• A transgendered person is someone whose gender display at least sometimes runs contrary to what other people in the same culture would normally expect. There are several types:
  .

  FTM (female to male): born female but see themselves as partly to fully masculine.

  MTF (male to female): born male but see themselves as partly to fully feminine.

  Intersexed: born with a combination of male and female physiology (similar to hermaphrodite). May accept their mixed gender as natural.
  

• Not every trans-identifying person chooses to have complete sex re-assignment surgery; some have partial surgery, others cannot or do not want any at all, but choose to live as the opposite gender or somewhere in between male and female.
  
  
• Sexual orientation (the sex(es) to which you find yourself erotically attracted), sexual identity (how you see yourself physically-male, female or in between) and gender identity (how you see yourself socially-male, female or in between) are independent of each other. A person may express any variation of these in any combination. A transgendered person's sexual orientation is not determined by their gender identity or their sexual identity.
  
  
• The following groups are considered to fall under the transgender heading:
  
  • Drag Queen: female-emulating male, usually campy, often (not always) gay.
  • Drag King: male-emulating woman.
  • Butch: masculine-appearing person.
  • Femme: feminine-appearing person.
  • Transgenderist: person living as gender opposite to anatomical sex. Sexual orientation varies.
  • Transsexual: person whose sexual identity is opposite to their assignment at birth. Sexual orientation varies.
  • Transvestite (cross-dresser): person who enjoys wearing clothes identified with the opposite gender, often but not always straight.
  • Androgyne: person appearing and identifying as neither man nor woman, presenting a gender either mixed or neutral.
  • Intersexed: person born with mixed sexual physiology.

   

Prepared by Tessa Bye, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Office, University of Delaware, March 2000