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Comment by vezzy-fnord | Hacker News Reader

Sincere question: Why would a transgendered person specifically want to identify as a "trans ___" as demonstrated in the screenshot? Wouldn't they simply want to identify as their preferred gender (male, female, neutral, etc.)?

I'd understand the importance of explicitly using trans as a distinction when, for example, speaking to a medical professional or discussing a social issue, but on a public profile?

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Well, for some, trans* is their preferred gender. That is, the experience of transition forms part of their identity.

Compare, say, people who self-identify as "German-American" instead of simply "American".

With respect, I think the disconnect for you is that you're trying to generalize across a rather diverse group. There's nothing inherent to the definition of not-gender-binary that suggests "and prefers not to identify publicly" in principle.

If you imagine that gender's not a binary, then you could imagine how "trans$foo" is itself a gender. From there, some people prefer to keep it a secret. Some people prefer to make it public. A lot of times it's a matter of personal safety or privacy, but some people prefer to make their presence known.

Consider it as the cousin to coming out as gay if you like. If more folks realize that they know LGBTQ folks, eventually it's no big deal. This is well underway for LGB but not TQ.

I can guess at several reasons, but hopefully somebody with more direct knowledge can answer. However, I have definitely talked with people who identify as, e.g., a transman, and you can see people identifying publicly that way:

http://transguys.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/mr-transman-2013_n_...

Living in San Francisco, I've met many people who just don't feel particularly obliged to fit into the classic gender binary.

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