Morphing

A lot of things morph from one thing to another; one thing that comes to mind is a caterpillar to a butterfly which is sometimes used as a symbol for what we go through. Okay what really wanted to talk about is how language morphs over time.

• Every culture has their own language 
• Definitions evolve
• Words can have different means to different people
• Some people are very passionate about labels

Some of the more common definitions (At least for today) are…

I use that slide in my opening PowerPoint presentation and then I define “Transgender” and how it is morphing to mean someone who identifies as another gender than that which was assigned to them at birth. My definition is…

• A broad term for people whose gender identity or expression falls outside cultural norms associated with their assigned sex not directly related to sexual orientation; transgender includes transsexuals, cross-dressers, androgynous people, genderqueer, non-binary and many other categories 
• Not everyone who is gender-nonconforming identifies as transgender

However, there are a number of trans people who probably would define the word as the magazine Psychology Today defines it…

What Is Transgender?
The term transgender refers to people whose sense of their own gender differs from what would be expected based on the sex characteristics with which they are born. A transgender person may identify as a trans woman, meaning one who has transitioned to live as a woman despite having been born with male genitalia; a trans man, or one who has transitioned to live as a man; or nonbinary, which connotes a sense that one is not strictly a man or a woman.

Beginning as early as childhood, a transgender person may have persistent feelings of gender dysphoria—a disconnect between the person's primary and secondary sex traits and designated gender and the gender with which that person identifies. While many children who experience such feelings do not go on to identify as transgender in adulthood, long-standing gender dysphoria is a common experience of adults who do identify as transgender.

I see it as a difference in exclusion and inclusion.

I think transgender is changing into the second definition because of the media, I think when we say transgender the news reporters hear “transsexual.” We use it as an umbrella term but when reporters hear the word they think we are only talking those whose gender identity is different than that was assigned at birth.

online surveys