Ernst Buchard's Lexikon

Part I: life

Part II: Lexikon

Part III: history of cis words

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince
Rose White
Raven Usher
Chris Bartlett
Jack Molay
Raphael Carter
John Money – part 1: gender and transexual
John Money - part II: other words

Morgan Lev Edward Holleb    

Introduction

• Ernst Burchard.  Lexikon des gesamten Sexuallebens.  Adler-Verlag, 1914.

Burchard's Encyclopedia of all sexual life was published in 1914, four years after Magnus Hirschfeld's Die Transvestiten; eine Untersuchung uber den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb, and five years after Hirschfeld and psychoanalyst Karl Abraham wrote an evaluation so that trans man Karl Kohnheim under the pseudonym ‘Katharina T’ and referred to as 'Fräulein' was able to obtain the first German Transvestitenschein, Hirschfeld's German rendering of the French term permissions de travestissement.

Hirschfeld and the French sexologist Pierre Vachet were both active nudists and had first met when German and French nudist groups had joint meetings. It is most likely that it was from Vachet that Hirschfeld learned of the French practice of permissions de travestissement, which dates from November 1800 and continued through into the 20th century - and was also introduced to the French word travestissement which he rendered in German as Transvestismus, and travesti/e which he rendered as Transvestiten.

However Hirschfeld altered the meaning by making it an erotic activity. The permissions de travestissement were issued - at least nominally - for mainly vocational reasons. They were not regarded as erotischen Verkleidungstrieb (erotic urge to dress up). Nor were the German Transvestitenscheinen regarded as erotic - they were issued so that the trans person could live, work and get on with life - the frequency or lack of a sex life did not come into it.

Unfortunately Burchard's Lexikon was published only a short while before the outbreak of war, and this probably contributed to the fact that it was never translated into English.

I used DeepL to translate the terms that seem most relevant to trans history. I also edited them slightly, mainly using bold for cross-references rather than the German 's.d.' (= see also).

Note that the entry for Geschlechtsübergänge merely says 'see Zwischenstufen'. This despite Geschlechtsübergänge being the title of Hirschfeld's 1906 book on sexual intermediaries.

In 1914 the German word Geschlecht would have invariably been translated as 'sex'.  However by usage it sometimes has the meaning which we would now translate as 'gender'.  Sometimes I adjusted the translation to this effect.

While Hirschfeld titled his 1910 book Die Transvestiten, in the contents to the book he mainly uses Geschlechtsverkleidung (sex-gender dress up) the older German term, and in the text itself, he often shortened it to Verkleidung (dress up).  Buchard's Lexikon has an entry for "Verkleidungstrieb, erotischer" but no entry for "Geschlechtsverkleidung".

Verkleidung is tricky to translate.  Kleidung=clothing, garments etc, and the prefix Ver=non standard.  Verkleidung is often translated as disguise or dress-up - neither of which is appropriate for trans persons.  This is probably why modern German writers use the English loan-word 'cross-dressing' rather than Geschlechtsverkleidung or Verkleidung, 

There is no entry for "Transvestitenschein".  Burhard used the more cumbersome "polizeiliche Genehmigung".

The Lexikon is sometimes modern - for example in stressing that trans and gay are congenital - and at other times seem quite old fashioned - see the entry for Degeneration, and the assumption that transvesting is an erotic activity.  It is a good mirror of the discussions at that time amongst Hirschfeld, Buchard and their associates.

Selections from the Lexikon.

Androgynie, Mannweiblichkeit (=Androgyny, man-femininity)

Echoes of the female sex in the bodily development of men. The symptoms can be isolated, e.g. in the development of the breasts, width of the pelvis, daintiness of the hands and feet, length and softness of the hair, etc. (gynecomastia, gynecosphysia, etc.) or they can be expressed more in the general structure of the body, as depicted by classical art in the hermaphrodite. Often Androgyny is found as a concomitant of other sexual transitional forms such as homosexuality and transvestitism. The counterpart is male body development in women: Gynandry.

Cisvestitismus (=Cisvestitism)

the tendency to put on the clothes of another age group, ethnicity, or occupational class of the same sex for the purpose of sexual relaxation, analogous to transvestitism (see Verkleidungstrieb).

Damenimitatoren (=Female impersonators)

Female impersonators, persons who professionally portray females on the stage - mostly in vaudeville or in farces, but also in serious plays.  The predisposition and inclination to do so will usually coincide and be based on the abnormal drive, recognised by Hirschfeld and described as transvestitism, to adapt the external appearance and lifestyle to the ways of the other sex.  In most cases this disposition is also supported by androgynous body development, feminine posture and movements, so that the deception, even in such distinctly feminine roles as "Gretchen" or the "Maid of Orleans", is sometimes complete.

Since transvestic inclinations also occur relatively frequently as a concomitant of homosexuality - representing a feminine stigma - homosexual predisposition is also relatively frequent with Damenimitatoren. A necessary or even only predominant coincidence does not exist in every case, as transvestitism need not be linked with homosexuality.

The counterpart of the Damenimitatoren, are female Herrenimitatoren (male impersonators and performers of so-called "trouser roles".

Degeneration. Entartung (=Degeneration)

By degeneration, we mean a state of the whole personality or of particular mental or physical characteristics, which is not adapted to the demands of the struggle for existence.  Degeneration may be due to the continued deterioration of one of the parental germ plasm or to an unfavourable result of the union of the two germinal substances. It is possible that a degenerative factor inherent in one germ cell (sperm cell or egg) can be compensated for by a compensating favourable property of the other. Accordingly, a similar strain of the parents will be more prominent in the offspring than a dissimilar one. ....

Certain sexual perversities, especially if they occur as compulsive acts as a result of neuropathic, in particular epileptic or hysterical conditions, are to be regarded as degenerative phenomena. The partial or complete inversion of the sex drive (see Geschlechtstriebes), bisexuality and homosexuality, as well as transvestitism, should not in themselves be regarded as degenerative phenomena, although they seem to be relatively more frequently associated with degeneration than heterosexuality. Similarly, we must not regard physical transitional phenomena such as androgyny, hermaphroditism and pseudohermaphroditism as degenerative phenomena in themselves, but this should be done in so far as they can be explained biologically as developmental disorders and not as transitional or mixed forms. The decision in a particular case will often not be easy and will have to depend more on the individual overall picture than on the individual phenomenon.

Erreur de sexe.

Erroneous determination of sex, caused by false hermaphroditism (pseudohermaphroditism). Correction often occurs later in life, sometimes after death by dissection.

Fetischismus, (Fetischzauber,) (=Fetishism, (fetish magic,))

Sexual fixation on a partial sexual object, or a category of identical or similar objects. It can be certain body parts, certain objects carried by beloved persons, or finally only these objects themselves. The Fetish is always based on the idea of an adequate sexual object, a beloved human person; insofar as fetishistic inclinations are only linked to this, they fall within the range of the normal ("a cloth from her breast, a garter of my love lust" Goethe, Faust.). Only when the personal object pales in comparison with the partial or objective one, and the latter, detached from the former, becomes the sole aim and content of the sexual striving, is the phenomenon to be regarded as pathological. The earlier this detachment takes place, the more pronounced the fetish appears, the less a connection can be found with a drive directed towards human persons. Only the nature of the fetish indicates this. Thus one can assume that a man who loves garters is heterosexual, a man who is only attracted by hussar boots is homosexual. The desire to take possession of the fetish, if it concerns adjuncts of the body, such as braids, can lead to bodily harm, if it concerns objects, to property crimes. The Fetish, probably always arises on the ground of a psychopathic personality, particularly unstable, but on the other hand also predisposed to obsessive fixations. Its treatment can only be psychological and must aim at a careful redirection of the sexual feeling towards a person, which of course is only possible if a personal type adequate to the sexuality of the fetishist can be determined.

