That is not an explanation of the origin of the word. Neither does it come close to saying the word did not exist before. — I like sushi

Don't just deny it. Back and demonstrate your points with evidence and clear explanations.

Incoherent gibberish. bye bye

There were no such words as "transmale" or "transfemale" in ancient times. — Corvus

Well, the English language as it currently exists didn't exist in ancient times, so it's no surprise that many of the words we use today didn't exist in ancient times.

The people who changed their genders started to show up in the society, and then the word was made up and put on to the people. — Corvus

You should read up on transgender history. Obviously ancient people and ancient languages didn't use the modern English word "transgender", but transgender people have been recognized for thousands of years:

Accounts of transgender people (including non-binary and third gender people) have been identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide as early as 1200 BCE Egypt. Opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities.

The galli, eunuch priests of classical antiquity, have been interpreted by some scholars as transgender or third-gender. The trans-feminine kathoey and hijra gender roles have persisted for thousands of years in Thailand and the Indian subcontinent, respectively. In Arabia, khanith (like earlier mukhannathun) have occupied a third gender role attested since the 7th century CE. Traditional roles for transgender women and transgender men have existed in many African societies, with some persisting to the modern day. North American Indigenous fluid and third gender roles, including the Navajo nádleehi and the Zuni lhamana, have existed since pre-colonial times.

Some medieval European documents have been studied as possible accounts of transgender persons. Kalonymus ben Kalonymus's lament for being born a man instead of a woman has been seen as an early account of gender dysphoria. John/Eleanor Rykener, a male-bodied Briton arrested in 1394 while living and doing sex work dressed as a woman, has been interpreted by some contemporary scholars as transgender. In Japan, accounts of transgender people go back to the Edo period. In Indonesia, there are millions of trans-/third-gender waria, and the extant pre-Islamic Bugis society of Sulawesi recognizes five gender roles.

In the United States in 1776, the genderless Public Universal Friend refused both birth name and gendered pronouns. Transgender American men and women are documented in accounts from throughout the 19th century. The first known informal transgender advocacy organisation in the United States, Cercle Hermaphroditos, was founded in 1895.

This doesn't seem like institutionalized-ostracism or social eugenics at all to you? Like how small people historically were considered inferior. Same with those who lacked muscle tone (in a warring society, strength was king). Or even the opposite in some rare enclaves of humanity: those that were muscled and hairier were likened to beasts of burden.

Take Ancient Greece for example where they consider male features now thought of in the modern age as "superior" as quite the opposite (this is talking about penis size):

"On the other hand, the larger ones were used to symbolize the idiots, often dominated by an animal lust and a complete lack of restraint. In Greek art, people with large penises were associated with animals that placed libertinism and obscenity above all else."

You don't see some sort of long-running inter-millennial feud between the meek (perhaps average) and the brawny (perhaps exceedingly average, everywhere but in the mind, thus leading the person to want to be worshiped for his size only to become disappointed and violent upon discovering humanity values more than size and physicality)? I do. Quite clearly, really.

Some ethnic groups and otherwise tend to have what can be likened to as "female" features or characteristics in comparison to others, particularly those whose ethnicity tends to retain youthful features.

Some ignorant, larger, muscled, hairier person (from a race of such) might call these youthful looking people "little boys" or "like women", without even intentionally being mean or vindictive. It's just, how they look in comparison. This happens today, friend. You can look it up and walk the streets and see it yourself. People never change, only the year does. And of course, when someone doesn't fit in, they get treated differently, which leads to mental incongruities, inconsistencies, and idiosyncrasies (ie. colloquially "mental illness"), which wholly and adequately explains any deviating or abnormal behavior.

My point is, people just make fun of people who look or act differently, often giving them titles seen as derogatory. I'm not sure if I'd consider the historic vindictiveness of human nature as some sort of "historic evidence" for transgenderism. At least, not one that "advances" any sort of positive cause or mission related to such.

the absurd position to polysemy means we cannot clarify our use of words. — AmadeusD

:up:

People seem to affirmatively want language to be as confusing and unclear as possible. Things are in flux. We all get that. Plus the context for things is amorphous and fluctuates too. We all get that too. Flux begets more flux. Including in the language it begets. We get that too.

But in all this flux, we can control our language.

But does anyone really want to clarify our use of words?

———

Sex and gender are complex, taken individually, or as two aspects of a single, whole person. Granted. We need psychology, sociology, biology and philosophy at the very least to sort this out.

I stumbled across an instagram reel of a transwoman analyzing the question “Is it true that transwomen are women?” Her answer was no, and her argument was pretty simple, but interesting.

She asked, “what is the one thing common to all transwomen?” And her answer was “they are all men.”

Then she went on to say “transwomen who say they are women are taking rights and hard earned gains away from actual women” and that the notion of “cis woman” was something used by people to hijack and claim “women” for themselves, and take something away from women.

