Evolution of the word "transgender"?

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I'm not trans, but, over the years, I've been intermittently active in the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

I have NOT been much of an activist since 2012 or so, but occasionally I still pay attention to goings-on in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and community, including the trans community. And I'm a bit puzzled by some of the changes I've noticed during the past 10 to 15 years.

Two changes I find very puzzling: Sometime after 2010 or so, the word "transsexual" (see Wikipedia) fell out of favor -- but without any new word adequately replacing it. Meanwhile, the word "transgender" (see Wikipedia) narrowed in meaning.

"Transgender" was previously a wide-ranging umbrella term that encompassed not only the people known back then as transsexuals, but also cross-dressers, various other kinds of gender nonconformists, and even intersex people. Below is a diagram showing how the "transgender umbrella" was understood by many people in the LGBTQ+ community back around 2000 or so:


(link to drawing)

Note that the above drawing contains quite a bit of outdated terminology, e.g. "transvestism," which has since been replaced by "cross-dressing."

But when "transsexual" fell out of favor, no adequate new term was coined. Instead, "transgender" narrowed in meaning. The word "transgender" no longer included intersex people, who now became the "I" in the very long acronym LGBTQIA. Even cross-dressers were no longer thought of as "transgender" if their cross-dressing did not reflect a full-time gender identity.

As this was happening, and afterward, there have apparently been quite a few fights over the new meaning of the word "transgender".

The folks who who are said to have fought for the narrowest definition of "transgender" are the "transmedicalists." According to the Wikipedia article on Transmedicalism:

I found quite a few articles opposing the transmedicalist position, e.g. What is transmedicalism and why is it harmful? on the website of Pink News.

The transmedicalists seem to have lost this debate, at least for the most part, within the LGBTQ+ community. "Transgender" is now used in a broader sense than what the transmedicalists would like, though still not in anywhere nearly as broad a sense as it was used back in the 1990's.

The debate apparently got very nasty, with both sides giving each other insulting nicknames. The transmedicalists were called "truscum" and their opponents were called "tucute" or "transtrenders."

As I was trying to research this debate this past week, I wondered if perhaps this entire conflict could have been avoided if only the transmedicalists had simply resurrected the word "transsexual" instead of trying to re-define "transgender" to mean what used to be called "transsexual."

Via Google, it was easy for me to find pages opposing the transmedicalist position, but harder to find pages defending it. So far, the only transmedicalist writings I've been able to find have been in the r/Transmedical subreddit. (Content warning: Quite a few posts bashing various categories of people in the larger transgender community.)

Lo and behold, I found that the "transmedicalists" -- at least at the present time -- are indeed trying to resurrect the word "transsexual." They feel alienated from the larger "trangender" community, but the word they identify with is "transsexual," not "transgender."

Is anyone else here familiar with this whole controversy?

I'm sort of at the center of that debate in that I pass as female as well as anyone. I have a petite hourglass figure and have the walk, mannerisms, and speech of a woman. I'm sufficiently female that I don't have an overwhelming need for surgery or HRT. I could be Intersex in that I'm missing a number of the markers folks look for when figuring out gender, such as male pattern baldness or an Adam's Apple. My pronouns are whatever you want them to be. Of course I'll notice if you change your mind as we interact.

At one time I searched for years to find an affordable men's suit that would fit me but concluded that "pigs would fly" before that happened and gave up on that.

I enjoy shopping for clothes. XS women's clothes are cheap and plentiful. XXS men's clothes that are theoretically the same size are impossible to find. I saw some ugly XS clothes at J. Crew--like they didn't really want to sell clothes to small men?

The person who clued me into wearing women's shoes once held the title as the World's Fastest Man!

Indeed, sounds to me like you might have an intersex condition.

I have 32A cup breasts that nicely fill out women's tops, with the left being slightly larger than the right.
This also contributes to the idea that I may be intersex.

I think I look better in some of the clothes I buy than the models use to sell them, which may contribute to my lack of dysphoria.

Found another transmedicalist subreddit, called "r/Truscum". In it, I found a thread titled question about dysphoria in which the OP asks:

Content warning: Some of the replies contain expressions of what looks to me (an outsider) like internalized transphobia. I will not quote those replies here.

One of the more sensible replies:


Another reply:


Another reply, along the same lines:

Transsexuals And Suffering on the YouTube channel of Mia Mulder, a transwoman in Sweden:



From the description on YouTube:

She has physically transitioned and identifies with the term "transsexual," but also rejects the efforts of some "transmedicalists" to chase non-dysphoric trans people out of the transgender community.

She also talks about the history of the word "transsexual."

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 01 Jun 2025, 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Here is a tumblr post, dated Feb 3rd, 2021, about the history of the word "transgender," accompanied by the following diagram showing the meaning that word had back in the late 1990's and early 2000's:



The graphic is identified as follows:

The tumblr post quotes a book, Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinburg, 1996, as saying:



The author of the blog post remarks:

The American Psychological Association's website has the following page: Understanding transgender people, gender identity and gender expression, which has the subtitle "Transgender is an umbrella terms for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth."

The inclusion of not just "gender identity" but also "gender expression or behavior" sounds to me like the 1990's concept of "transgender." But this document was "created: March 9, 2023" and "Last updated: July 8, 2024." Odd.

On the other hand, the APA website also has another document, Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People (PDF), which appears to recognize that there are people who are gender nonconforming but who do not identify as transgender.

On a website called Campus Pride I found the following PDF document: Lambda 10 Project: The Trans Umbrella, which, according to a note at the bottom, is "Adapted from Arizona State University’s SafeZone Gender Identity 101 curriculum. Edited by J. Pettitt 2007." It includes another "Transgender Umbrella" graphic typical of the 1990's and early 2000's. It begins with the following disclaimer:

"Transgender" is defined as follows:


Categories listed under the umbrella include: "Transexual," "Crossdressers," "Drag Performers," "Intersex Condition," and "Gender Variant/Queer," each with accompanying brief definitions.

Examples of more current definitions of "transgender":

1) The Advocates for Trans Equality website has a Frequently Asked Questions page that includes the following:

2) Another FAQ, on the GLAAD website: Transgender FAQ:


3) On the website of the Human Rights Campaign: Transgender and Non-Binary People 101:


So it looks like the term "gender non-conforming" has replaced most of the outer reaches of what used to be called the "transgender umbrella."

The Human Rights Campaign still describes "transgender" as an "umbrella term," but it's a much smaller umbrella than the 1990's-style "transgender umbrella." The larger "umbrella term" is now "gender-nonconforming."

I personally would call myself "gender non-conforming," but not trans.