Geschlecht (=Gender/Sex)

A word with multiple and comprehensive meanings. Apart from the narrower sense of the physically sexual, as expressed in the terms "sexual organs" or "venereal diseases", Geschlecht denotes not only the peculiarity of sexually differentiated living beings, but also that of all things and finally of all concepts, in that the language gives them a certain Geschlecht through the article. Finally, the "sexes" and the "succession of the sexes" are understood to be the connection of all that inhabits the earth in present, past and future times.

Geschlechtsübergänge, s. Zwischenstufen (=Sex transitions, see Intermediate Stages)

Geschlechtsumwandlung (=Gender reassignment)

The later necessary correction of the sex as a result of erroneous sex determination (see Erreur de sexe),

Gynandrie (=Gynandry)

Analogous to androgyny in the male sex, the occurrence of male secondary sex characteristics, especially in body hair, formation of the skeleton and body formation in the female sex, often associated with deficient development of the sex characteristics actually belonging to the female sex (mammary glands, etc.).

Hermaphroditismus (=Hermaphroditism)

Physical hermaphroditism in the narrowest sense. True Hermaphroditism, which consists of the presence of both male and female germ tissue (testicular and ovarian tissue), has been observed - as far as is known - five times. According to more recent findings, there seems to be more frequent occurrence of testicular interstitial tissue in ovaries and vice versa; possibly the development of the psychosexual variants or intermediate stages can also be explained by partial internal secretion of the opposite sex. In addition, a complete contrast of inner and outer sexuality, as described by Magnus Hirschfeld and this author as "sperm secretion from a female urethra", is to be regarded as Hermaphroditism. Finally, half-sided hermaphroditism, the sexual difference between the two halves of the body, occurs quite frequently in certain butterfly species, has also been observed by Hertwig in a bullfinch and by the author once in humans. Pseudo-hermaphroditism is far more common.

Historische Urninge (=Historical Urnings)

The fact that urnings, homosexuals, have often played a role in history is as indisputable as the fact that the individual peculiarities based on their disposition have played a specific part in their significance. Their biographies are of the greatest importance both for the understanding of homosexuality and of history.

Homosexualität (=Homosexuality)

Same-sex. A word formed from the Greek o/no- and the Latin sexus. In contrast to heterosexuality, Homosexuality denotes the innate or natural direction of the sexual instinct towards the same sex. It is an endogenous, original disposition, which we must count among the sexual transitions, intermediate stages (Zwischenstufen), in that it is the deviation of an important sexual character, the sex drive in the sense of the opposite sex. Not only does the fact that only sexual stimuli emanating from persons of the same sex have an a priori and constant attracting effect on homosexuals speak in favour of the predetermined disposition of this deviant drive, but also especially the fact that the entire psychosexual personality of homosexuals shows characteristic peculiarities - essentially based on a fusion of male and female components - which in a number of individual nuances represent a series of biologically typical manifestations. - In addition, the homosexual man, Urning, and the homosexual woman, Urninde, show sexual characteristics of the opposite sex relatively more frequently than heterosexuals, so-called sexual incongruities, which are causally connected with the character of the phenomenon as a gender transitional phenomenon.

In terms of time and place, homosexuality has been assessed very differently by different peoples and in different epochs according to the prevailing views. While primitive peoples were and are mostly naive about it, accepting it as a given form of manifestation and making use of the special gifts and abilities of homosexuals in appropriate professions (nursing, priesthood, teaching, etc.), while in classical antiquity it was an integral part of culture and reached its highest flowering in the scientific, artistic and especially pedagogical development of the psychological values based on it, it was later included in the general decline of morality, just like conventional love-seeking. When the ascetic worldview of Christianity countered this, it naturally turned against homosexuality in principle, in accordance with its view of the sinfulness of all extra-marital sexual activity. Thus there are - scientifically, of course, completely unfounded and untenable - threats of punishment against male or same-sex intercourse, among other things, in Germany in § 175 Str.G.B.'s, in Austria in § 129b.

On the part of doctors, attempts have been made to eliminate H. by therapeutic means, or to transform it into heterosexuality. Psychological methods of treatment have been used: Waking suggestion, hypnosis, association therapy, psychoanalysis. Success with pure H. is of course impossible, since it is, according to its endogenous disposition, too firmly integrated into the psychic personality as a whole. Suggestive healing, which usually lasts only a short time, can therefore only be based on self-deception. In the case of bisexuality (see below), a strengthening of the heterosexual component is possible under certain circumstances. It is the duty of the doctor to make a rigorous diagnosis on an individual basis. The guiding principle must be to maintain the homosexual as a useful member of human society or to make him so.

In most cases it will be the duty of the doctor to warn homosexuals against normal intercourse, to which they have no inclination, and especially against entering into marriage. Apart from the tragic conflicts which such a marriage usually causes for both parties, eugenics demands that the indication of nature, which with homosexuality so clearly points away from procreation, be heeded, especially since the offspring of homosexuals do indeed show relatively frequent and severe symptoms of stress and degeneration.

Hormone (=Hormones)

The chemical products of internal secretion in their grouping for the purpose of certain effects.

Inversion, sexuelle (=Inversion, sexual)

The inversion may be complete, so that only persons of one's own sex are sexually arousing, homosexuality, or partial and fluctuating in the choice of objects between the two sexes, bisexuality.  Sexual Inversion always represents an original, endogenous characteristic of the psychosexual personality as a whole, even if it often only appears after fully developed sexual maturity, as a reaction to adequate stimuli, which are then often mistakenly regarded as essential determining factors. With the differentiation of the sexes, a restriction to the stimuli appropriate to the disposition occurs, in the case of I. therefore to same-sex stimuli. If this attitude to the individual drive direction predetermined in the disposition is inhibited for a disproportionately long time, which is not infrequently caused by sexual mimicry, and then still appears at a later age, one speaks of delayed homosexuality.

Konträrsexualität (=Contrary sexuality)

Contrary sexual sensation is the term introduced by Westphal and adopted by Krafft-Ebing for homosexuality or sex, inversion, which does justice to the essence of the phenomenon as a reversal of the direction of the drive, i.e. a variant of the sexual life of sensation.

Perversion (=Perversion)

Any variant of the drive direction (homosexuality and bisexuality) based on psychosexual hermaphroditism. As such, perversion is fundamentally different from perversities, which represent anomalies with regard to the drive and activity type.

Perversität (=Perversity)

In contrast to perversion (Sexual Inversion, Contrary Sexuality, Homosexuality), which represents a deviation or reversal of the direction of the drive due to a variation in psychosexual individuality, Perversity means an unusual approach to sexuality, which is essentially based on subjective qualities of sensation, cruelty in active or passive form (Sadism and Masochism, Curiosity or Vanity (see Watching or Exhibitionism) or is fixed to partial attributes (fetishism) or inanimate or dead objects (pygmalionism and necrophilia), or, in the normal direction of the drive, finds satisfaction only in other forms of activity than normal coitus for reproduction.