So I think this needs to be parsed and distinctions between ‘man, woman, trans and cis’ need to be clarified, but the long and short of it seems to be:

Men are males.
Women are females.
Transwomen are something new/distinct, being that transwomen are males who give a female presentation of themselves though they are (or were in the case of surgery) male.
Transmen, a fourth distinction, are females who give a male presentation. (Although she didn’t get into ‘transmen’ in her reel.)

This is at least workable and clarifies the use of the new word “transwomen”. Women’s rights and women are different than men and men’s rights (at least some rights are unique to women - special healthcare, special safe spaces). Neither women nor men should be allowed to infringe on the unique rights and needs of women. AND more importantly to the transwoman’s reel, transwomen should not be allowed to infringe on women’s rights either, because transwomen are not simply women and need their own unique rights.

This all cashes out to me. I agree with the transwoman in the reel. She is not exactly the same as a man or a woman - she is a man who presents like women, or in other words, the new gender called ‘transwoman’.

Things are only made more complicated than that because some transwomen don’t think they will have true equal rights unless they are regarded and treated exactly the same as women - same women’s sports and lockers, etc. According to the transwoman in the reel, this is denying all the work women did to stake out their own rights, and denying the fact that all transwomen are men who present as women; they are not simply “women”.

To cash this out further for sports and locker rooms, and protect rights of privacy and security and fairness among differences, for all, we would need 4 different locker rooms, and another sports league (or for all sports leagues look to biology alone to define eligible members since competition among females called ‘women’s sports’ is one key reason for the whole competition).

All seems logical and practical to me.

We can’t force people not to see the full beard and the penis on the transwoman who (otherwise) presents herself as a woman, just as we can’t see beards and penises in all of the females formerly called by our shared language “women”.

———

One result of this is, the notion of “I identify as x…” needs to be clarified (or tossed out as folly). This goes back to language. If words are to function, we can’t just link new things to old words, and privately redefine words, to thereby think we are redefining the things those words are used to refer to. Is a vagina also a penis? Is ‘XY’ thr same word as ‘XY’ yesterday, or is it now also tautologous with ‘XX’ today?

We don’t get to say “I think woman means ‘Y’ and I think I am ‘Y’ so that means you have to recognize that I am Y.”

Language doesn’t work that way.

So it never should have been a question “are transwomen, women?” The answer has to be no, because people who want to be trans need to be able to identify the gender to transition into, so that gender needs to be something for them to choose. That’s a man or a woman. And then for the person who transitions, in order for it to be a transition from X to Y, the transition is precisely changing what that gender already is to some new thing, namely a new gender needing a new word to speak of it without confusion.

———

So really we should invent a wholly new word (‘transwoman’ or ‘transman’ will do) to mean what transpeople precisely are calling people to recognize, and respect, and that is: “although we are different than males who are men and females who are women, we deserve the exact same human rights and protections.” If transpeople want to be able to communicate about what they want and who they are and what is being done to them by whom and by what, we all need to clarify our language, so we can speak, and actually communicate with understanding - and this begs for us to reject “transwomen are women” as an abuse of women and language, stemming from allowing people to define their own private identities (ie. “I identify as a woman”), as if we all can’t see for ourselves things that we already have identified and named together (like penises and breasts, and chromosomes and motherhood and fatherhood, and masculine men and feminine women, etc….)

In other words, if all along, all words were in flux because all identities are in flux, then the male once thought to be a man who wants to transition would have nothing new to transition to, nor anyway to talk about it whatsoever. So “transwomen are women” actually defeats both “woman” and “transwoman”, by not meaning something clear, and by confusing everything that is observable.

I've been sitting back and letting others discuss as I feel I've already made my point in this thread. Your post was particularly excellent, well said.

Well, the English language as it currently exists didn't exist in ancient times, so it's no surprise that many of the words we use today didn't exist in ancient times. — Michael

Yes, I agree.

You should read up on transgender history. Obviously ancient people and ancient languages didn't use the modern English word "transgender", but transgender people have been recognized for thousands of years: — Michael

It is neither my interest of topic nor my specialties in philosophy, so I don't have much to add on the concept itself. However, it seems words came much later after the existence of objects in the world.

And some words like "transmen" or "transwomen", we first understand what the objects are by listening to other folks talking about them, or reading up what the medias saying about them, and then understand the word. Not the other way around. These words seem also not coming from the Etymological foundation of the most other words. For example - "Artificial Intelligence" - if we try to dissect the word etymologically, we get not too far. That was my point.

The people who changed their genders started to show up in the society — Corvus

Check out the biography of Elagabalus. Or read about the The Galli. Or take a read of Of Gods & Emperors: Trans Experiences in Ancient Rome

:up:

It was basically a transwoman’s argument, so I thought it was worth considering.