Trans language for the future

Things I hope will disappear from trans language soon:

– ‘AFAB/AMAB’ (I mean seriously, it is not a good tool to understand non-binary experiences and publicly declaring what gender a trans person was assigned at birth without their consent is violence.)

– ‘Deadname’ (We do not die in transition. We do not kill our past selves. We are not a different person. Let’s stop reproducing the narrative of shitty parents who ‘mourn’ their transitioned children. We can find a better word for this. )

– Using the word ‘genderdysphoria’ in a way that erases how much of it is caused by lack of access to transition, by transphobic people and by a transphobic society, which are feelings society creates in us. (We may at some point want an entire new word to describe the pain transphobia causes)

There’s a lot more I’d like to see disappear from trans-activism (racism, neocolonialism, truscum, respectability politics, etc etc) but if we’re just talking language, these are some things I hope we can get rid of.

And I hope we can get rid of them with kindness, in a way that acknowledges that people who grow older will often continue to use old language because that was what their community used when they found a home there and as such those words feel like home.

Just like we need space for trans elders who continue to say ‘transsexual’ and ‘sex change’ and ‘MtF/FtM’ after these words fell out of use, we need space for the trans elders of the future to use the language they grew into.