Are you a trans woman? (Or otherwise gender queer or trans feminine?) Then you might be interested in supporting our colleague Zinnia’s petition (if you agree with her), to have your voice counted. See her Open Letter: 100+ Trans Women Stand Against Calpernia Addams and Andrea James. Her analysis is sharp and thorough.
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Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, and the origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He is also a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and historical methods.
I’m glad to see you boosting the signal for this!
(One small quibble: “transgender” is not a verb, it’s an adjective, so “transgendered” is not appropriate, “transgender” is.)
It’s worth noting that.
I keep getting mixed information on it, and it’s actually not clear. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language disagrees with you. Miriam Webster also recognizes the variant. Given that “gendered” is the adjective of the noun “gender,” grammatically one might say (or assume) it should be “transgendered,” if we place the rules of grammar above linguistic convention, but convention is really the final authority, especially as even the grammar is unclear (e.g. “misgendered” is an actual verb, and a participle, but “transgendered” isn’t employed in the same way, so the analogy is imperfect).
So what to do. I think this article is worth heeding, and we should just defy English grammar and treat “transgender” as an adjective (even though “gender” is not an adjective), as long as that’s how people so-identifying are using it.
Hence, fixed.
I’m on the trans spectrum, for what it’s worth, and don’t know any trans people who are okay with it as a verb, so I sort of feel like that trumps dictionaries?
“Misgendered” refers to how people are gendering (that is, assigning a gender to) someone. Being transgender is a descriptor of oneself, and though some of those sort of terms (red-haired, left-handed) can comfortably be -ed, “transgendered” makes it sound like a thing one did, as opposed to a constant state.
In short, thanks.
Yes, I agree.
I also like your analysis of the difference in usage and meaning. That articulates much more saliently what I felt was going on when I mentioned the analogy there wasn’t exact enough.