Perversity., in contrast to perversion, which is a variation in the direction of the drive, thus represents an anomaly in the type of drive and activity.

Pseudohermaphroditismus (=Pseudohermaphroditism)

Transitions respectively of the primary sex characteristic: In the male sex there is no complete regression of Müller's ducts; in the female sex of Wolff's ducts, transitional and mixed forms of the genital organs arise, which lead from hypospadias to the formed Pseudohermaphroditism, masculinus or femininus, which, because the constitution of the external genitals is more or less in contrast to the real sex determined by the gonads, leading to erreur de sexe, which, if the secondary or tertiary sex characters reveal the true sex, gives rise to sex changes. In its most extreme form, the complete incongruence between external and internal genitalia, Pseudohermaphroditism can be classed with true hermaphroditism.

Pseudohomosexualität (=Pseudohomosexuality)

Same-sex activity without an adequate predisposition. Pseudohomosexuality can take the form of male prostitution for the purpose of gain, or for nobler motives: Attachment, veneration, gratitude to a homosexual friend, or also for lack of normal intercourse - faute de miuex. The latter occurs especially where the opposite sex is absent, in so-called single-sex environments, with men on ships, in prisons, barracks, colonial troops, with women in monasteries and convents. Among adolescents, too, sexual intercourse in the form of mutual onanism is a widespread phenomenon, especially in boarding schools.

Psychoanalyse (=Psychoanalysis)

Modern method of psychic treatment developed by Freud and his students, based on the assumption that the repression of sexual drives during the developmental years results in sexual abnormalities and nervous disorders. It is assumed that those sexual impulses are suppressed, pushed into the subconscious, as it were, which run counter to the sensibilities of today's cultured man. First and foremost among these are the child's ideas of incest, then narcissism (see below) and the homosexual component which, according to Freud, is always present in human bisexuality (see Homosexuality). If it is possible to recall these repressed ideas from the subconscious into the consciousness, which is to be helped by the real and daydreams in particular, taking into account their symbolic interpretation, then a relaxation, a reaction should occur which eliminates the state of illness caused by the repression. - Although these theories - which are only superficially hinted at here - are certainly worthy of attention, and there is no question that every psychological treatment must "dig deep", the generalisation that every neurosis can be cured in this way is certainly just as daring as the conclusions which Psychoanalysis draws from the symbolism of dreams,

Psychotherapie (=Psychotherapy)

Mental treatment. In all disorders of the sexual life, Psychotherapy is of essential importance, in addition to local or general physical treatment of existing disorders, or as an independent and sole method of cure. The aim of Psychotherapy must be the attainment of a harmonious sexuality or, if this is impossible, the happiest possible adaptation of an abnormal one to the requirements of life. Its prerequisite is that the doctor obtains complete and unreserved clarity about the entire psychosexual individuality of the person to be treated, possibly by way of psychoanalysis. The relaxation associated with this in itself is an essential healing factor for the doctor. Further therapy must be strictly individualised, using the usual methods: suggestion, hypnosis, association, milieu and adaptation treatment, in order to exert an influence on the patient in the sense of the desired success.

Transvestitismus. Erotischer Verkleidungstrieb (=Transvestitism. A type of Erotic urge to dress differently)

A variant of sexual disposition identified and described by Magnus Hirschfeld, Transvestitism expresses itself in the tendency to put on the clothes of the opposite sex, usually to style their whole appearance accordingly, often also in their habits, their nature and their occupation to follow completely what is generally customary with the opposite sex. Transvestitism therefore represents the drive to shape the surface in an opposite-sex way, or to relax an opposite-sex component inherent in the psychosexual individuality by appropriate surface shaping. Only if one takes into account that clothing in the broadest sense belongs to the individuality of man, that in many respects it plays the same role as, for example, the plumage of birds or the color of butterflies, it becomes comprehensible that an apparently so external inclination can represent a dominating basic trait of the personality, which in its constancy and uncontrollability can only be compared with the variants of the drive (see homosexuality). In fact, Transvestism, for those so predisposed is a question of life, its violent suppression leads to a disturbance of the inner harmony, which causes an unfree, cranky personality or leads to despair.

This author, in joint activity with Hirschfeld, received a picture of the enormous, previously undreamed-of spread of transvestism, since the publication of the discovery of this phenomenon, more and more such predisposed persons found the courage to entrust their inclinations to the expert, in order to receive, on the basis of an appraisal of their condition, the police permission to move about in public in the clothing of the opposite sex, which - at least in Berlin - is usually granted to them, on the condition that they do not cause public annoyance by their behavior.

As a rule, transvestites are not satisfied with an occasional and temporary relaxation, which they can obtain by putting on clothes of the other sex in their domesticity; they rather feel the need to be able to show themselves in public, dressed according to their inclination, and, if possible, to live at least for some time completely in the manner of the other sex. In general, it is easier for the transvestite woman under the present circumstances to follow her inclinations at least partially than for the man, since today's women's fashion allows a close approximation to that of men, but a man dressed femininely is conspicuous under all circumstances. There are male transvestites who prefer the role of the hard-working housewife, others who prefer that of the elegant lady of the world, and still others who prefer that of the discreet bourgeois woman; female transvestites who dress as sportsmen, as plain men from the people, but also those who like to dress in uniform. Often one finds in transvestites a peculiar combination of artistic receptivity and productivity, sometimes a special creative power, especially in the musical field. In this respect Richard Wagner, whose disposition is certainly proven by "his correspondence with a cleaning lady", is a particularly striking example of Transvestism

The historic and ethnological modifications of Transvestism, which can be traced from the primitive peoples through the cultures of all times and peoples according to the respective dress customs, are also interesting.

In the preference for certain pieces of clothing and the sexually justified inclination to wear them on one's own body, connections between transvestism and fetishism come to light. In the most pronounced cases transvestism represents the only and entire need of sexuality, the satisfaction of which requires an absolute relaxation, in others it is connected with normal direction of sexual drive, in others again with homosexuality. In the latter it appears less pure and independently expressed, being more a partial and concomitant phenomenon of the femininity often present in homosexual predisposition.

In some cases, transvestism is favored by feminine body formation in the man, androgyny, virile in the woman, gynandry, but in others there is a quite striking contrast between the absolutely masculine or feminine exterior and the urge to perform just in the exterior completely the role of the other sex.

Verkleidungstrieb, erotischer (=Dress up instinct, erotic)

The erotic disguise instinct is understood to be the urge, based on sexuality, to express in external appearance, but especially in clothing, a personality that does not correspond to actuality. If this urge refers to dressing in the manner of the opposite sex, it is called transvestitism and can be explained by the presence of other-sex components on the individual’s sex/gender identity. Another form of erotic disguise is the urge to dress in the costume of another age group of the same sex, which is called cisvestism and can be explained by infantilism and auto-eroticism as causal factors. Combinations of different forms also occur: one such combination of trans- and cisvestitism is adolescent men who long to dress as little girls. Erotic disguise may completely fill the sexuality, so that in the possibility of satisfying it, other sexual inclinations do not exist and only its compulsory suppression causes sexual irritations, possibly also nervous symptoms of illness; but it can also occur in connection with sexual urge expressions of a hetero- and homosexual nature. Infantilistic cisvestitism naturally often coincides with paedophilic tendencies.

