I have no idea who this guy is, but based on my own memories I’m pretty sure trans* did come from within the community. I know trans* as a term dates back at least to the early 00s because I remember seeing it around then, and from what I recall it wasn’t a new term, but one that came from 90s trans user groups (with the * being a programming reference to wildcards, because some things about trans spaces never change). Trans* was used to be inclusive of transgender and transsexual, which were common self identification terms at the time that obviously gave way to transgender.
But what we lost in the (pardon the pun) transition is that transgender as a term used to include many people who would consider themselves cisgender today. If you look through flyers and media from the time you’ll sometimes see illustrations of the ‘transgender umbrella,’ and it includes butch women, feminine men, drag performers, basically anyone who could conceivably fall into the ‘gender criminal’ category. What trans* did is give people a way to make it clear they were talking about both groups. And I think the inclusion of people we would now consider cis under the transgender umbrella was an important way to help a lot of people who now consider trans rights to not have much to do with them (because they don’t want to transition and identify with their birth sex) that it actually has a ton to do with them, because anyone who diverges from gender norms is a target of the same patriarchal system.
Again, no clue who this dude is, this is just one of my old trans recites memories at clouds routines. Caveat: I can only speak for my own memories of the time, someone else may be able to speak more accurately than me.
I wasn’t alive in the 90s and I wasn’t aware of trans stuff until I started exploring my gender in 2019 so as a result I am kinda ignorant of the way things were in the 00s and earlier. I really don’t see things like trans* and trans+ being used today, similarly to how you don’t really see people using antiquated terms for transgender either.
Today what I see instead is trans and GNC (gender nonconforming) which serves the same purpose of being a broad umbrella term but is more accurate.
As a computer nerd myself, the wildcard aspect makes me feel like trans* includes things like transportation and transghwujdjrudndndjjd which I don’t like.
Anyways, its not up to cishet person to decide what term should be used to refer to transgender and gnc people. I have a unfinished project, which is a website compiling a bunch of info and resources for trans and gnc people. I came across the genderbread at some point but I decided to research the creator before adding it to the site and that is how I discovered the above info about him.
I’d strongly suggest looking through places like the Queer Zine Archive Project and the Digital Transgender Archive if you’re working on a project like that. FWIW I don’t think he coined the term Trans* at all, and it’s just fallen out of favour now. When I first figured things out at 12 in the early 2000s, it was a term used online a lot. Especially as Transsexual and Transgender were (genuinely) considered slightly divergent things. These days only Truscum seem to believe that though and Transsexual has definitively fallen out of favour too.
Thanks for the suggestion! I know he didn’t coin the term but he did write an article on his website trying to get people to use it. He definitely did grab it from the past but either didn’t realize or didn’t care that it has fallen out of usage.
I have no idea who this guy is, but based on my own memories I’m pretty sure trans* did come from within the community. I know trans* as a term dates back at least to the early 00s because I remember seeing it around then, and from what I recall it wasn’t a new term, but one that came from 90s trans user groups (with the * being a programming reference to wildcards, because some things about trans spaces never change). Trans* was used to be inclusive of transgender and transsexual, which were common self identification terms at the time that obviously gave way to transgender.
But what we lost in the (pardon the pun) transition is that transgender as a term used to include many people who would consider themselves cisgender today. If you look through flyers and media from the time you’ll sometimes see illustrations of the ‘transgender umbrella,’ and it includes butch women, feminine men, drag performers, basically anyone who could conceivably fall into the ‘gender criminal’ category. What trans* did is give people a way to make it clear they were talking about both groups. And I think the inclusion of people we would now consider cis under the transgender umbrella was an important way to help a lot of people who now consider trans rights to not have much to do with them (because they don’t want to transition and identify with their birth sex) that it actually has a ton to do with them, because anyone who diverges from gender norms is a target of the same patriarchal system.
Again, no clue who this dude is, this is just one of my old trans recites memories at clouds routines. Caveat: I can only speak for my own memories of the time, someone else may be able to speak more accurately than me.
I wasn’t alive in the 90s and I wasn’t aware of trans stuff until I started exploring my gender in 2019 so as a result I am kinda ignorant of the way things were in the 00s and earlier. I really don’t see things like trans* and trans+ being used today, similarly to how you don’t really see people using antiquated terms for transgender either.
Today what I see instead is trans and GNC (gender nonconforming) which serves the same purpose of being a broad umbrella term but is more accurate.
As a computer nerd myself, the wildcard aspect makes me feel like trans* includes things like transportation and transghwujdjrudndndjjd which I don’t like.
Anyways, its not up to cishet person to decide what term should be used to refer to transgender and gnc people. I have a unfinished project, which is a website compiling a bunch of info and resources for trans and gnc people. I came across the genderbread at some point but I decided to research the creator before adding it to the site and that is how I discovered the above info about him.
I’d strongly suggest looking through places like the Queer Zine Archive Project and the Digital Transgender Archive if you’re working on a project like that. FWIW I don’t think he coined the term Trans* at all, and it’s just fallen out of favour now. When I first figured things out at 12 in the early 2000s, it was a term used online a lot. Especially as Transsexual and Transgender were (genuinely) considered slightly divergent things. These days only Truscum seem to believe that though and Transsexual has definitively fallen out of favour too.
Thanks for the suggestion! I know he didn’t coin the term but he did write an article on his website trying to get people to use it. He definitely did grab it from the past but either didn’t realize or didn’t care that it has fallen out of usage.
trans* is a C pointer