Thanks so much for sharing this essay with us, Takoda. You know, as an editor of an LGBTQ publication, I have to think about terminology sometimes, if for nothing other than editorial consistency. I tread really lightly, because as a cis gay man it’s not my business to decide labels for trans people.

But sometimes I’ll ask a writer, “Do you really want to call yourself a “transman" (or transwoman) as if you were some distinct and different sort of human?

Obviously, sometimes it’s necessary to use the word transgender in order to communicate clearly, but sometimes I wonder about the impact of creating separate categories of human beings just based on how we use the language.