Merriam-Webster just added "cisgender" and "genderqueer" to its dictionary - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;50171179]tranny, hermaphrodite, transsexual, etc being ones that have recently fallen out of use [/QUOTE] These are also terms generally chosen, applied, and used by those who are outside the lgbt community. there are obviously exceptions (which is a huge mess of identity politics I won't get into), but these are among terms that effort was put into to [I]throw away[/I]

[QUOTE=emly;50171208]These are also terms generally chosen, applied, and used by those who are outside the lgbt community. there are obviously exceptions (which is a huge mess of identity politics I won't get into), but these are among terms that effort was put into to [I]throw away[/I][/QUOTE] i'm pretty sure that all three were used in a nonoffensive/neutral way at some point in time by both the people who used them and the people it described certainly the case is now that they're obsolete [QUOTE=Duck M.;50171201]Huh, never knew that tranny wasn't derogative at one point. And has transsexual really fallen out of use? I suppose "trans" has superceded it somewhat.[/QUOTE] for the most part yeah people from my parents or grandparents generation casually use tranny as though it's a neutral term

there's effort to reclaim 'tranny' and while I don't disagree, they've got a lot of work ahead of them to reverse its image.

[QUOTE=emly;50171349]there's effort to reclaim 'tranny' and while I don't disagree, they've got a lot of work ahead of them to reverse its image.[/QUOTE] I've never heard anything about that. I'm trans and I'd rather see the word fuckin' buried. It's not like 'nigger' or 'faggot' where people use it for alternative purposes, like nobody is going "what's up my tranny" or anything like that.

It makes sense that they'd add the words, since they've started to pick up in use. [sp]genderqueer is still a little odd to me though[/sp]

[QUOTE=Maloof?;50170180]Even if Oxford does it it wouldn't be political activism lol Dictionaries have always been observationalist[/QUOTE] Dictionaries have not always been observationalist, but English has had the luck to avoid major revision attempts for the last few centuries. If you ever wonder why us Americans spell some words differently, like defense and color, it is because Noah Webster, one of the sources of the name Merriam-Webster, who was an English reformer who wanted to make the language more phonetic. He mostly failed but some of his changes have stuck. I wrote my comment for the reason I have seen people complain over dictionary changes in the past, from calling them pointless or part of the 'liberal agenda'. Not everyone knows of the neutral stance dictionaries take.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;50171179]tranny, hermaphrodite, transsexual, etc being ones that have recently fallen out of use right now i think because of the whole "nonbinary" gender thing it means that even stuff like "bisexual" might run into problems depending on how vague and specific these terms might increasingly become[/QUOTE] The difference between those terms that have fallen out of use and transgender and cisgender is that those were derogatory, or meant something different entirely, whereas trans and cis are entirely descriptive, despite certain connotations. Genderqueer is a weird one because I'm not sure what exactly it describes. It just seems vague. This may make me a bigot but I don't understand what genderqueer actually is. I understand if you're trans because that means you're either male, female or transitioning from one to the other, despite what your sex was at birth. I've only known one genderqueer person IRL, and even then not very much, but he preferred male pronouns and also dressed and looked like a man so I really don't understand. [quote]mainly because about fifty years ago it was very much the case. today lgbt stuff is a major political issue, but in another half century or so i doubt it will be a major political issue anymore so people won't really fight for it when the rollbacks happen because there'll be more important things to worry about (particularly in countries without a strong tradition of LGBT rights)[/quote] I have no idea what you mean when you say 'rollbacks'. If it's not a political issue in the future that will be because people are fighting for it. What you're saying sounds ominous, as though the LGBT community will have more important things to worry about in regards to being persecuted, but how will that happen if it's no longer a major issue??

Ah shit I'm out of the loop. Why is hermaphrodite bad? Also I don't think "transsexual" has fallen out of use with the general population. Tranny, yeah.

[QUOTE=Menien Goneld;50173203]The difference between those terms that have fallen out of use and transgender and cisgender is that those were derogatory, or meant something different entirely, whereas trans and cis are entirely descriptive, despite certain connotations.[/quote] Transsexual is definitely descriptive, since it was invented to describe a certain group of people and for a while has served that purpose admirably. Only recently have some people started viewing it as derogatory and so it's slowly passing out of use. Tranny is definitely derogatory, while hermaphrodite is an even more archaic term which [quote]Genderqueer is a weird one because I'm not sure what exactly it describes. It just seems vague. This may make me a bigot but I don't understand what genderqueer actually is. I understand if you're trans because that means you're either male, female or transitioning from one to the other, despite what your sex was at birth. I've only known one genderqueer person IRL, and even then not very much, but he preferred male pronouns and also dressed and looked like a man so I really don't understand.[/quote] tbh its just an recent coinage which I feel does a rather useless job at categorization because its pretty vague and existing terms already seem to do the job well [QUOTE=BelatedGamer;50173251]Ah shit I'm out of the loop. Why is hermaphrodite bad? Also I don't think "transsexual" has fallen out of use with the general population. Tranny, yeah.[/QUOTE] hermaphrodite is probably because its really archaic. I guess it would be like calling a gay guy a sodomite, even if it was true transsexual is starting to fall out of favour because certain driven academics have successfully colonized the parts of the medical profession dealing with it, hence forcing them to change perfectly valid medical terms