Zwischenstufen (=Intermediate stages)

By Zwischenstufen we mean all sex/gender transitional phenomena both physical and mental: The different forms of androgyny, pseudohermaphroditism and hermaphroditism in the field of physical; homosexuality and transvestitism in the field of mental hermaphroditism. The latter finds their explanation by analogy to physical transition symptoms, to which they are often concomitant.

Transgender Lexicons: Morgan Holleb's The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince
Rose White
Raven Usher
Chris Bartlett
Jack Molay
Raphael Carter
John Money – part 1: gender and transexual

John Money - part II: other words

Morgan Lev Edward Holleb. The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality: From Ace to Ze. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.

Morgan Holleb is an immigrant from Colorado who did degrees at the American International University in London and at the London School of Economics, and currently lives in Glasgow. The Twitter page has the description: “yiddish (((anarchist))), bisexual non-binary trans boy”. No preferred pronoun is given up front, but if you persevere to or happen upon page 135, the entry on Gender Identity, you will find: “I transitioned because I’m drawn to queer boy culture; because after years I still get a thrill being called ‘he’; because my body feels better on testosterone”. So ‘he’ it is.

In his introduction Holleb states:

“This book will only cover English-language terms (with a few exceptions), partly to limit the scope, and mostly because as a white American author with no cultural ties outwith the Anglosphere, I am not qualified to define non-English terms, or to fully understand their contexts. However, I want to stress that other languages and cultures have rich histories and wide spectrums of gender variance and sexuality outside the cisgender heterosexuality that is prized as the ‘default’ in our culture. Many other cultures have a long history of third genders or what we might describe as transgender identities and experiences, from hijra to Two-Spirit to Onnabe. The gender binary as we understand it and its coded gender roles—including strict adherence to heterosexuality under punishment of anti-sodomy laws—were exports of European imperialism. English is a language of the colonizer and this book will implicitly reflect that.”

“I anticipate some resistance from queers who want to keep some of these terms secret. I’m not writing this to let outsiders into our safe spaces (and there will always be undergrounds within undergrounds), but for ‘new’ queers and the people who support them. I appreciate the need for safer spaces and exclusion, but if we are to dismantle straightness and cisness and their inherent oppressions, then we must also expand queerness. But if you’re straight and cis, you need to do the work of undoing your privileges! This book will help illuminate and challenge those privileges.”

Amazon Page    LinkedIn    Twitter

Holleb, despite having said in the Introduction: “My approach to language is post-structural and descriptivist (not prescriptivist); words do not have inherent meaning signifiers of meanings and these meanings shift across time” starts the dictionary with ‘A’ as in LGBTQIA by insisting that the A is not for Ally but for Asexual, Aromantic or Agender. Obviously he would not be saying this unless some other persons did use A to mean Ally. How is he not being prescriptivist here?

While the book title says ‘Gender and Sex’, four of the first six items in the dictionary are African-American Vernacular English (with a list of which words White people are allowed to use), Ableism, Accountability and Activism. There were times when I felt that this is a dictionary of Political Correctness (in the good sense of the term).

The book has some interesting appendices.

Legislation and Government Communications

These are arranged by country. The longest entry is for the UK. It starts with the Buggery Act of 1533 and continues to the Alan Turing Act 2017 which pardoned men prosecuted under anti-gay laws, especially those in force before 1967. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is of course there, as is Tony Blair’s 2004 Civil Partnership Act and David Cameron’s 2013 Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. But where is the Gender Recognition Act, also 2004?

Also should not Corbett v Corbett be mentioned given that it banned trans persons from legal gender changes for 35 years?

There is only one entry under Ireland. The Marriage Act of 2015. Where is the Gender Recognition Act of the same year?

How about Argentina? The Same Sex Marriage Act of 2010 is listed, but again no mention of the Ley de Género of 2012.

There is a section for the European Court of Human Rights (incorrectly claimed as an agency of the European Union – it is not, it operates under the auspices of the Council of Europe). However there is mention only of the 1981 ruling on homosexuality which led to decriminalisation in Northern Ireland. No mention at all of the various appeals to the ECHR by trans persons from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Malta etc.

It does seem that Holleb is far more interested in gay rights and marriage than in trans rights.

Events Referenced

A four-page timeline. The only trans items are the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, Stonewall and Trump’s ban on trans in the military. The other items are general history or gay or lesbian.

What should I mention as missing? There are so many. The 1870 trial of Stella and Fanny that established that cross-dressing was not illegal in England; the triple whammy 1928/9 of the legal trials of Radclyffe Hall, Victor Barker and Violet Morris; the Pansy Craze 1930-3; the university gender clinics in the late 1960s etc etc.

As expected from the previous Appendix, Corbett v Corbett and its repeal in the Gender Recognition Act 2004 are also not mentioned.

Groups Referenced

Many worthy groups are mentioned: Belfast Gay Liberation Society, Camp Trans, Campaign for Homosexual Equality, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay-Straight Alliance, GLF, Lesbian Avengers, Mattachine, Outrage, Scottish Minorities Group, STAR, Queer Nation. But what about: Queens Liberation Front, Press for Change, SHAFT, Transgender Nation, Tri-Ess, IFGE, Southern Comfort, FACT, l'Association des Transsexuelles du Québec, etc, etc.

Individuals Referenced

42 individuals are listed. The only trans persons are Laverne Cox, Marsha Johnson, Christine Jorgensen, Janet Mock, and Silvia Rivera. All from one country. While Holleb, during his years living in Britain, has learned about British gay notables from Oscar Wilde to Alan Turing to Bob Mellors and even tells us the names of the last two men hanged for sodomy in 1835, he either has not learned anything about British trans notables or chooses to erase them. Even April Ashley and Jan Morris and Juno Dawson are so erased.

Magnus Hirschfeld is not listed here although he is discussed, reasonably, in the Dictionary entry on Sexology. Harry Benjamin is mentioned but in a very peculiar way – only in the entry for Compton’s Cafeteria Riot: “Dr. Harry Benjamin published The Transsexual Phenomenon. He wrote that gender identity was fixed but that the body could be changed, and legitimized the use of hormone replacement therapy and gender reassignment surgery for trans women; several of the queens who frequented Compton’s saw him.”

Selected Dictionary Entries

Obviously I cannot comment on all the dictionary entries. Here are some of the more relevant.

Transracial. “Transracial people are generally adopted children who are raised by parents of a different race. … Transracial does not mean ‘someone born in the wrong race’ or someone who feels ‘dysphoric’ about their racial identity.” Except that other writers are indeed using the second definition (see Wikipedia). Of course the former is valid and more politically correct. But there are two definitions in use.

Transsexual. “A generally out of favor term for someone who is not the gender they were assigned at birth. There is an implication of medical transition (previously, and reductively, referred to as a ‘sex change’). Transgender is now the preferred term, but transsexual is still in use by older trans people who have always used it, and anyone who appreciates the confrontation of the word.”

Transsexualism. “A disease according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, (Tenth Revision), published by the World Health Organization.” That is the full entry, not an introductory paragraph.

