Q. I’ve heard many of my friends call trans people “tranny” or “trannies”.  Even many of my gay friends use the term, how do you feel about it?

A. I have many friends who use the word “tranny” to refer to transgender people.  I have used it in the past as well.  The problem is in that if you do a web search for “tranny” you will come up with a hand full of definitions from slang dictionaries, a few World Wide Hip Hop videos and a bucket full of porn sites.  The inference is that “trannies” are prostitutes, slags, freaks or worse.  Through out my transition I have become more and more uncomfortable with the use of that word.  We are just women or men.  We are not fetishy sex objects that are here to service your every carnal lust as the word implies. This is our reality.  We live in a world that is hostile to us because it is confused.  There’s no need to be confused about trans people.  Some of us wish to be sex workers and if that is their choice than I support that but others of us resort to sex work because there seems to be no option.  If you refer to anyone who was assigned the gender opposite of what they present call them by the pronouns that correspond to the way they dress [also see “How do I deal with pronoun slip ups?“].  If you have to refer to them as anything else then refer to them as transgender or simply trans.  I also implore my gay friends to help limit the use of the word in the community as it may proliferate as false stereotype and image of who we are.