I've been watch the first crop of transgender themed reality shows, 'I am Cait', 'I am Jazz", 'New Girls'.
I have had high hopes for them, and while I'm about to express some criticism, I really believe they are doing wonderful things for the cause. But on to my issue. There is a reoccurring concept in every one of these shows. At some point, some side character will use the term 'transgendered'. The reaction is always the same, shock and horror!
They then carefully explain that there is no such word as transgendered, and using it is an insult. I started seeing this idea pop up in transgender articles on the web around e time of Caitlin's big reveal, but I'm sure it's roots are far older.
At first I thought, oh no! I have used that term in some of my blogs. I even started editing past posts to rewrite around the offending term.
Then it struck me that this term did not offend me, and I'm pretty sure I qualify as trans, at least that is what my pharmacists believes. Really, don't we have enough to worry about without becoming grammar police?
The English language is a fluid thing, constantly evolving. Using transgender as an adjective is not a crime, it's our natural tendency to simplify communication. Once we know transgender as a noun, it's much simpler to use it descriptively when referring to someone. Think about it, you can use one word and adequately provide a host of information. Other wise, referring to a group of transgender men, women, boys, or girls, can take a whole lot of words!
When was the last time you heard an exchange like this:
' Hey, I just googled xyz, and did you know...'
'Wow, never say that! It's offensive! You should say 'I just used google.com to do a web search for xyz.'
This applies to 'zeroxed' , 'Kleenex' and dozens of other words that started as nouns that are now accepted as adjectives, verbs and even adverbs!
We want acceptance so I think it's time we gave our acceptance to language transitions.
Please feel free to call me transgendered, it makes me proud.