Some Definitions

compiled by Aurora

CD : Cross Dresser -- See TV.

CTA : Crico-Thyroidal Approximation surgery (tightens vocal cords to raise voice pitch. Usually done at same time as TCR).

Clocking : Being identified by another person as your birth sex, while publicly presenting as your preferred gender. May apply to either a pre-op cross dressed, or to a post op who is attempting to be stealth.

DQ : Drag Queen (see below).

DSM-IV : Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th Edition. [American Psychiatric Association]. See SOC.

FFS : Facial Feminization Surgery (a specialized form of plastic surgery of soft facial tissues only, although the term is often more informally used to include FGRS.)

FGRS : Facial Gender Reassignment Surgery (more elaborate surgery, in which facial bone structure itself is altered). Also known as FSRS.

FSRS : Facial Sex Reassignment Surgery. See FGRS.

GD : Gender Dysphoria, a situation in which an individual, male or female, is unhappy with his or her gender; a state that is enduring, severe, and causes considerable distress.

GG : Genetic Girl (Natal Female)

GID : Gender Identity Disorder. (Also known as GIS [Gender Identity Syndrome]). An official term in the DSM-IV used to define and diagnose transsexualism.

GRS - Gender Reassignment Surgery. Also called SRS -- Sexual Reassignment Surgery. The physical reconstruction of the genitalia from the birth sex to the preferred sex.

HBIGDA : Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. See SOC.

HRT : Hormone Replacement Therapy (For MtF, an estrogen, an anti-androgen, and sometimes a progesterone).

ICD-10 : International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision. [World Health Organization]. See SOC.

MTF : Male to Female gender vectored transsexual. Also MtF, M2F. (FTM = Female to Male).

Passing : Publicly assuming ones preferred gender presentation, without getting "clocked".

PCT : Primary Care Therapist. The therapist responsible for writing the first of two letters of recommendation required for GRS.

Pre-Op : Someone who has begun active treatment towards gender reassignment, but not yet had GRS.

Post Op : Someone who has had GRS.

SOC (SoC) : Standard's of Care: The rule book published by the HBIGDA that most all physicians & psychiatrists work from when treating a gender dysphoric patient... along with either the DSM-IV or ICD-10.

SRS : Sexual Reassignment Surgery (also called GRS -- Gender Reassignment Surgery). See GRS.

Stealth : Living full time as ones preferred gender presentation, passing well enough that no one knows or suspects your birth sex. Usually requires the person to sever all ties to their past and relocate to a new community and job. Sometimes used less strictly, where it only means most do not know. May or may not include being "stealth" with a spouse/lover. Sometimes the use of the strictest criteria is indicated by calling it "deep stealth". The degree of stealth is sometimes indicated with a "Step Phase" code -- see "SP Levels" section by Kate Grimaldi below.

TCR : Thyroid Cartilage Reduction, which reduces the visible size of the Adam's Apple. Usually not done with CTA or other voice surgeries, but if they are desired the two procedures are usually combined to minimize scarring.

TG : Transgendered (see below).

TS : Transsexual (see below).

TV : Transvestite (see below).

VFFS : Virtual FFS. (Realistically altering a photograph to show how a patient is likely to look after FFS or FGRS.)

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SP Levels

Created by Kate Grimaldi to describe perceived degrees of integration of the transsexual experience with society. See "Stealth"

SP 0 = no passing.

SP 1 = Pass in a crowd where no one is paying much mind. the mall or a busy street. Little person-to-person interaction.

SP 2 = Pass with sustained person-to-person interaction; at a bank, with a waiter, with a sales clerk, or a person at a bar who is not a "chaser" who flirts with you.

SP 3 = You get that person home and you go to "heavy breathing" and still they accept your womanhood.

SP 4 [a tricky one to define] = Sustained acceptance of womanhood. The other party after three weeks, three months, of three years suddenly has it dawn on them that you once were a boy. No "benign clocking," as Debbie dubbed it. No people who say, "ohhhh. Nowwwwwwww I get it. I won't say anything, though. She's so nice and she tries verrrrrrrrrrrrry hard and almost succeeds. Her secret is safe with me as I will never tell, even her, that I know. After all, poor thing. I'd break her heart and I do like her so." Or from the Twelfth Night by Shakespeare when the jester, Feste, says something like, "I profit from my enemies and am abused by my friends."

SP 5 = Your past, as you remember it, is that you see a female in your mind's eye, even though you know for sure you were not trying to be one. For example, I remember myself as female in high school even though I can see fro the photographs that I was hardly that.

SP 6 = I am gg. You realize you were a woman trying to be a man - - like Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - - only it was an act. the real you has been female all along and you, of course, knew that all along, but you see how it was a gg doing all the things along the way. Not just a recollection as in SP5 of being a female doing it, but a layer deeper at SP 6 seeing the femininity colored those actions and not a "male upbringing" and how little you really know of men.

This section (c) Kate Grimaldi, all rights reserved

Addendum:

The SP levels are really for looking at yourself and seeing just how well you can pass. If you walk down the street in the city, do people see a woman? (SP1) If you go shopping and talk to clerks and salespeople, do they see a woman? (SP2) If you flirt with a guy (or girl) and rush to a hotel room for a passionate hour, does he (or she) still experience you as a woman? (SP3) If you make friends and hang out a lot and they don't know your history, will they still witness you as a woman 3 months later? (SP4) When you look back on your childhood and youth, do you see yourself female in those memories, a girl doing all those things? (SP5) Without thinking, without taking a political stance, do you see yourself as GG? (SP6) - from Cynthia

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 More Definitions

compiled by Aurora

Cisgendered : A person for whom their inner gender and external physical sex align. The opposite of transgendered. See Transgenderism.

