untaggedslur:

xenofemme:

I made a post about remembering those who *only* identify as trans: not trans men, trans women, transfem or masc, nb, genderqueer, aligned or unaligned—just trans. And I was thinking last night about how I really liked that concept…not a gender, per se, just an identity defined by transness. Like how people say, “I would always be trans, even if I were assigned a different gender at birth.” I really liked that idea, so I came up with the following concept: Transemphatic.

Transemphatic is an word that refers to those who emphasize transness as a very important part, or the most important part, of their identity. It has ties to concepts such as trans radicalism, anti-assimilationist queerness, and trenderpunk. It can be someone’s only identity, as in, I’m trans and nothing else, or it could be combined with another label, like, I’m a transemphatic woman, a transemphatic man, a transemphatic xeumel*, etc.

In the case of being combined with being a trans man or woman, it could be understood as the person wanting to emphasize their transness, not their (wo)manhood. Someone who isn’t transemphatic might say, “I’m a man,” rather than, “I’m a trans man,” while a transemphatic person would put the focus on the trans part of themself, not the man part.

The concept or state of transemphasis can be a visible one, shown through clothing, pronouns, names, presentation, etc, or a private one, in the way that many labels are private. For an example of a way one personally may show one’s transemphasis, take using neopronouns or emoji/symbol pronouns. The pronouns ⚧️/⚧️s might be used by a transemphatic person, because by using them, one is visibly emphasizing one’s transness in an inescapable way. However, this is just one example, and the concept of transemphasis is a very flexible and personal one, that each person who takes upon the label can and will interpret and contextualize in a different way.

This is a concept I put a name to, but it may already exist in different forms without my knowledge. Anyone can use the term, I’ve never been a fan of making up your mind for you. 

*xeumel (n): a nonbinary person.

Unsurprisingly I had more thoughts about this.

• It should be noted that being transemphatic does not mean you’re “defining yourself around what you aren’t rather than what you are.” By which I mean: saying you are transemphatic does not mean you’re just saying “I was assigned [x] at birth but I’m not [x].” While that could be a possible usage or explanation of the identity to certain people, that is not how transemphasis was originally created. The concept of  transemphasis is a positive one, and transemphasis is based on embracing transness as a concept and state of being. 
• Therefore, one who has very little involvement or understanding with their trans community may not feel as drawn or connected to the identity. This is neither a positive nor negative statement, nor is it a judgement. 
• You don’t have to do anything to be transemphatic, you just need to connect with the concept to some degree
• Transemphatic doesn’t take the place of other labels. Saying you are transemphatic does not mean giving up labels like “man,” “nonbinary,” “genderfaer,” etc. It just means that transness is a very important part of your queer identity, or the most important part, like I said above.