Using yet Another Term

 

Trans Tennis Star
Renee Richards circa 1976.

Recently, I used the term “dead name” to describe my old male name which I legally changed years ago. Rather than using “dead name”, Kayla wrote in and responded by saying she uses “former tenant” when referring to her former self.

I liked the idea and decided to pass it along to all of you for your consideration. I mean it is not like we have enough other terms which have evolved and even disappeared over the years. If you are of a certain age, you probably remember when transvestite was used as a term to describe many of us with gender issues. Then there is the term “transgender” which (according to Wikipedia) was originally used in 1965 by psychiatrist John Olivien then popularized by Virginia Prince in the mid 1990’s. Which was when I began to hear about being transgender and how it applied to me.

It was not until I began to go to the old “Tri-Ess” social transgender-cross dresser mixers, did I really begin to grasp the differences in the terminology to describe myself which was becoming more and more important to me. During the earliest times I can remember coming out to anyone was in the mid to late 1970’s when I used the transvestite term rather than using cross-dresser which perhaps would have been easier for the other person to understand. At the time, I was selfish and was not so concerned about what the others thought about me as I was about preserving my male self and was not coming out to many others anyhow. I stayed with thinking I was a transvestite which was not as far along on the gender disruption order as transsexual which meant to me as wanting major surgeries to live fulltime as a woman. At my age, “Christine Jorgensen” was the first person I remember as a well-known transsexual when she published her autobiography in 1967. The year I graduated from high school, so I had a real interest in secretly trying to find a copy of her book and try to read it which I never did. The closest I ever came was finding a copy of the “Renee Richards” book “Second Serve” which was published in 1976. I found it interesting when I researched Richard’s book in Wikipedia, no reference was made to her being a transsexual woman, only a transgender one.

About that time was when I began to seriously feel as if I fit the definition of a transgender woman more than any definition, I had ever seen before. I was somewhere off in a never-never land between being the cross-dresser I always perceived myself to be and the transsexual self which was rapidly disappearing as a term.

For me, at least as I “matured” into a “transfeminine” person which supposedly first appeared in a “Tapestry” publication from Tri-Ess in 1985. About the time I was seriously looking for ways to escape my gender closet. Also the time for me when I began to have serious access to the internet and social media which over the years was to open many new doors for me as well as many new terms such as the use of LGBT at all as many more letters were added to support different gender communities. In my latest search, I found the term is up to LGBTQIA+ to include all the variations on the gender spectrum.

Then there is gender fluidity which I have known a few people who have described themselves as such over the years. In fact, we had a gender fluid person attend our support group meeting here in Cincinnati years ago who went only with their middle initial as a name and refused any of the traditional he or she pronouns. I often thought maybe I was actually gender fluid growing up on the days I wanted to be a girl instead of the boy gender I was born into.

In another support group years ago, I mentioned another group catch phrase centering around Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT. I called it HRT and Andi gently reminded me that a better, in-depth term, would be gender affirming hormones which made sense to me and I try to use both to this day.

Now I get to throw another gender term into my years old trashcan thanks to Kayla. I will never have to use a term I always hated anyhow to describe my ascent to being a successful trans woman in a world of ciswomen. Which, for the sake of staying with the theme of this post simply means a woman who was born female and still identifies as a woman.

I suppose the meaning of all these labels simply shows what a complex community the LGBTQIA+ really is and the most important thing is that you find the little niche you need to survive in. If you can follow all these changes, you deserve all the progress you have made. When push comes to shove all these terms are just semantics and you deserve more as you enter your authentic life.

I know there are other labels I have missed. I hope I have covered the major ones that helps us all and my “dead “name is now truly dead.