i stopped saying transmen and transwomyn for the aforementioned reasons. however, i feel like using trans-man and trans-womyn is not the same. the reason i say this is for grammar. i use trans-womyn in place of “transgender womyn” as it is an abbreviation. “trans” is not a word on its own. obviously when using the whole word, i’m not going to say transgender-womyn as that is ridiculous and inaccurate. the entire reason for hyphenating the words in the first place is to make the distinction that the trans portion is not necessary, if you will, in the way it’s currently being used. transman gives no opportunity to be detached, whereas, trans-man does, since the hyphen creates a physical and psychological separation. the reality is that whether one uses a hyphen or space the distinction between someone being a person versus a trans-person is still made for the “trans” portion is there regardless. in the same way that a black womyn is not only a womyn, a trans-womyn is still, when this language is being used, trans first and a womyn second. this is not to say that trans-persons are not the same as cis-persons, but when making the point to place a linguistic difference between the two (eg “trans,” “black,” “lesbian,” “disabled,” “fat,” etc etc versus putting nothing there at all and, therefore, implying that persons not requiring modifiers are normal), that difference is still there. there is no problem with being trans, obviously, but there is a problem with pretending that a hyphen separates the trans-community from the cis-community when it the fact that the words cisgender and transgender exist and make that distinction on a psychological level by their existence alone.

Reblogging because I’m not sure whether or not I agree, so you can make up your own mind.