For Transwomen
- Chick with dick (For non-op and pre-op
transwomen who are comfortable with these words)
- Drag queen
- Eonist (After the Chevalière
d'Eon, a 19th century male-born person who wore male clothes
in order to pass as a female-born person supposedly trying to
pass as a man. The French government, believing that d'Eon
had been born female, ordered her/him to cease wearing male
clothing, and after that s/he obediently wore female clothing
exclusively until her death, after which her/his female roommate
discovered that her/his physical sex had been male.)
- Ex-man (Defines one's womanhood as
an acquired characteristic)
- Faka fafini (Polynesian term for a
male-born person who lives as a woman; such people are
traditionally accepted by Polynesian society)
- Female impersonator
- Ghoti (Old Norse word for a
transgendered priestess)
- He Hwa (A legendary Zuni African
transwoman)
- Lhamana (Zuni Native American word for
"transwoman")
- Masculine impersonator (A person with XY
chromosomes living as a male who feels that their male gender
presentation is false)
- MTF (Short for Male-to-Female)
- M2F (Short for Male-to-Female)
- MTW (Short for "Man-to-Woman";
intended to emphasize the social rather than the physical aspects
of the transition)
- M2W (Variant spelling of "MTW"
above)
- Techno-winkte ("A male to female
person who has decided that it's okay to continue using tools
or electronic devices after transitioning to a female role; a
butch m2f"—Gary Bowen's Dictionary
of Words for Masculine Women.)
- Trannychick
- Trannygirl
- Transdame
- Transdamsel
- Transdyke
- Transgal
- Translady
- Transwoman
- Tryke (Contraction of Trans and
Dyke)
- Winkte (Sioux Native American: a person,
usually born male, who either lives full time as a the opposite
sex or maintains two differently gendered identities, one male
and one female, with a different name, wardrobe, and family for
each gender. The Dakota Sioux ceremonially disowned and condemned
winktes, but the Lakota Sioux considered winktes to have sacred
powers. "Lame Deer [a Lakota Sioux man] admits that though
the Lakotas thought people are what nature, or dreams, make them,
still men weren't happy to see their sons running around with
winktes. Still, he says that there are good men among the winktes
and that they have special powers. . . . The Lakota often go to a
winkte for a secret name, and such names carry great power,
though they are often off-color. 'You don't let a
stranger know [the secret name],' the winkte told them.
'He would kid you about it.' A winkte's power to name
often wins the winkte great fame and usually a fine gift as
well."—Paula Gunn Allen, "Lesbians in American
Indian Culture," Hidden from History: Reclaiming the
Gay and Lesbian Past, 1989.)
See also: For genderbending or
genderbreaking people
© 1999-2009 by Gayle Madwin. All rights reserved.