Why has the medical conditions of IS and TS become linked to transgender which was coined by a transvestite.?

I find it disturbing that whenever the question of an intersex or post-op transsexual comes up it seems they are thrown under the transgender umbrella which has no medical connection with either condition. Transgender is a social construct with no attachment to a biological condition. Could well be a transvestite and/or a sexual variant and that is not what a TS or IS should be assumed to be linked with. More info at the following: http://www.harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.or...

Why has the medical conditions of IS and TS become linked to transgender which was coined by a transvestite.?
One of my favorite experiences in listening to a speaker was when the speaker (who is trans) talked about his experiences with learning how to do this kind of public speaking. He laughed at how they even had hand gestures that they were supposed to use.





To paraphrase: Transgender is an umbrella term (make curve with hands signifying umbrella). Underneath that umbrella is a whole much of other terms (makes wiggly motion with fingers underneath the imaginary umbrella you just drew).





Wikipedia has a nice short list of some of the terms that can fall under this umbrella:





"Transgender identity includes many overlapping sub-categories. These include transsexual; cross-dresser; transvestite; consciously androgynous people; genderqueer; people who live cross-gender; drag kings; and drag queens. Usually not included, because in most cases it involves a paraphilia and is not a specific gender issue, are transvestic fetishists."





So, as you can see, even though the term transgender covers a wide variety of concepts involving gender, it does include people whose gender issues are based on biology. Transgender IS a word with a social basis. That doesn't exclude medical conditions from the term, though.





There are many intersexed people who like falling under this term because they consider themselves androgynous. They don't have to pick a body part anymore because the medical community is finally realizing that they don't have to try to assign gender at birth by measuring the length of the clit/phallus.





Transexuals are transgender, but not all transgender people are transexual. In Southern Comfort, the man that the documentary follows kept all his female parts, yet was most definitely a man. He was transgender. As for transexuals, although transexual is a term usually reserved for someone who has gone through gender reassignment surgery, the surgery doesn't negate the person's experience before transition where they lived in a body that did not match their true gender. That experience, and the experience of learning the intricacies of having a gender expression that finally matches what they are, is uniquely different from a person who has had the correct body their entire life. For this reason many transexuals still choose to be a part of the transgender umbrella.





Now, the great thing about any of the terms associated with the queer community is that you can only be self-labeled. So if a transexual feels that after surgery they don't fall under the umbrella of transgender that's perfectly fine. It's their decision to make. Same with intersexed people. If they feel that no matter what is between their legs they are a specific gender and they don't want to be labeled as transgender they don't have to.





But it is not your decision to make for all intersexed and transexual people, and many intersexed an transexual people have no problem with it.