Advanced Transgender Dictionary
Defining More Confusing Terms Under the Transgender Umbrella
May 20, 2009
Beyond the basic definitions under the transgender umbrella, there are many more important terms to know. Here are some of them.
Note: Most of the following definitions come from TransProud and from the compository of terms compiled and defined by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's LGBTQA Programs and Services.
Gender Neutral Pronouns
Ze/Sie/Hir – serve as gender-neutral singular pronouns in English. “Ze/sie” takes the place of the subject (instead of “he” or “she”) and “hir” takes the place of the object (instead of “him” or “her”).
Ey/Em/Eir - known as the Spivak pronouns, these are constructed by taking the "th" off of the "they/them/their" pronouns.
Gender Identities Within the Transgender Umbrella
Androgyne – a person whose gender expression is neither/both feminine and masculine and/or incorporates both feminine and masculine characteristics.
Butch – having a masculine gender expression.
Femme – having a feminine gender expression.
Crossdresser – a person who dresses (part time or full time) as a gender different from their own; this is a self-identified term; many people find this term objectionable/offensive.
Transvestite – a person who cross dresses; usually seen as outdated, inappropriate, and/or offensive.
Drag Queen – a dramatic and exaggerated performance of femininity as defined by the dominant culture for primarily entertainment purposes.
Drag King – a dramatic and exaggerated performance of masculinity as defined by the dominant culture for primarily entertainment purposes.
Two-Spirit – Native American person who embodies both masculine and feminine genders; Native Americans who are queer or transgender may self-identify as two-spirit; historically, different tribes have specific titles for different kinds of two-spirit people.
Identities In-between Male and Female
Third Sex/Gender – a person who is neither male nor female.
Gender Neutral – a person who does not identify as either male or female.
Gender Queer – a person who rejects the binary gender model of male/female and may feel that they are partly male and female, that they have no gender at all, or that their gender changes by the second/minute/hour/day/week/month/year/season.
Gender Fluid – a description for people who are not fixed in their gender expression and instead express their gender in different ways, changing from time to time according to mood; includes those who “play” with their gender.
Gender Bender – a person who blurs the traditional definitions and categories of gender, usually through gender expression that incorporates both masculine and feminine elements or through androgyny.
Concepts Connected with the Transgender Community
Passing – the act of appearing or the ability to be perceived as an identity different from one's own; can refer to passing as straight or passing as a gender different from the one assigned as birth.
Gender Binary – a system of gender classification that makes room for only two "opposite" genders without any intermingling or ambiguity; also a system of gender classification that sees gender as a linear spectrum with male at one end and female at the other, so that all genders in between are identified by the two "opposite" genders without any room for existing outside of the binary.
Transdar (slang) – facetious term used to describe a person’s supposed knack for identifying or spotting transgender people in public; this “detector” usually relies on stereotypes of how transgender people look or behave, and therefore some people find this notion damaging because it perpetuates those stereotypes and glosses over the true diversity of the community.