Drag Queen ( DQ ) :  A male, almost always gay, who likes to perform in public in an exaggerated female appearance. Often no attempt to appear realistic is made, and often they are actually lampooning women rather than empathizing with them. They generally only do this in public, and have no desire to either do this in private or to actually be female. If you see someone who presents as the Hollywood stereotypical "crossdresser", in mini-skirts, sequined dresses, exaggerated makeup, et cetera ad nauseum, they are usually in this category... and that is NOT how the other categories (TV, TG, TS) usually choose to "dress".

Early Onset Cross Gender Identity : The person is pretty much asexual, always. There is almost no sexual arousal associated with cross-dressing. The person is usually a loner as a child, somewhat inhibited, may have tried marriage and family. Their presentation in the male gender role is not particularly effeminate. They are quiet people, and their sexual orientation seems to be changing, but really they are pretty much asexual. A lot of their psyche is taken up by crossgender identity. So these people have one gender identity, and that is female. Two gender roles, though, with the male presentation seeming like a guy, and the female presentation seeming the same, like the same person, but also seeming like a woman too, someone who is sort of androgynous, but not in the Michael Jackson sense - someone who is undifferentiated. Their sexual orientation can change as they shift roles, as they start living in the female gender role.

Effeminate Homosexual Cross Gender Identity : Another type is someone who appears in the male gender as an extremely effeminate homosexual. They are the "sissy boys", who have always had a crossgender identity at the extreme end of effeminate homosexuality. They seem like girls, and they are very talkative and uninhibited and talk about sex all the time. They have always been interested in men; there is never a change in their sexual orientation.

Gender : An individual's personal, social and legal status as a male or female on the basis of somatic and behavioural criteria. Often confused with "sex", since for most individuals the terms align, but not the same thing.

Gender Identity : The recognition or awareness that one is a member of one sex and not the other. It is the private experience of gender role.

Gender Role : The sum of the behaviours, attitudes, personality traits that in a given culture designate someone as masculine or feminine, male or female. It is the public manifestation of gender identity.

Homosexual ("gay"/"lesbian") : An individual, male or female, who is primarily or exclusively attracted to members of their own sex. They have no desire to be the opposite sex.

Late Onset Cross Gender Identity : Typically (but not always), the person for many, many years has assumed he was a garden variety crossdresser, whose cross-dressing was associated with sexuality, sometimes tranquility, but there were triggers to it. Maybe he didn't know what the pattern was, but when he undergoes therapy he realizes there were triggers to the cross-dressing. What happens as he gets older is that the female gender identity, which used to be a subordinate part, starts taking over, and he becomes she. There were two gender identities that were quite split, with sexual orientation usually toward women. As the female identity takes over, whereas he originally thought he would be a lesbian, she goes into the female gender role, and often, with time, she becomes interested in men, but never has been before.

Roger: A Reference to individuals who claim the transsexual condition, post SRS, but make no effort or see no value in adopting woman's values, appearances, voice, or manners. Example: Post ops with no effort expended on working on voice, shaving (body)  and aspects that fall more naturally to the female expression.

Sex : Multiple definitions, but the one relevant to here is the biological manifestation as male or female of the physical body.

Sexual Orientation : The gender (male or female) that an individual is most often if not always sexually attracted to. Orientation is further defined by the content of sexual dreams, sexual fantasies. Sexual orientation is distinct from gender. Therefore an individual with GID (male or female) can be oriented towards males or females or both (or more rarely, neither).

Transgenderism : Refers to the phenomenon in which individuals who are born anatomically of one sex feel that they belong to the gender of the opposite sex. The term basically means the same as GID but does not encompass the term "disorder" and is not pathologizing and, therefore, is less clinical. There is a wide spectrum of transgenderism ranging from individuals who feel they are trapped in the wrong body but do nothing about this or do very little cross dressing, to those who enjoy cross dressing a great deal, if not all the time but have no wish for hormones or surgery, to those at the extreme end of the spectrum who wish hormones and sex reassignment surgery.

Trannies : A loose, slang term for any individual (usually refers to males) who desire to appear as a member of the opposite sex and do so publicly. Can refer to transgendered, transvestites and homosexuals who often dress as the opposite sex.

Transsexual : An individual (male or female) who is transgendered (has GID) and has very strong feelings about and wishes to alter his or her body with hormones and surgery to become the opposite gender. The term is properly applied to most individuals who enter a treatment program and represent the extreme end of the spectrum.

Transvestite (TV) : A male who likes dressing in female clothing because this is sexually arousing. Undergarments are often focussed upon. These individuals have no wish to become a woman, and are basically normal heterosexuals with a clothing fetish. Aside from cross-dressing, most transvestites do not have a history of childhood cross-gender behaviours. Many TV's prefer the term "Crossdresser" -- "CD". As they get older, in many ways they resemble transsexuals but seldom ask for hormones or surgical treatment. Those that do need to be assessed and treated like any transgendered individual.