‘Transvestite/Transsexual (TV/TS) Community’ includes everyone who identifies with any of the following words: ‘transvestite’, ‘cross-dresser’, ‘transgender’, ‘transsexual’, ‘drag queen’, ‘femiphile’, or ‘androgyne’. It is an identifiable group of people within society as a whole.
Because of the great amounts of heartburn some people have with the word ‘transvestite’, there is a movement afoot to replace ‘TV/TS’ with ‘CD/TS/AN’. Even though ‘CD/TS/AN’ applies to exactly the same group as ‘TV/TS’, a number of semantics zealots seem to think some great problem will be solves. Who knows – if enough people figure out what ‘CD’ and ‘AN’ mean, they may be right. Of course, if ‘CD’ means the act of cross-dressing and includes anyone who cross-dresses for whatever reasons, then ‘TS’ and ‘AN’ would be redundant. Then again, if ‘CD’ alone is unacceptable, and ‘CD/TS/AN’ is better that ‘TV/TS’, wouldn’t ‘TV/CD/TG/TS/QD/FP/AN’ be better still? Personally, I think ‘TV/TS Community’ is sufficient.
The revolt against the word ‘transvestite’ has increased the popularity of the word ‘paraculture’. ‘Para-‘ mean ‘beside’, or ‘along side of’, implying that ‘paraculture’ is another culture, parallel to or along side of culture – a culture within a culture.
Most people who use this word ‘paraculture’, use it to replace ‘TV/TS Community’. Other people use it to describe not only the TV/TS Community, but the TV/TS Community as it spills out into society as a whole, engulfing helping professionals directly affected by the Community.
(****Footnote: I believe the word ‘paraculture’ creates more problems that it solves. Very few people know what the word is intended to mean, or how to use it. Most listeners will simply take the word out of context and make up their own definitions. The word is inevitably misunderstood or in need of additional explanation. Some people, myself included, find the word pompous, offensive and unnecessary.)
– The TV/TS Tapestry, 1984