[QUOTE=BelatedGamer;50173251]Ah shit I'm out of the loop. Why is hermaphrodite bad? Also I don't think "transsexual" has fallen out of use with the general population. Tranny, yeah.[/QUOTE] What? Hermaphrodite isn't bad. If someone thinks hermaphrodite is an offensive word, then they don't even know what hermaphrodite means. [editline]21st April 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Sobotnik;50173372]Transsexual is definitely descriptive, since it was invented to describe a certain group of people and for a while has served that purpose admirably. Only recently have some people started viewing it as derogatory and so it's slowly passing out of use. Tranny is definitely derogatory, while hermaphrodite is an even more archaic term which tbh its just an recent coinage which I feel does a rather useless job at categorization because its pretty vague and existing terms already seem to do the job well hermaphrodite is probably because its really archaic. I guess it would be like calling a gay guy a sodomite, even if it was true transsexual is starting to fall out of favour because certain driven academics have successfully colonized the parts of the medical profession dealing with it, hence forcing them to change perfectly valid medical terms[/QUOTE] Yeah, you definitely don't know what hermaphrodite means. Also gotta love all the gunjumpers in this thread coming in all "woah now, nobody get the bright idea this is political or anything". I think everyone with common sense can deduce that. People bringing up PC argument bullshit are just as annoying on both sides of the spectrum.

I always understood hermaphrodite to mean somebody who had been born with both or a mixture of both sex organs - not really the same as being trans. That's why I said some of those terms denote something different entirely.

[QUOTE=Menien Goneld;50173605]I always understood hermaphrodite to mean somebody who had been born with both or a mixture of both sex organs - not really the same as being trans. That's why I said some of those terms denote something different entirely.[/QUOTE] Yeah, it's any organism that is born with both female and male reproductive organs.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;50170060]Before anyone comes in to feel that they're offended or their conservative manhood is at stake for the term cisgender: It literally is the opposite of transgender. As in, one's biological sex is in order with their gender identity and there are no problems stemming from it. It comes from the Latin "cis", or "this side of". "Trans" is "the other side of". Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul, etc. so on.[/QUOTE] Yeah and nigger was just a term for black people until it was used in a derogatory manner. You can't use etymology to justify whether words are offensive or not. It doesn't work. Calling someone a' fanny' is less offensive than calling someone a 'cunt', yet 'fanny' is slang for 'vagina' and 'cunt' just derives from the germanic for 'hole', so why isn't 'fanny' more offensive? You need to take into account the context that a word is used in to determine whether it is offensive. SJWs often use the term cisgender/cis in a derogatory manner, so I would understand perfectly why people were offended by it. The word is being used as an insult to expect people to take it as one.

[QUOTE=Britain;50173626]Yeah and nigger was just a term for black people until it was used in a derogatory manner. You can't use etymology to justify whether words are offensive or not. It doesn't work. Calling someone a' fanny' is less offensive than calling someone a 'cunt', yet 'fanny' is slang for 'vagina' and 'cunt' just derives from the germanic for 'hole', so why isn't 'fanny' more offensive? You need to take into account the context that a word is used in to determine whether it is offensive. SJWs often use the term cisgender/cis in a derogatory manner, so I would understand perfectly why people were offended by it. The word is being used as an insult to expect people to take it as one.[/QUOTE] That's because it was used almost exclusively as a derogatory term, cisgender on the other hand is used in academia and is only ever used as an insult by weird fringe groups.

[QUOTE=BelatedGamer;50173251]Ah shit I'm out of the loop. Why is hermaphrodite bad? Also I don't think "transsexual" has fallen out of use with the general population. Tranny, yeah.[/QUOTE] Hermaphrodite is bad because it's meaning is an organism with both reproductive organs, the reason why it has fallen out of favour is because it's scientifically inaccurate to call intersex people hermaphrodite because there has never been a case where an intersex person has had both fully developed reproductive organs. [QUOTE]A hermaphrodite is a plant or animal that has both male and female reproductive organs. Until the mid-20th century, "hermaphrodite" was used synonymously with "intersex".[27] Currently, however, hermaphroditism is not to be confused with intersex, as the former refers only to a specific phenotypical presentation of sex organs and the latter to more complex combination of phenotypical and genotypical presentation. Using "hermaphrodite" to refer to intersex individuals can be stigmatizing and misleading.[92] In reality, hermaphrodite is used for animal and vegetal species in which the possession of both ovaries and testes is either serial or concurrent, and for living organisms without such gonads but present binary form of reproduction, which is part of the typical life history of those species; intersex has come to be used when this is not the case.[/QUOTE] From [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#Hermaphrodite"]Wikipedia[/url]

Is it even possible for their to be a human Hermaphrodite?

[QUOTE=thisguy123;50170868]Ok, literally asking for an utterly harmless request for more information but please enlighten me on the term 'genderqueer' because from what I have heard among my social circles is that it means you identify as the opposite gender to what you were born. If that is the case isn't it already covered under the term LGTB and thus the Q is somewhat superfluous? I honestly ask because I've never gotten a straight answer.[/QUOTE] Genderqueer, as best as I can tell, is pretty much a synonym for nonbinary. I think usually it's used more specifically for people who aren't sure what their gender is, but it isn't one of the binary ones. That said, I only have a very vague grasp on the concept of there being more than two genders, so don't send this post to Merriam-Webster.