So if not transsexual and transsexualism, what term does he suggest for those who have completed their journey with surgery? A term in distinction from the non-surgical has been required since it became possible in the 1920s, and continues to be needed. This requirement is emphasised by separatist factions like HBS (not mentioned at all) and Truscum, but is hardly limited to them. Holleb – in the Transsexual entry – merely suggests Transgender instead. He does not mention ‘Transsexuality’ at all – which is taken by many to remove the medical implications. ‘Trans Medical’ is also not mentioned, but has become problematic because of its association with Truscum.

Instead of Transsexualism, Holleb seems to prefer Gender Dysphoria. “Many, but not all, trans people experience physical dysphoria. Dysphoria is not a prerequisite for transness: transness is defined by not feeling unambiguously aligned with the sex you were assigned at birth. Gender dysphoria cannot be relieved through conversion therapy, and attempts to make people not-trans, through coercion or otherwise, are abusive.” However he tells us that “Gender dysphoria is a mental health disorder classified in the DSM-5, replacing gender identity disorder (GID).” He goes on to correctly distinguish Gender Dysphoria from GID, but when you look at the GID entry four pages later, it simply refers you to Gender Dysphoria.

While he writes that Transsexualism is a disease and Gender Dysphoria a mental health disorder, he releases his inner rebel in the entry on Gender Identity where he complains that “Trans people are expected to justify their gender not only with academic texts on feminism, on queer theory, on sexuality and patriarchy and performance and power, but also with psycho-medical material on hormones, surgery, depression, trauma, autism, childhood anxiety, and a catalogue of every single violence we have suffered which has “made us” trans. Fuck that. … Gender identity is personal and should not need to be explained; it’s an issue of bodily autonomy and social respect.”

The entry on Gender is good, combining ideas about social construction and as a system of oppression, and as performance and how gender signalling can fail. Yet in the middle he writes “In addition to performance, gender is an interior sense of self, aligning with or against cultural norms of gender”. And in Gender Identity he writes that it “could also be called ‘gender’. As I have written elsewhere a transgender person is one who changes aer gender to align it with aer gender identity. Otherwise ae would not be transgender. Many today conflate gender and gender identity, and this usually leads to confusion.

There is an entry for Gender Recognition, but it says nothing about the various Gender Recognition Acts – as expected from the erasure of such acts from the Legislation appendix.

In his Transgender entry, Holleb reminds us that “non-binary people feel that they aren’t trans even though they aren’t cis either”. He closes the entry with: “There is no wrong way to be trans. Some trans people have body dysphoria, some don’t; some see transness as mental illness or disability, many don’t. Medicalization is a path to legitimacy but we shouldn’t need that. While some of the language to describe ourselves is new, transgender people have always existed.”

Tranny. No mention of the ‘Transy’ variant. He sees ‘tranny’ as part of the “conflation between gender and sexuality”, not as an umbrella word for transsexual, transvestite and drag as is usually said. The honourable history of ‘tranny’ as a self-designation is erased, and most of the entry is a condemnation of non-trannys who dare to use the word. (More on Tranny)

Trans, Trans*. Holleb sees ‘Trans’ as short for ‘Transgender’ or maybe ‘Transsexual’. ‘Trans*’ he admits can ‘sometimes’ include cross-dressers and drag performers. He erases the common usage that both words are replacements that mean exactly what ‘Tranny’ used to mean.

Transvestite. Holleb says: “There is a great deal of historical overlap between cross-dressers, drag performers, LGBQ+ people, and trans people.” And then refers us to Cross-Dresser. There is no entry for Transvestism or Tranvestity.

Cross-Dressing.

For Holleb, cross-dressers are not transgender – cross-dressing is a gender expression, not a gender identity. He does a small bit of cross-dressing history – mainly about sex workers in the California gold rush. On the other hand the mainstream of US cross-dressing – Virginia Prince, Transvestia, FPE, Tri-Ess, IFGE etc – is totally not mentioned. As is all British cross-dressing – so no word of Charlotte Bach or the Beaumont Society or of Havelock Ellis’ Eonism.

Gender movements totally missing

There is no mention in this book of Cross-Dreaming, as explicated by Jack Molay or otherwise. I have quoted Holleb in that “non-binary people feel that they aren’t trans even though they aren’t cis either”. This is also true of Cross-Dreamers.

Other movements totally not mentioned: HBS, Tri-Ess, Transkids and other self-designated HSTS, self-designated Autogynephiles.

Conclusion

In the entry on Transgender, Holleb says:

“Transness is often reduced to either an illusion of choice, or the ‘born this way,’ ‘trapped in the wrong body’ narrative. Both are overly simplistic and neither is right.”

That I totally endorse.

I suspect that part of our different approaches is generational. This is a book by a Millennial, for his own generation. However that is not an excuse for leaving out chunks of our history. If you are an older person, reading this book may be useful to understand what Millennial trans persons are thinking. If you are a Millennial you may identify with the book and consider me an old fogey. However our history is what it is, and to cut out chunks of it will damage us all.

Another good book for the Millennial outlook is Juno Dawson’s The Gender Games: The Problem With Men and Women, From Someone Who Has Been Both.

Transgender lexicons: John Money 2: other words

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince
Rose White
Raven Usher
Chris Bartlett
Jack Molay
Raphael Carter
John Money – part 1: gender and transexual

Other Words in Money’s Glossaries:

Man & Woman, Boy & Girl

Gynandromorphy: woman-man-shape. Thus, literally, the term means having some of the body morphology and measurements of an average woman, and some of an average man, or being at neither extreme.

Paraphilia/paraphiliac: a psychological condition of being obsessively responsive to, and dependent on an unusual or unacceptable stimulus in order to have a state of sexual arousal initiated or maintained.

The Man Who Invented Gender: “Although the Oxford English Dictionary records the first usage of paraphilia in 1925, it was largely Money who popularized the term among psychologists. Eventually, the word replaced perversions in psychiatric literature.“

Love and Love Sickness:

Allosex-avoidancy: a socially dictated constraint on personal disclosure to members of the other, but not one’s own, sex. It affects both behaviour (as in locker-room nudity, for example) and communication, as in sexual joking.

Androgynophilia: erotosexual pairing with a man and a woman serially or simultaneously by a member of either sex.

Andromimetic: a girl or woman being a person manifesting the features or qualities of a male in bodily appearance, dress and behaviour. There is no fixed vernacular synonym except, maybe, a bull dyke, that is a female homosexual who lives in the role of a man. She may request breast removal, but not genital surgery, and usually not hormones to masculinize the voice, beard and body hair.

Apotemnophilia: the condition of being dependent on being an amputee, or fantasying oneself as an amputee, in order to obtain erotic arousal.

(Comment: later, several other sexologists have either discussed or facilitated apotemnophilia. Russell Reid referred two such patients to a surgeon; Ray Blanchard and Anne Lawrence gave papers at the Third International Body Integrity Disorder Meeting in 2003 comparing apotemnophilia to Gender Identity Disorder; in 1999 Dr John Brown removed a leg from an apotemnophiliac who subsequently died: Brown was then imprisoned.)

Gynandromorphy: woman-man-shape. Thus, literally, the term means having some of the body morphology and measurements of an average woman, and some of an average man, or being at neither extreme.

