like obviously if you personally identify as transsexual specifically because you have undergone processes to change your sex or wish to do that that’s your prerogative and that’s fine. but holding that as the standard definition of transsexual, or frankly taking any word we have and crafting a meaning that is based on what people do instead of who people are, is not only very reductive but it excludes people that could otherwise find that word useful or empowering, and that’s exactly why people stopped using transsexual in favor of the identity-forward transgender.
i only recently found out people have been using the word transsexual like this because in the circles i’ve been in transsexual has seen a resurgence largely as a political statement directly in response to cis people’s misinterpretation of ‘gender and sex are different’ as, at worst, ‘gender and sex are different and gender isn’t real’ and at best ‘gender and sex are different and gender is a social construct but sex is binary and immutable’. gender and sex are terms that describe different things, both are social constructs, and neither are destiny. both can be transcended and transgressed in innumerable ways. which i think is a much more expansive and empowering interpretation than “you’re transsexual if you take HRT and get surgery and you’re transgender if you Feel it”.
also it feels incredibly irresponsible to draw this rigid line between transsexuality and transgenderism when fascist-sympathizing transmedicalists are also currently doing that exact thing to the detriment of the trans community. see: buck angel
