A Trans Fem Glossary

...Or a handy guide to being normal around trans women for everyone else.

Baeddel: An Old English Historical term meaning variously "hermaphrodite," "man of both sexes," effeminate or otherwise a man expressing gender non-conforming behaviour. Recently revived for a time on Tumblr, where it soon fell apart to infighting and accusations of abuse. Similar to wæpenwifestre. If someone has strong feelings about either of these terms they're probably just a transmisogynist and should be ignored.

Cissexual: Someone who is not a transsexual. They may be cisgender, transgender, non-binary, agender, or genderfluid, but if they're not intent on changing their sex, it remains as it was assigned at birth and perfectly complements transsexual just as "cisgender" complements "transgender." Bad faith actors will invariably say you are calling them "cis" when you say "cissexual," they are clearly not being used in the same way, despite coming from the same root word. Weaponised illiteracy in the best of cases, transphobia otherwise. Used extensively in Julia Serano's Whipping Girl.

Detrans/Detransitioner (adjective/noun): Equivalent to the "ex-gay" movement. A reactionary position to undermine trans people's self-determination. Usually come to the position through the harsh realities of transition with love-bombing by anti-trans groups, such as Genspect, to try persuade the transitioner to give up and join them. If you're not trans, even having tried hormones and social transition and finding it not for you, better to just call yourself cis than give the ex-gays of trans people any legitimacy. Detransitioners are not "double trans" or anything so ridiculous, gender confirmation procedures and medications are not gatekept from cis people.

Detransition (verb): The end or a temporary pause of trans healthcare and social transition, usually because of medical, surgical or psychiatric gatekeeping, but sometimes overt transphobia making the trans person unsafe. People who still want to resume transition are still trans.

LGBT(QI)(A)(+)(etc): An acronym reducing us down to individual traits. Honestly, at this point the acronym should be used as little as possible, in as short a version as possible. Given trans people get to have a sexuality as well as a gender, we often cross several of these letters, and it becomes tiring seeing it ever expanded, chased with the equivalent slur "Alphabet people." LGBT+ is often suitable, but Q, I and/or A may be added when a work clearly indicates broader topics within the sex-gender spectrum.

While I explicitly endorse the word "queer" as reclaimed, it is important to understand for some select people it also has been used a slur, and you will likely still cop flak for calling someone "a queer," so it is advisable to use it in the broadest possible sense (e.g. "queer community" or "queer people").

TERF/TIRF/TRF: TERF as an acronym refers to Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and is usually incorrectly applied to far right dipshits who could in no way be described as radical feminists, since they're almost always reactionary Christians who usually also oppose other expressions of bodily autonomy like abortion. Just call a spade a spade. They are transphobes. Moreover, they are fascists. Gender conformity over bodily autonomy is very much a fascist goal.

It shouldn't need to be said, trans women are not "TERFs" for espousing a belief you do not share, consider how calling someone the label of their oppressor doesn't just make you look like a gigantic asshole.

Trans Inclusive Radical Feminist just muddies the waters when radfem will do, this may include subscription to Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminism (SWERF), or conversely, sexual liberation. Either way, it's confusing being pronounced exactly the same as TERF and just as annoying. May be cis or trans as the acronym is non-specific. It's still a terrible acronym.

Trans Radical Feminist? Again, trans radfem. I don't think I've seen anyone but transmisogynistic trans masc people on Tumblr use it, but while I'm dumping on acronyms...

TME/TMA (Transmisogyny Exempt/Affected): This is a term for discussing transmisogyny. It is always suspect when people who are not trans women take issue with women talking about what affects us. Trans women and trans feminine (fem for short, "femme" is just French for women!) people are affected by transmisogyny, everyone else is not, and therefore transmisogyny exempt, including cis men and women.

Where cis women, including those with intersex characteristics, operate in society as women and are falsely accused of being transsexual and cheating at sports, this is just misogyny, a cis woman being beaten down for being the best in her field.

Transmedicalism: Medical gatekeeping from treatment, most often expressed by members of medical, surgical and psychiatric professions. Cissexuals have attempted to co-opt this slur against trans people who medicate, however this just tends to reinforce the cissexist norms against transition itself, and therefore doesn't make sense as yet another anti-trans slur.

Transmisogyny: Coined by Julia Serano in Whipping Girl to describe the societal discrimination transfeminine people face before and after we come out of the closet. Usually involving policing lack of masculinity as adolescents, social gatekeeping femininity from trans women, or from within the transfem community through othering trans women for sexual unavailability, or to appear palatable to transphobic cis people AKA "one of the good ones". Transmisogyny can also be expressed more directly through constant targeting of trans women for abuse and harassment.

Transmisogyny is suspected to be why trans women tend to transition later in life after a long period of suppression over our lives. It indicates the phenomenon where trans masculine people are considered powerless victims whereas trans women are portrayed as active predators by transphobes. There will be no trans masculine opposite in this guide because I am not transmasculine, and there is debate about whether misandry is a concept to take seriously at all in a deeply patriarchal world.

Truscum/trutrans/tucute: Please grow up. Get a job.

V-coding: V-coding is a specific form of prison rape that trans women experience, above and beyond what you might hear in the usual, tasteless, prison rape "joke." V-coding is additional punishment beyond being locked up, putting women at direct risk of sexual violence from fellow prisoners and vulnerable to exploitation from prison guards. The alternative is isolation – solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is correlated to higher psychological and physiological negative effects on people subject to it, especially over days of isolation.