The Mid-1990s From The Grassroots Community Of The LGBT Community

Section I – Introduction

The contemporary term “transgender” arose in the mid-1990s from the grassroots community of gender-different people. In contemporary usage, transgender has become an “umbrella” term that is used to describe a wide range of identities and experiences, including but not limited to transsexual people; male and female cross-dressers (sometimes referred to as “transvestites,” “drag queens” or “drag kings”); intersexed individuals; and men and women, regardless of sexual orientation, whose appearance or characteristics are perceived to be gender atypical. In its broadest sense, transgender encompasses anyone whose identity or behaviour falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. That includes people who do not self identify as transgender, but who are perceived as such by

The person may or may not have undergone sex reassignment surgery/procedures.

Male to Female Trans person (M to F / MtF): A person who is PAGMB, but identifies with the female gender. Female to Male Trans person (F to M / FtM): A person who is PAGFB, but identifies with the male gender Transsexual: Transsexual refers to a person who firmly identifies oneself as belonging to a gender that is opposite to that of the birth-assigned gender. Genderqueer: The term Transgender may mean for some people a ‘sense of transition’ from one gender to the other as is implied in terms such as M to F or F to M transgender (male to female or female to male transition) and this description may work for some, while some others may be more comfortable choosing terms that do not adhere to the notion of gender binaries of male and female. They may see gender as less rigid and may prefer to use the term Genderqueer to refer to their gender identity. Genderqueer implies persons who identify as non cis gender and is used as an umbrella term to refer to a range of non normative gender