Gynecomimetic: a boy or man being a person manifesting the features or qualities of a female in bodily appearance, dress and behaviour. Specifically, a drag queen, which is the vernacular term for a male homosexual who lives in the role of a woman. He retains his male genitals, even though he may take hormones to grow breasts.

Gynophila – Money’s spelling for gynephilia.

Sexosophy: the body of knowledge that comprises the philosophy, principles, and knowledge that people have about their own personally experienced erotic sexuality and that of other people, singly and collectively.

(Comment: as opposed to Sexology, the science of sex).

Other words used by John Money :

Abidance: continuing to remain, be sustained, or survive in the same condition or circumstances.

Ambisexual -- an alternate term for ‘bisexual’, first cited in the OED for 1938. Money claimed to have been one of the first to use the term, but later dismissed it as meaning nothing different from ‘bisexual’.

Autoagonistophilia: pleasure from being viewed while having sex.

(Other writers spell it Autagonistophilia. Presumably the term, or simply autagonist, could also be used for a kind of exhibitionist drag queen who is not able to simply transvest, but is insistent on being read; likewise the kind of transsexual who cannot simply be a woman, but demands that everyone be aware of her transition. Money does not get into a discussion of this.)

Biologically devout -- explaining sexuality and gender identity purely in terms of DNA, hormones etc.

(Comment: there should be a matching term for explaining sexuality and gender identity purely in terms of family, society, social construction, self fashioning etc – but what would that be?)

Biophilia – forms of sexual desire that lead to procreation. See also Normaphilia.

(Comment: the word is also used by Erich Fromm and then Edward O Wilson for the proposed human tendency to seek connections with other life forms. EN.Wikipedia)

Extraspective – the outward observation of things, the default way to observe, the opposite to Introspective. Normally this would not need a name, in that all life forms do it without knowing about introspection. However in Money’s “gender indentity/role (G_I/R” the two complement each other.

Fuckology – a synonym for sexology. Sometimes spelt with a ‘ph’. In 1996 Money presented a paper to the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and therapists which he titled: “Fuckology: The Science We Lack”. There is a 2015 anthology of papers: Fuckology: Critical Essays on John Money’s Diagnostic Concepts.

Homosexology/Heterosexology – a division of sexology by its two major orientations.

Indicatrons “In recognition of the fact that psychology’s units of raw data all serve to indicate something or other to the psychologist or scientist, they can all be categorized as indicatrons.

Katharma. A word to be preferred over ‘freak’. “A person whose social stigmata need to be cleansed by society so that he may become a rightful member of the human race.

Normaphilia – any form of sexual desire that is socially accepted.

Paleodigm: an ancient example or model of a concept, explanation, instruction idea or notion, preserved in the folk wisdom of mottos, maxims, proverbs, superstitions, incantations, rhymes, songs, fables, myths, parables, revered writings, sacred books, dramas, and visual emblems. Paleodigmatics is the organized body of knowledge of paleodigms.

Pedeiktophilia: penile exhibition.

(Comment: because this word starts with ‘ped’, many will take it as having something to do with pedophilia.)

Quim and swive: In neither the standard English vocabulary of literature and science, nor the vernacular vocabulary of uncensored speech, are there terms by which to distinguish what the woman does to the man, in the procreative act, from what the man does to the woman.

The two words, from olden English, best fit the need. Either can be noun or verb.

(Comment: Most online sites that define swive use it for either the male or the female action. Most sites give quim only as a noun, not as a verb.)

Sexual orientation -- Money pushed for this term rather than ‘sexual preference’ in that it is less judgemental and that attraction is not necessarily a matter of free will.

Spookological: “That which is not biological is occult, mystical or, to coin a term, spookological.”

Transvesticism – sometimes used instead of transvestism.

Ycleptance: namimg and being named.

Transgender lexicons: John Money 1: gender and transexual

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince
Rose White
Raven Usher
Chris Bartlett
Jack Molay
Raphael Carter
John Money

John Money coined a lot of words, and took other existing words and made them his own. Man & Woman, Boy & Girl: Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity, 1972 (co-authored by Anke A. Ehrhardt) and Love and Love Sickness: The Science of Sex, Gender Difference, and Pair Bonding, 1980 both contain extensive glossaries – 16 pages in the former, 17 in the latter, but actually do not contain most of his neologisms. More than that, the glossaries contain both words in general usage and Money’s coinings. Unfortunately, unlike Jack Molay, Money does not indicate his own coinings e.g with an *.

On the other hand Terry Goldie’s The Man Who Invented Gender: Engaging the Ideas of John Money, 2014, had Index entries for most of Money’s neologisms, and chapter 6 is “The Edge of the Alphabet: Neologisms”.

Goldie writes: “Money loved jargon and creating jargon. He seemed to have no idea in sexology for which he did not want to find a Latin or Greek word. “ (p148-9)

Money is, of course, most associated with the term gender, so let us start there.

Gender

Man & Woman, Boy & Girl:

gender identity: the sameness, unity, and persistence of one’s individuality as male or female (or ambivalent), in greater or lesser degree, especially as it is experienced in self-awareness and behaviour. Gender identity is the private experience of gender role, and gender role is the public expression of gender identity.

gender role: everything that a person says and does, to indicate to others or to the self the degree in which one is male or female or ambivalent. It includes but is not restricted to sexual arousal and response. Gender role is the public expression of gender identity, and gender identity is the private experience of gender role.

Love and Love Sickness: (8 years later)

gender: one’s personal, social and legal status as male or female or mixed, on the basis of somatic and behavioural criteria more inclusive than the genital criterion alone.

gender indentity/role (G_I/R): gender identity is the private experience of gender role, and gender role is public manifestation of gender identity. Gender identity is the sameness, unity, and persistence of one’s individuality as male, female, or ambivalent, in greater or lesser degree, especially as it is experienced in self-awareness and behaviour. Gender role is everything that a person says and does to indicate to others or to the self the degree that one is either male or female, or ambivalent; it includes but is not restricted to sexual arousal and response.

And 4 years after that:

In 1984, Money presented a paper “The Conceptual Neutering of Gender and the Criminalization of Sex”.* In it he surveys the changes in the use of the word during the 30 years since he had introduced it in 1955. ``As originally defined, gender role consists of both introspective and the extraspective manifestations of the concept. In general usage, the introspective manifestations soon became separately known as gender identity. The acronym, G-I/R, being singular, restores the unity of the concept. Without this unity, gender role has become a socially transmitted acquisition, divorced from the biology of sex and the brain.”

He notes that “people adopted the term and gave it their own definition”. The first change was to separate gender identity and gender role; the second was the separation of sex from gender as “heralded in the title of Stoller’s book, Sex and Gender (1968)”. He continues: “Many textbooks … now introduce the definition of gender by defining sex as a biological entity -- and as what one is born with. Gender is a social entity, which one acquires after birth, and gender role is the social casting or ordainment of gender. This is the strategy by which gender role has been neutered. It has become devoid of any connection with biology and reproduction. It is defined instead as the product of social history, with male and female roles having been more or less arbitrarily assigned on the basis of male superiority and female inferiority.”

