transsexual

Etymology

It is formed from English trans- + sexual.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Dictionary.com and Etymonline note that the word arose with transsexualism,^[7][3] which Etymonline says the American physician Harry Benjamin coined in 1953;^[3] Barnhart finds it first in transsexuality (1941),^[4] which at first meant homosexuality or bisexuality.^[3] For its earliest sense the OED compares the earlier intersexual.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Existing or occurring between men and women, or suitable for both sexes: 1907, in the Medical Times of New York, a sense that has stayed rare.^[2] Etymonline dates this "unisex" sense to 1977.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The noun, a transsexual person, is recorded first, in 1949, in an article by D. O. Cauldwell in Sexology,^[2] and the adjective describing a person who was born with the physical characteristics of one sex and identifies with the other in 1956, in a contribution by Harry Benjamin to Cauldwell's Transvestism.^[2] The adjective in the sense "relating to transsexual people or to sex reassignment" followed in 1957,^[2] the date that Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give for the word.^[3][4][5] The noun later came to mean especially a person who has undergone, or is undergoing, sex reassignment.^[2][8]

Timeline

• 1907 – existing between men and women; suitable for both sexes (rare).^[2]
• 1949 – noun, a transsexual person.^[2]
• 1956 – adjective, of a person who identifies with the sex other than the one of birth.^[2]
• 1957 – relating to transsexual people or to sex reassignment.^[2][3][4][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity is opposite to the sex assigned at birth.^[5][8][2]
2. Relating to transsexual people or to sex reassignment.^[2][8]
3. (rare) Relating to or suitable for both sexes; unisex.^[2][3]

Noun

1. A transsexual person, especially one who has undergone medical and surgical procedures to change sexual characteristics.^[8][2]

Word family

• transsexualism

Related words

• transgender
• intersexual

Usage notes

Collins notes that the word was first used in medical contexts and is now considered outdated, and offensive, by many people, and labels the general sense of the noun old-fashioned;^[8] Wiktionary adds that transgender is now generally taken to include it and has largely replaced it.^[1] The spelling transexual is less common;^[5][8] the OED finds it only in the modern senses, not in the rare sense "suitable for both sexes".^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins