Transsexual Versus Transgender

Introduction

Sex and gender are two distinct things. Sex is determined at birth by healthcare professionals. While gender could be ambient and changing over time. Sex is all about physical characteristics. In contrast, gender emphasizes roles, identities, behavior, and expressions. Many factors are taken into consideration for sex and gender. Sex and gender are influenced primarily by biological and cultural means. The biological sex includes the anatomy of the individual. Also, gender is implanted to a greater extent in the environment and cultures. Certain cultural beliefs possess unique customs and standards for males to be females.

Therefore, gender and sex are influenced by other determinants rather than biological anatomy. Generally, transgender refers to individuals identified differently from their biological sex (during birth). In contrast, transsexual refers to someone who transforms or transits physically from one sex to another. Transgender is the commonly used term, whereas transsexual is quite contentious.

What Is the Term Transgender?

Transgender, often abbreviated as trans, refers to a person whose gender identity (personal view or sense of own gender) does not correspond to the sex assigned during birth. Here, the individuals have the ideology that the sex the doctor assigns during birth does not completely and rightly contemplate their sense or inner experience of gender.

Transgender is an umbrella term that includes trans men, trans women, and non-binary (not solely female or male). In addition, transgender refers to people belonging to the third gender or conceptualizing the transgender as the third gender. This term broadly includes cross-dressers, whereas cross-dressing is an effort to wear clothes associated with the opposite gender.

Characteristics and Examples of Transgender:

• The person who is biologically male considers that the female identity is a good one.

• Uses a male name as an alternative to a female one.

• Dressing up like a man in the case of females and like a woman in the case of males.

• Using male pronouns rather than appropriate pronouns.

• Performing activities that naturally correspond to the other sex in the society and culture.

What Is the Meaning of Transexual?

Transsexual refers to people who experience gender identity or gender expression that is volatile to their biological sex, followed by an inevitable desire to permanently transition to the desired sex or gender, generally with the help of medical healthcare professionals or assistance. The sex reassignment interventions for transsexual individuals to align the body parts with their desired sex or gender include harmony replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery.

The interventions for transsexuals include the following aspects.

• Hormone therapy for suppression of the characteristic profiles associated with the biological sex in conjugation with enhancing the characteristics of the desired one.

• Transsexuals can manage facial hair and breast development through medical procedures but to a certain extent.

• Gender reassignment surgery is a surgical procedure done to remove the anatomical features or parts of the biological sex, followed by the replacement or addition of the characteristic features of the desired sex.

As transgender is an umbrella term, transsexual falls into the category of transgender. Like the term transgender, the description of the transsexual term varies from individual to individual and from place to place. Transgender is an umbrella term and should not be used for mentioning the whole transgender community. Nevertheless, The transsexual term is historically and medically used to describe the difference between gender identity and the sex declared at birth.

What Is the Difference Between Transgender and Transexual?

Transsexual sorts with the transgender term. Both terms cannot be used transversely to indicate each other. Certain transgender people take the term transsexual quite stigmatizing and awful, having negative affirmations. This is due to the contentious history of transsexuality in psychology and medicine. Those fields used the term to name transgender people as mentally ill and sexually unrepresentative.

Transgender and transsexual are two different names; their significant difference is how it is used and welcomed. The differences between transgender and transsexual in various aspects are discussed below.

• Description: Transgender is an umbrella term referring to the people with gender identities that cross over or oppose the socially built borders about the genders. In contrast, transsexual refers to individuals who disagree with the sex assigned at birth and wish to realign the gender using medical interventions.

• Surgery: Certain individuals with transgender characteristics opt for surgical intervention to realign their wishes gender, while some do not wish to go for surgery. At the same time, surgery is typically or often done in transsexual cases, though it depends on the individual wish.

• Medical Condition: Gender dysphoria, an uneasy feeling a person has due to a mismatch between the gender identity and the biological sex is common among transgender people. While transsexual individuals say that the core of the problem and its associated symptoms are generally physical and mental. So, in transsexuality, the medical and surgical intervention is to align one’s sex to help with dysphoric feelings.

• Other conditions: Transgender people have a lack of societal conception as a result of gender dysphoria. For example, they consider medical-based transition treatments cosmetic. The other conditions of transgender people include anxiety, depression, panic, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts. Transsexual people also encounter anxiety, depression, panic attacks, substance abuse, and distorted thoughts due to societal pressure and obligations.

• Sexual Orientation: Like cisgender, transgender people could be straight, lesbian, asexual, bisexual, gay, or pansexual. This kind of sexual orientation applies to transsexuals also.

Conclusion

Transgender and transsexual are two distinct terms referring to individuals who possess a different gender identity than the sex affirmation given by a doctor during birth. Generally, transgender is an umbrella term that refers to all individuals who feel a distinct gender identity from the ascribed one.

But, transsexual is a kind of transgender, and the add-on part is that transsexual people could go for permanent medical procedures to realign their desired gender. Transgender people are more likely to encounter gender dysphoria than transsexuals. But transgender is the term that is commonly used, and transexual is quite outdated and offensive. Subsequently, the peoples of transgender and transsexuality prefer to be called by their affiliated communities and not interchangeably.