Money also includes the rather odd observation:

“The discordancy that exists in the case of transsexualism is so complete that, in technical jargon, gender identity is sometimes used as an attribute of only the discordant cases. One effect of this usage has been that some theoreticians of homosexuality have been entrapped into attributing a male gender identity to all homosexuals, provided they do not repudiate their self-declared status as male. The qualifier is then added that the homosexual, despite a male identity, has a male object choice or sexual preference. This nomenclature is totally illogical in cases of gynemimetic homosexuals, or drag queens, who impersonate women in variable degrees on a full-time basis. It is more straightforward to attribute to homosexuals a gender identity that is homoerotic, and in its nonerotic components may or may not conform to the masculine stereotype.”

(Comment: Money’s concept of “gender indentity/role (G_I/R)” makes sense in terms of the work that he was doing in the mid-1950s with intersex persons with the same DNA/hormonal conditions who stayed with the gender of rearing, whichever it was. However once the concept of ‘gender’ was released to the wider world, other uses were found for the term. This was inevitable, as it would be for any word that is as useful as ‘gender’. Money is particularly insensitive to feminist usages of ‘gender’ as a social construction and as a system of oppression.

With all respect for Money’s role in enabling transgender surgery at Johns Hopkins, “gender indentity/role (G_I/R” ) renders null the dynamic behind transsexuality. As it consists of “both introspective and the extraspective manifestations” of gender such that they reinforce each other, he is talking of cis gender. In a trans person there is a discrepancy between gender (role) and gender identity, and the act of transition is to change one’s gender (role) to align it with one’s gender identity.)

A note on the word ‘transexual”.

‘transexual’ (one S) was coined by David Cauldwell. Harry Benjamin went with the two-S spelling, but Money retained Cauldwell’s one-S spelling. Article.

Riki Anne Wilchins and others proclaimed that they spelt the word with one S to avoid medical implications. I never understood that claim. One-S, two-S -- it was a choice between Cauldwell-Money on one side and Benjamin on the other. Both have medical implications. To avoid such one needs to say ‘transsexuality’ rather than ‘transsexualism’.
____________

* “The Conceptual Neutering of Gender and the Criminalization of Sex” was first given 20 September 1984 as a lecture at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the International Academy of Sex Research, Cambridge. It was published in The Archives of Sexual Behavior, 14, 1985: 279-290. It was reprinted as the penultimate chapter in John Money. Venuses Penuses: Sexology, Sexosophy and Exigency Theory, 1986.

Continued in part II

Transgender lexicons: Raphael Carter

• Raphael Carter. The Angel’s Dictionary. http://practicalandrogyny.com/raq/angels.shtml. Last modified July 1996.

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince 

Rose White 

Raven Usher

Chris Bartlett

Jack Molay

Raphael Carter

 
We looked at Raphael once before. Zir Angel’s Dictionary is well worth revisiting for the obscure and arcane words revived. Here we will look at some of the words and how they have fared in the years since 1996.

Arenotelicon. Presumably from Arreno (Attic Greek for male) and Telicon (Greek for distance or achievement). The word is found in a Renaissance book, the Physiologus where it is used to describe hyenas who were then believed to change sex each year. Carter suggests that the word would apply well to the Gethenians in Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. The word means distancing oneself from maleness, but what would be distancing oneself from femaleness: Thelyotelicon? Arenotelicon has been picked up in SF gaming. Elder Scrolls: Arenotelicon? “Pretty easy: ‘a creature that alternates between male and female’. Why not just ‘phase-shifting tranny’? Well, because sometimes the old words are best, as they ring with implied importance and are all long and spooky-looking.”

Arenotelicon is also sometimes just as a hyena/wolf type monster without any sex-changing – in this usage it was the inspiration for the film Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Baeddel. An old English term for a trans woman. Urban Dictionary says that it is a derogatory term, but any term from that period would have been. Is it connected to our modern word ‘bad’? Some have reclaimed the term for themselves. Some of those who did that have acquired a bad reputation for online aggression, especially against trans men. However not all.

Epicene. From the Greek epi + koinos (common). So by usage: what is common to both genders. Non-binary pronouns are epicene pronouns. Carter comments: “This word has taken on a variety figurative meanings over the centuries (Ben Jonson used it to mean something like 'effeminate'); still, more than any other word I know of, it emphasizes what is common to both sexes. Its Greek root means 'common,' and it shows up in descriptions of garments that either sex can wear, or places both sexes dwell ('Epicene...Convents, wherein Monks and Nuns lived together.' -- Fuller, c.1661).” Zir offers a meditation on why zir prefers ‘epicine’ to describe zirself, rather than androgyne or any other term. A position that I find to be quite coherent.

However. Yes, most definitions support Carter’s usage. However let us look at a couple of usages: Evelyn Waugh in Brideshead Revisited: “He was magically beautiful, with that epicene quality which in extreme youth sings aloud for love and withers at the first cold wind.” Graham Greene in The Confidential Agent: “The little room swung clearly back – the boot cupboard and the epicene girls in black silk stockings and the masculine chairs.” (These two examples from Tom McMorrow in Having Fun with Words of Wit and Wisdom). Then there is the usage, not in the novel The Silence of the Lambs, but is its exegesis, of describing Hannibal Lecter as epicene. Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae, using ‘epicoene’, the 16^th century spelling, gives the examples of George Villiers, Byron, Elvis Presley and Michelangelo’s statue, Giuliani de’ Medici. Molly Haskell, in her From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment if Women in the Movies, uses ‘epicene’ to describe the screen personae of Oliver Hardy and Clifton Webb. What is this other ‘epicene’ that is not some type of gender variance? Most dictionaries avoid it, strangely – given their remit to reflect usage. Let us look at The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, where the definition starts with “Etymologically, epicene has had overtones of effeminacy, even decadence”. Such of course is Lecter. Let us also note the following word in the Columbia: epicurean “a person who has a well-developed taste for and an enjoyment of good food and drink”. Even more so is Lecter. It is almost as if there has been a seepage of meaning between two words adjacent in a dictionary.

Salmacian. A term proposed by Raphael for male-to-intersex and female-to-intersex transsexuals. Salmacis was the other person conjoined with Hermaphroditus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The definition has been revised by some to “people who wish to have a mixed genital set” in that intersex is not a condition that can be acquired by surgery. The Intersex Glossary proposes ‘bigenital’ as “a less common and potentially more controversial synonym”. The same source defines Salmacian: “A dyadic person who wishes to transition to a sexually neutral or ambiguous state. Some see salmacianism as fetishistic, arguing that it conceptualises intersex as one set of sexual organs universal to all intersex people, or that salmacians are co-opting the intersex experience. Salmacians themselves simply see themselves as being happier with some form of non-normative genital configuration, androgynous body shape, etc., and it is the author’s opinion that their wishes for transition should be respected.” The best known surgical Salmacian would seem to be Les Nichols, although there is no statement that he identified with the word.

Scat/ Scatta. Like baeddel, of ango-saxon provenence. Ælfric, c.1000 is quoted; “Hermafroditus, waepenwifestre, uel scratta, uel baeddel”. The differences between each are not explicated.

Wiktionary gives scatta as a form of the Italian scattare, to be released – which is appropriate in that most trans persons experience release in transition. Urban Dictionary defines it as a ‘bitch fight’.


Waepenwifestre. According to the Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Weapenlic meant unruly or male. In modern English, ‘weapon’ has narrowed to a tool for killing or harming others, and so ‘Waepenwifestre’ for trans is extremely unlikely to catch on.

