Across 40 years of trans alignment
Summary: the trans alignment system ("transfeminine", "transmasculine", "transneutral", and other such terms) changed the way it is used over time, responding to the trans community's shifts from transition focus onto identity focus. Differences in understanding create conflicts, where some try to apply these terms to others based on what they believe to be objective criteria. Inclusion of more perspectives makes it clear that these terms cannot be decided objectively and applied to people by outsiders.
41 year ago, in 1985, an essayist Jane Nance wrote the following words: "What am I? …How about 'transvestite'? Maybe 'transsexual'? Or perhaps 'transfeminine'?"
These words begin a short article titled "TRANSFEMININE!!!", and this is the earliest recording of this word known to us.
In this text, Nance talks about feeling out of place with the existing trans terminology, finding it too action-focused. Her internal sense of self is that of a woman, but she is mostly closeted and expresses her gender rarely. According to her words, "transvestite" means someone whose primary focus is crossdressing rather than internal feelings, "transsexual" means someone who has undergone surgeries, and "transgenderist" means someone who lives as a member of their desired gender socially. To resolve this label conflict for herself, she proposes "transfeminine", defining it as "a male who feels like a female, strictly undefined in relation to any issue of an operation".
21 year later, in 2006, a community organizer S. Leigh Thompson was involved in a discussion over the definition of the word "transmasculine", which had existed prior, but was not used widely or defined clearly. In the resulting text "What’s in a Word?: Crafting Transmasculine", he goes over some problems he faced as an organizer: uniting people with different genders and transition paths, giving them something tangible to go by when their identity or body changes. He believes "transmasculine" can be a solution to this problem and defines it as "any person who was assigned female at birth but feels that is an incomplete or incorrect description of their gender".
10 years later, in 2016, we can find the earliest recorded definition for "transneutral". It was published by a flag maker and collector under username Pride-Flags. Their definition says: "Transneutral is a term used to describe transgender people who were assigned male or female at birth, but identify with neutral gendered feelings to a greater extent than with femininity or masculinity. They usually are nonbinary but could be trans men or trans women."
10 years more, and we're in the present. These terms are at the center of definition and inclusion controversies. I do not hope to resolve the controversies right this instant, but I feel like looking at how these words evolved over time might help us understand where we're coming from and where we're going. If you look at them projected onto a time scale, there is a pattern.
Jane Nance wrote her essay in a time where being trans was understood as a much more physical act. She struggled against the limiting nature of this physicality and wanted words that would center her sense of self over her lifestyle. Unlike her, Thompson came from an era of growing identity prominence, and his writing was an attempt to restore the physicality, by referencing AGAB as a kind of an objective material fact. Pride-Flags centered identity again - but not due to fear of conflation with transition types, since transition does not even come up in their definition. They were simply more interested in exploring gender identities as feelings, a model more relevant to 2016 and to 2026 both. We are going from labels that must be externally observed and confirmed to labels that hold most relevance to us personally.
The definitions mutate, responding to a different era's needs, and clash. Does your trans alignment mean anything about your transition? Does being anything other than a cis woman as someone AFAB make you inherently masculine? Is your AGAB relevant at all? There are people who say that these terms inherently depend on your AGAB, and that being trans while assigned male inherently makes you transfeminine, and being trans while assigned female inherently makes you transmasculine. In contrast to that, others create concepts like "AGAB nonconformity" and identities like "Coffee Bean transmasc" and "AFAB transfem". Deconstruction of AGAB in the trans community happens with active participation of intersex people.
I think decrease of belief in objectivity of AGAB and transitions is both necessary and inevitable. Inclusion of nonbinary and intersex voices makes it clear how nuanced and messy both these things actually are in reality, how little the full scope of trans existence resembles a sliding scale between M and F. And how the gender binary itself is a product of an extremely flawed social system, and your experience with it will depend on much more than your assigned and claimed gender (but also factors like disability, race, immigrant status, and more).
Understanding these things, some of us choose to define being transfeminine, transmasculine, and transneutral as types of gender transgressions that have to do with femininity, masculinity, and neutrality respectively, without tying them to assigned genders, the gender binary, or specific types of transition. These definitions give the people themselves control over the narrative of their life and allow them to highlight what they actually experience.
But while some things change, others stay the same. 40 years ago one woman wanted a word that would suit her life, feeling like rigid definitions leave her no options. The entire modern discourse is still a reflection of that need.
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