- Transgender: Any condition, activity or person that transgresses accepted gender norms.
- Transsexual: People seeking medical help to live in the anatomically “opposite” gender as closely as possible.
- Cross-dressers: People who enjoy an occasional retreat into the alternate gender expression. They are usually heterosexual. Transvestite is considered an archaic term but refers to the same idea.
- Drag: Transgender expression, but usually the term is confined to people performing on stage in alt-gender personas, as drag queens or drag kings.
- Intersexuality: A biological condition of “atypical congenital physical sexual development,” meaning children born without the typical male or female apparatus. Usually “corrected” by immediate surgery, and most do not grow up to be transgender.
- Gender Identity: The way you present yourself, male, female or otherwise.
- Sexual Orientation: Your sexual attraction, whether gay, straight or bisexual; separate and distinct from gender identity.
- Bi-gendered: Also called transgenderist. People who live with permanent gender ambiguity; unlike cross-dressers, they do not retain a core gender identity and may “present” as male at work, female at home or vice versa.
- Gender queer: A term used increasingly by young people, mostly gays, who reject social norms about gender identity and claim the right to live outside of such boundaries.
Source: The name “Transgender salad” and most of the definitions are from literature published by the Southern Association for Gender Education. Contact: sage@erinswen.com.
