I appreciate your attempt to come up with better terminology. I don’t disagree that there are times when we need to be able to distinguish between people who have a gender which differs from their sex assigned at birth and more ordinary cis gendered people. However, as a fundamental matter, anytime we try to distinguish between classes of men and women, we are inherently othering the trans community. The goal should be for trans people to be viewed as part of the gender with which they identify and not a separate subclass.
When I originally embarked on my own process of transition, I immediately rejected the label “transition”. The term contains the implication that we are changing from one thing into another. To me, this seemed fundamentally incorrect. I was not changing into anything; I was evolving into a more mature and better form of the person I had always been in the same way that a tadpole becomes a frog, or a caterpillar a butterfly. I would remain the same creature internally, just look and operate differently with a feminine anatomy and functionality. I found this much more accurate in communicating an understanding of myself.
When I shared this with those around me, I received no pushback. People immediately understood what I was trying to say, and accepted me as the woman I actually was. I described myself as still under construction. That was another term I frequently used as a way of subduing any internal sense of imposter syndrome. I also found it was a concept that those around me could quickly grasp and accept.
I encourage you to keep mulling over better descriptions of the transgender community. At one time we were referred to as transsexuals. This has been softened over the years to transgender, but it still does not go far enough. I sense that you agree with this (which is the whole reason you wrote your article). To me, the whole problem is with the concept of “transitioning”, which is just a different way of saying changing from one thing into another. Fundamentally none of us are changing per se. We are still the people we have always been. We are just engaging in a process to be outwardly recognized as the people we truly are rather than a caricature of our true selves.