Transgender lexicons: Jack Molay

Transgender lexicons:

Virginia Prince 

Rose White 

Raven Usher

Chris Bartlett

Jack Molay

Raphael Carter

 

• Jack Molay. A Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary: Reflections on Transgender. Amazon Digital & Blurb, 2015.

Jack Molay is from the ancient Hanseatic city of Bergen. His writings, starting in 2006, were originally, but ambivalently, about autogynephilia, the concept bequeathed by Kurt Freund and Ray Blanchard that disparages gynephilic trans women. Molay transvalued what is useful in the concept and came up with Crossdreamer:

“the act of dreaming about being ones target sex or getting aroused by the idea of being ones target sex. Crossdreamer is a subcategory under the wider umbrella term ‘transgender’ … Crossdreamers may be assigned male or female at birth. Their sexual orientation varies. There is no clear and distinct boundary between crossdreamers and other transgender people.”

This book, most of which originally appeared on www.crossdreamers.com is in the form of a dictionary or lexicon. There are in fact three parts:

1. The Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary;
2. Words that do not belong in a crossdreamer vocabulary;
3. Appendix: Transgender Dictionary.

We will take these in reverse order.

Appendix: Transgender Dictionary.

Unlike the main Vocabulary, this section has several words per page. Quite a few of the terms here are also found in the Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary, but with a different emphasis. This is mainly a dictionary in the standard sense of attempting to define how other people (other trans persons) use words.

As in other lexicons that we have considered, it is light on history, for example She-Male, described as a derogatory term used in pornography, is defined: “A genetic male who has physical characteristics of both male and female. This term should never be used for a real life non-op MTF transsexual (to whom it may refer).” In addition to ignoring RuPaul, this of course ignores how the term was used by and about Christine Jorgensen and Coccinelle. Only later was the term appropriated in pornography. The definition also denies the choice of the term to trans women working in pornography.

Jack defines Gender : “(1) In social studies: the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women. (2) In biology: the state of being male or female. The biology of gender is a scientific analysis of the physical basis for behavioural differences between males and females. “ But then defines Transitioning: “Wikipedia defines this as the process of changing genders - the idea of what it means to be female or male. I am using the term for the process of changing ones biological sex, arguing that an M2F transsexual woman is a woman/has the female gender both before and after the transition (see also sex reassignment surgery).” There is a serious equivocation here. What a transsexual woman has before and after is not the socially constructed roles, etc. Everybody has that. What she has before and after is a gender identity. The HBS people repeatedly conflated gender and gender identity, and it is part of their legacy that many today make the same conflation.

He defines Transgenderist as per Virginia Prince’s usage, as promoted by Richard Docter and IFGE, but does not mention that Vivian Namaste uses the term with no Princian connotations at all. He does add the useful comment: “Some deny that transgenderists exist, arguing that they are either misled transsexuals or ‘autogynephiliacs’. The term must not be confused with ‘transgender’, which is an umbrella term for all gender variant people.”

Jack has an excellent section on the different types of Separatists: 1) Classic transsexuals 2) HBS 3) transkids (Blanchardian) 4) Princians 5) truscum.

Words that do not belong in a crossdreamer vocabulary

This section has only four entries: Autoandrophilia; Autogynephilia; Homophobia; Transphobia.

The section header is of course a rhetorical flourish. We very much need to talk about these four to be able to counter them.

There is a honest evaluation of crossdreamers:

“Many crossdreamers are transphobic in the sense that they express strong negative feelings about transgender and transsexual people. This may come as a surprise to outsiders, as it is pretty clear that crossdreamers themselves are transgender (in the wide sense of being gender variant). Some are even transsexual. 

The explanation for this paradox is found is normally found in their upbringing and social conditioning. They have been brought up to believe trans equals perversion. Now they try to dismiss any doubts about their own sexuality and identity by dismissing all those who may undermine their self-image.”

It is a pity in a way that there is no discussion of Anne Vitale’s concept of Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder, which would fit in well here.

The Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary

Normally in a dictionary, neologisms are avoided in that the point of the book is to record other persons’ usages. However the point of this book is to articulate the Crossdreamer philosophy, and to that end there are many new words, most of which are considerately marked with a *.

However let us first look at the words that appear both here and in the Appendix: Transgender Dictionary.

Separatist. The heterosexual male-dressers (a la Virginia Prince) has been moved to (1), and an extra category added: “6) Some crossdreamers believe their cross-gender erotic fantasies are purely fetishistic, and that they therefore have nothing in common with transsexual people. Alternatively: They believe all trans people are fetishists, and fetishists only. The operative phrase here is ‘We are normal men/women with a sexual kink’.

Transsexual, a one-paragraph entry in the Appendix, is now a full-page essay. It mentions the therapies available, and that “most of them are deeply anchored in one, fairly distinct, sex identity”. He continues: “transsexual men and women are different from many other transgender people, some of whom may be more ‘gender fluid’, and concludes: “It seems to me that many, if not most, transsexuals have been crossdreamers, in the sense that they have had sexual fantasies about having sex as their target sex. There is simply no other way for them to fantasize about having sex. But note that not all crossdreamers are gender dysphoric. Moreover, not all gender dysphoric crossdreamers transition.”

Some of the new words are not Jack’s and thus are not marked with a *. This include Transgifted (proposed by Esther Pirelli); Quackaphilia – for the attraction to quack theories such as autogynephilia (proposed by Felix Conrad), Cistem – the social naturalness of non-transgender (proposed by Christine Marie Jentof).

Some of the new terms:

Ambiviolence – those who attack in others what they are afraid of in themselves.

Creative Crossdreaming - using artistic creativity to express and understand the crossdreamer self, and to engage in crossdreamer erotic fantasies.

Crossgrief – “a deep and intense feeling of grief and sorrow from that comes from the realization that your real life is in some way misaligned with your inner life”.

Dark Crossdreamers – “Dark crossdreamers are people who have managed to suppress their transgender side completely. They are not even aware of splitting (i.e. a mental compartmentalization of their other side). … The existence of dark crossdreamers makes it impossible to determine how large a proportion of the human population is actually crossdreamers (or transgender, for that matter).”

Hormony – “The feeling of peace, calm and harmony transgender people often feel after starting taking the hormones of their target sex. This applies to transsexuals, but also to other male to female and female to male crossdreamers who take such hormones in order to get relief from their dysphoria.” Jack does not mention that this usage is a reversal of the joke that Harry Benjamin made when he met Sigmund Freud in the 1930s.

Ideofluster - “words used to describe him or her cease to make sense. This can cause much confusion and uncertainty, and may lead to an identity crisis.”

Normailien - “they try to adapt to the gender identity and the gender roles their friends, families and colleagues expect of them”.

Splitter – “crossdreamers who split their minds in two, leaving one part for the inner sex and one for the outer.”

This is just a sample that I have selected.

There is narrative power in the Crossdreamer vision. It deconstructs the barrier between trans and cis, and perhaps unifies transsexual, transvestite, drag and dreamers more so than the word ‘trans’ does. It especially allows for the fact that we each dream of gender in our own way, and find different solutions. The transsexual path is not for all.


This book is short and an easy read. It will repay being visited more than once.