Sorry for the break – life being even more demanding than usual. Panel bios here – and onwards….
Question Twelve
I feel a little silly asking this but I’m wondering if trans* (with asterisk) is becoming the preferred term, or if there’s a specific framework for using it?
Natacha: “trans” with or without and asterisk seems to be the preferred term for most.
Naith: A lot more people are using it these days. I tend not to. It’s supposed to denote that “trans” is an inclusive and open category that encompasses all gender variant people – but I reckon trans on its own does that just fine. When I say trans, I mean all trans people.
Roz: Frankly, it’s a useful umbrella term which some people insist on and many of us forget about most of the time.
CN: I have to be honest from the start and say that I’m not a fan – it doesn’t translate to spoken language – and, grammatically, it does the opposite of what it purports to do. As far as I know (and please correct in the comments if wrong) it denotes a wildcard search term – so ‘trans’ followed by anything else – but ‘trans’ is already a prefix, so I don’t quite get it? In terms of usage, I’ve seen it mostly online, and particularly from people who have felt excluded from ‘trans’ by being ‘too different’ or ‘not trans enough’. Personally, insisting on a non-exclusionary use of ‘trans’ is really important for me (because I’m one of those aforementioned people), which is why I don’t use trans* (old post here, which I would probably write differently now). As a ballast to all that negativity, here’s a positive blog about its use.
Filed under: trans Tagged: Trans questions answered
