The Guide To Being Transgender

What's the Difference?

Okay, so a lot of younger people have asked me what the difference between transsexual and transgender is. This is a pretty simple question, so this part won't be very long, but I figured I could answer it anyways.

~~**~~

Transgender
Adj. denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

Transsexual
Adj. a person who has undergone treatment in order to acquire the physical characteristics of the opposite sex.

~~**~~

Those are the dictionary definitions from dictionary.com as of right now.

Basically, the difference, by definition, is that a transgender person may or may not have undergone physical treatment, and a transsexual person has. This doesn't necessarily work for everyone, though, and there are more definitions that weren't exactly accounted for.

The term transgender, unlike transsexual, can be used as an umbrella term to encompass nonbinary identities as well.

The terms are interchangeable, really. Some people prefer transsexual after they've transitioned, and some prefer transgender. I, personally, prefer transgender because I associate the "sexual" suffix with sexuality rather than gender identity.

So, that's pretty much the difference. There isn't a big difference, honestly, especially nowadays. It really comes down to your preference for a word, and the fact that one is an umbrella term and one isn't. That's it.