough, but I also have the feeling (with no facts to back it up) that many of the so called researchers are themselves a bit unbalanced and are only trying to justify their own predilections, or to explain their own specific issues.
Now to sexual deviancy, probably everyone deviates in some way from the exact specific act of sexual intercourse for the sole purpose of procreation. By this definition kissing is deviant behavior, because it has nothing to do with generating off-spring. So it means nothing. Or is deviant supposed to mean that is differs from what "normal" people mostly do. In which case masturbating would be the most normal thing of all, and procreation is deviant since "normal" people use birth control.
Like Zari, I dislike the whole sexual aspect of the problem because it's not really about that. Sure, some part of it is sexual, but that is true of everything. Some people find smoking to be sexually stimulating, so what?
Well terminology is important in so far as every term carries with it a lot of implications and preconceptions, many of which are inaccurate. But I don't think that inventing a new term will change anything, soon it will be encumbered with all the same misconceptions. So it doesn't matter so much to me what term you refer to me with, as your intentions when using it. Transvestite is a term that could be used derogatorily, or it can be used in a sterile clinical way. I've also heard crossdresser used in an insulting way, and tranny probably can't be used any other way. But the problem is not the word, but the person using it.
It's a subject that's come up a few times, but I think some accurate information needs to be published on the subject. I don't say that research is needed, because the data exists. It simply needs to be collected and written up. I for one would be willing to participate in such an effort, in the interest of dispelling all the crazy notions surrounding us.

Lydia · Post by **Lydia** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 12:02 pm

"Words, words, words"
Each has not only a dictionary meaning, but sometimes a multitude of meanings. Just time can change the meaning of a word. "Gay" is a good example - a few decades ago it meant; happy, frivolous, etc. Almost any word has at least two effects. One being the "official" meaning, the other is the response of the one who reads or hears it. The latter is called the "semantic reaction."
In one context or to one listener, "transvestite" refers simply to one who is dressed in a style opposite to one's sex. Frequently, however, the same word has a pejorative meaning. It may even depend on how the word is uttered.
To quote a former president: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is..." The word "is" is probably the most misused and misinterptreted word in our language. It often replaces the clumsy phrase "is defined as" or "is named as", and does not always mean "equal to".
One must always consider what the word or phrase would mean to the receiver. Even the N-word or the F-word can be quite acceptable to a receiver in the right context, while some innocuous word can evoke resentment and even anger.

Hugs,

Lydia

Paula G · Post by **Paula G** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 1:08 pm

"Call me anything like, except late for lunch."

Anne Bonny · Post by **Anne Bonny** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 9:47 am

I do not know how the culture is in the UK, Words are often different and have meanings and connotations which may be very different - so I agree with paula If you like tranny or transvestite nothing wrong with that personal preference.

Anthony Simon · Post by **Anthony Simon** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 1:27 pm

Well Grayson Perry, one of the two "celebrity CDs" in the UK (the other is Eddie Izzard) calls himself a tranny - as does his wife. I think that's the way he described us in his TV (no pun intended) program "Why Men Wear Frocks". His basic intent in that was to humanise CDs and I'm sure his use of that word was meant along those lines.

Just to complicate matters, in the goggle.co.uk search I just did, I came up with a TS UK discussion group thread, which while admitting that "tranny" had considerable currency here - apparently there's a (different) UK site which prefaces everything with "tranny" (tranny advice etc.) - didn't like the term at all.

Anyway...