[box]”… Virginia Prince, a male crossdresser… Calling himself “transgender” rather than a “crossdresser” or a “transvestite” was an attempt to remove himself and other similar “transgenders” from the negative cultural baggage and the concurrent approbation that is linked to male crossdressing.” [link]
“In either regard, transgender dogma that states that all transsexuals are also transgender, is a form of colonization in the same way as when termites invade a house, the purpose is not to live as one with the house, but to devour the house.” [link]
“First the Transgender Borg erased transsexuals by colonizing us under the transgender umbrella… Its colonization of transsexual came about as straight middle-age male people who had been part of the heterosexual transvestite community came to realize they were actually transsexual. They may have transitioned but they brought the ideology of the heterosexual transvestite community with them complete with the homophobia and misogyny.” [link] [/box]
Many assertions have been made by over the last few year concerning the supposed “colonization” of transsexualism by transgenderism. As noted in the above quotes, it is asserted as fact that the transsexual identity has been taken over and obliterated. Terms such as “colonization” and “TG Borg” have become buzz words associated with some transsexuals who assert that their identity has been taken from them in some form or fashion.
Unfortunately, these assertions are generally made with little in the way of object of objective evidence. They are just asserted as fact statements and as such, these authors tend to expect readers to simply accept this assertion on faith alone. This post attempts to objectively measure two aspects of the colonization claim: 1.) the supposed disappearance of “transsexual” and 2.) if “transsexual” is still used, in what context. If colonization is a fact, then either the use of “transsexual” has been obliterated or its use has come to mean something other than what it has traditionally meant.
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The Data, Part 1
Consider the following dataset:
This is a comparison of the following 5 terms:
- Transgender People (light blue)
- Transsexual People (red)
- Transgenders (green)
- Transsexuals (yellow)
- Transgender Community (dark blue)
This is a graph of how many times the above terms were used in 20,090,715 books from the year 1970 through the end of 2007. Data from the last 2 years is not yet available.
Lets take a closer look at this data. Here’s the same metric presented for the years 1990 – 2008:
Is this what “colonization” looks like?
– click graph to enlarge –
This is a comparison of the following 2 terms:
- Transgenders (blue)
- Transsexuals (red)
This is a comparison of the following 2 terms:
- Transgender People (blue)
- Transsexuals (red)
A Note About Valid Data
I’m looking at terms used for grouping people together into a community*. In other words, it would not be an apples-to-apples example if I used the following:
In this graph, we have two terms used to explore the very specific idea of groups (‘transsexual people’ and ‘transsexual community’) and a term that can be used in a multitude of ways: transsexual (transsexual books, transsexual makeup tips, etc). Obviously comparing a dataset that includes concepts like ‘transsexual books’ cannot be considered as being a valid comparison to datasets that explicitly looks at transsexuals as groups.
Similarly, this is not a valid comparison:
It would be dishonest to claim that this graph proves that ‘transsexual people’ (red) have been colonized by the term ‘transgender’ (blue). Exactly like the first dataset that compares ‘transsexual people’, ‘transsexual community’, and the general term ‘transsexual’, the above dataset does the same thing: compares 2 explicit concepts (transsexual people, transsexual community) against one term that can be used in a multitude of ways: transgender (transgender books, transgender makeup tips, etc).
Likewise comparing ‘transgender’ and ‘transsexual’ to make the case for colonization is similarly dishonest:
The above is a comparison between a term that refers to one specific type of trans person or experience and a term that refers to all types of trans people or experiences. If anything, this shows that there was almost NO change (there was, in fact, a small net increase) in the amount of times the term ‘transsexual’ was used in the year 1990 as compared to the year 2008.
A Word About Logic
Also, late transitioning transgender males and white heterosexual cross dressing males are not the only ones who have the right to vote on issues pertaining to transsexual, transgender and intersex (TTI) equality, however, they have colonized the transsexual community. The results of this colonization has been devastating to the progress of transsexual (TS) and intersex (IS) Americans. Look at the history, and the law books- it’s all there. Ever since cross dressing men and transvestites co-opted the transsexual movement, TS folks have actually LOST already pre-existing rights.
There are several claims made in the above statement:
-
Non-transsexuals have colonized transsexuals.
-
The result of this was devastating.
-
The historical record proves the above two claims.
-
Transsexuals had more rights before there was a transgender community.
Is any historical record actually given to support these claims? Love asserts as fact, “Look at the history, and the law books – it’s all there.” Did she cite any source?
Reviewing 20 million books to see if there has been a colonization by the transgender community isn’t absolute proof that ‘there is no baseball‘ because, as Bertrand Russell’s teapot points out, no amount of evidence can absolutely disprove assertions of fact which are made without evidence. One can only test evidence and when the colonization argument is made without evidence, there’s no way to test the foundation (logic) of the argument since it presented without foundation.
The Data, Part 2
The following looks at internet search and news reference volumes over the past 7 years or so:
This is a comparison of the same 2 terms we looked at in The Data, Part 1:
- Transgenders (blue)
- Transsexuals (red)
The above is a comparison of the same 5 terms we looked at in The Data, Part 1:
- Transgender People (light blue)
- Transsexual People (red)
- Transgenders (orange)
- Transsexuals (green)
- Transgender Community (purple)
If anything, this review of how people look for groupings of trans people shows that news stories and searches for ‘transsexuals’ (only one type of trans person) far exceeds parity. In other words, transsexuals are but one constituent grouping found within the transgender community (according to the English language). However, transsexuals beat out the transgender community in terms of both search and news reference volume a number of times.
If there was really a colonization going on, one would expect that ‘transsexuals’ and ‘transsexual people’ would have been completely obliterated in search volume and news reference. However, one finds that for google the…
‘Transgender Community’ does not have enough search volume for ranking.
This is what you also find:
The top searches from the top subregions of the United States:
The top searches from the top cities:
The green bar represents search volume for “transsexuals” in the top 10 regions. What looks like dots next to the green bar represents search volume for:
- Transgender People (light blue)
- Transsexual People (red)
- Transgenders (orange)
- Transgender Community (purple)
– English Searches, Worldwide –
– English Searches, USA Only –
Orange represents ‘transgenders’ and the light blue represents ‘transgender people’. The green bar represents search volume for ‘transsexuals’.
*Community: I use this term in a manner consistent with the current English langue to mean:
Research tools I used for this post: Google Trends | Google Book Ngram Viewer
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