A Trans Fem Glossary

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

⚠️ WARNING
Identity politics is not a means of liberation from capitalism.
It is inherently an individualist perspective based on lived experience, this needs to be understood and internalised.
This does not necessarily undermine everything discussed below, BUT ensure your engagements are not undermining the collective struggle against capitalism.
Slurs are discussed for understanding only, not weaponisation.
The working class can only fight back UNITED.

For more information please listen below.

AGP/Autogynophile: Blanchardian typing for trans women who wouldn't fuck American-Canadian sexologist Ray Blanchard, so he posed women under this typing were turned on by cis women and trans women who took on cis fem traits – especially themselves. Always a slur when used by transphobes. Deeply misogynistic. Sometimes adopted in a tongue-in-cheek fashion by some trans women.

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 term to wæpenwifestre. If someone has strong feelings about either of these terms they're probably just a transmisogynist and should be ignored.

Brotherboy: A term used for Aboriginal trans masculine people in so-called Australia. Sovereignty never ceded.

Chaser: A person who lusts for trans people. Usually used in a derogatory sense when their attention is unwanted and/or inappropriate, such as being overly fetishistic or boundary breaking. There is nothing wrong as a cis person being attracted to trans people.

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.

Degendering: The deliberate use of neuter pronouns to remove womanhood from trans women, or manhood in the case of trans men. Often used in conjunction with "that person" to even take their name from them. While gender neutral, singular they is a way to speak about someone unknown to the speaker, this is often used in a purely negative context to morally distance the speaker from the subject, which exposes that the speaker knows much more than they are letting on. A common add-on "crime" for expressions of transmisogyny.

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.

Dysphoria/"Gender dysphoria": The feeling of unease at performance or display of cis traits, once considered a diagnosable mental illness in itself that ought to be "corrected" through conversion abuse, and that medical and social transition should only be pursued if that fails, to enable a "normal" a life as possible.

Egg: A presumed trans person who does not realise it yet, though shows signs through affect, dress, or mannerisms. An egg may know they are trans and is sorting through their feelings, also known as "cracking their shell," before coming out as trans. Sometimes eggs are drawn to hang with trans women, thinking they're just really good allies.

Gender identity: A term used to negate biological and material realities that we have started hormone replacement therapy to bring about changes to our secondary sex characteristics and pretend it's all in our head and they're such good allies for entertaining our childish fantasies.

Genitals: Not our word, per se. Just don't talk about our anatomy, holy hell.

HSTS/Homosexual transsexual: Blanchardian typology for trans women Ray Blanchard could reasonably predate on due to him falling within the scope of their sexual preference. Relies on misgendering trans women as homosexual men who want to date cis men. Somehow, not as funny as AGP.

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.

Two spirit, sometimes put in the acronym as "2S" is not generally used or recognised in continental Australia, but may be used if a two spirit person has immigrated or sought refuge.

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").

Medical gatekeeping (related: Transmedicalism): The artificial barriers placed upon trans bodies to transition. These can be social ("You must spend X time socially as a woman/man"), legal (costs and requirements to updating identity documents, birth certificates) and medical (accessing treatment and surgery, including mental health professional consent, prohibitive costs, and lack of access to doctors, surgeons, procedures and facilities).

Pattern recognition: The means with which marginalised cohorts recognise social aggression, traditional and micro, to their existence. Not exclusive to trans people, but a necessary tool to describe conflicts with society at large.

Repper/repressor: A closeted trans person who sees overwhelming shame in transition, only engages with transition as a humiliation kink, or acts hostile to people who have medically and/or socially transitioned because they'll "never be like that." Without an effort to deal with internalised bigotries, these people can be absolute tar pits to deal with. A negative instance of an "egg," sometimes also referred to as a "rotten egg."

Sistergirl: A trans feminine Aboriginal person in so-called Australia. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

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 fig a fig. 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...

TheyFAB: Ostensibly a slur. Describes a person whose behaviour is overly reliant on birth sex despite some kind of social or medical transition. Well known in the trans fem community in the expression "AFAB only housing" in queer housing groups. Sometimes also used to describe trans masculine people who are so afraid of or disgusted by the concept of masculinity they end up third sexing themselves, knowing they are not traditionally feminine. May be used when trans women are excluded from any position of prominence or equality, such as trans/queer panel discussions without a trans feminine presence at all. Also used for cissexual nonbinary persons who actively deride medical transition.

TheyMAB: Ostensibly, also, a slur. Usually associated with cissexual people who were assigned male at birth who display transmisogynist views, anger or violence towards trans feminine people. Sometimes used for chasers who falsely portray themselves as early in a medical transition to prey on newly out trans women who think they've found a like-minded person. Also used for cissexual nonbinary persons who actively deride medical transition.

Third sexing: The othering of trans people, sometimes through a cultural or national lens, such as referring to Thai 'ladyboys' or the South Asian 'hijra' into a "third sex" after male and female, instead of the acquired sex of the individual. Written extensively about by trans British lesbian separatist/self-titled radical feminist Talia Bhatt in her collection of essays titled Trans/Rad/Fem.

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 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 an expression of garden variety misogyny, a cis woman being beaten down for being the best in her field, as well as discrimination or bigotry based on real or perceived intersex status - interphobia.

Transbian: Trans lesbian, often in t4t (trans for trans) relationships. Term exclusively for women and fems. Can be used positively or negatively. There is safety in seeking partnership in someone with similar struggles as yourself, however trans feminist critics may take issue with othering from the term "lesbian" which perfectly encapsulates wlw (women loving women) relationships.

Transfem/Transfeminine/trans woman: Appropriate to conjoin in the first two examples, "trans" is used appropriately as an adjective to the noun "woman" in the latter. "Femme" is just French for "woman" and should not be used to refer to a diverse trans feminine cohort. The term "transwoman" (plural: transwomen) is generally considered a dogwhistle to deny womanhood through conjoining the adjective and noun.

Transmedicalism: Medical gatekeeping from treatment, most often expressed by members of medical, surgical and psychiatric professions. Cissexuals have attempted to appropriate 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. To repeat, transmedicalism is done to transsexual people, not cissexuals.

There exists a small, prominent, cohort of trans women who defend medical gatekeeping in a mistaken belief that it validates their identity. They have no power to enforce their misguided beliefs on others and are not the main proponent or enactor of transmedicalism.

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.

Transsexual: Opposite of cissexual.

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 all people subject to it, especially over days of isolation.