Transgender is a term for individuals whose identity or self-expression does not match their assigned gender. Gender includes the beliefs, feelings, and behaviors that a specific culture associates with individuals based on their apparent sex. Assigned gender is generally based on anatomy and given at birth. Gender identity, on the other hand, refers to individuals’ perception and naming of their own gender (see Gender).
Individuals whose gender identity differs from their assigned gender have been documented in many cultures throughout history. However, wide use of the term transgender for such people only began in the 1990’s. This use accompanied the rise of a movement for transgender rights in the United States. The term transgender is often shortened to trans.
From the 1950’s through the 1980’s, people in the United States whose gender identity or expression did not match their assigned gender were generally placed into two categories: cross-dressers and transsexuals. Cross-dressers feel more comfortable presenting at times a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth. They do not seek to change their gender permanently. In contrast, transsexuals are male-assigned individuals who identify as female or female-assigned individuals who identify as male. They often undergo hormone treatments, surgeries, and other physical changes to appear to others as they see themselves.
Since the 1990’s, people have increasingly challenged the idea of gender as a binary (two-part) system consisting of only male and female. Today, there are many different labels to describe gender identities beyond male and female. These nonbinary gender terms include genderqueer, agender, neutrois, genderfluid, androgyne, and demigender.
Genderqueer individuals identify as both male and female, as a gender that is neither male nor female, or as something between male and female. Individuals who are agender describe themselves as not having a gender. People who are neutrois << NOO TRWAH >> feel that their gender is either neutral or null. Genderfluid individuals move between genders. They identify as different genders at different times and in different contexts. Androgynes << AN druh jyns >>, or androgynous individuals, identify and often express a gender that includes elements from both female and male categories. They may dress in non-gendered ways or combine traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics in their dress. Demigender individuals identify somewhere between the gender assigned to them at birth and another gender.
Individuals with nonbinary transgender identities may not alter their bodies at all, or they may partly or completely transition to a different gender through the use of hormones and surgery. They may also ask others to refer to them using gender-inclusive pronouns. The most common non-gendered pronouns are they or them used in the singular and ze in place of she or he and hir in place of her or him.
