My Tranny Friend.....

Transgenderism: Bibliography | Issues | Peace Plan | Tranny | 

…in Australia the word tranny is not a slur but is used as an umbrella term encompassing drag queens as well as post and pre-op transsexuals (Gregoire 2014) 

[Identifying the word tranny as a derogatory term or slur "... steals a joyous and hard-won identity from those of us who are and have been perfectly comfortable, if not delighted to be trannies." (Justin Vivian Bond in Lowder 2014)

Contents

1. Hate speech?
2. Why?
3. The case against
4. Origins 
5. References

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1. Hate speech?

A fair dinkum fiction .....

"You can't say that! It's hate speech!!!"

What the hell was she talking about?

I had attended a pub gig the previous night, where three bands were performing. The first was an all-female rock band; the second consisted of a male and a female performance duo from Japan; and the third - the main attraction - was a well-known punk band playing their final gig, after a decade on the road around eastern Australian venues.

I saw her the next day at the conference. She was in her late twenties and according to the name plates we were seated next to each other. I mentioned the gig at a nearby hotel.

"What was it like?" she asked.

"I only saw part of the first act. It was three girls and a tranny," I explained in a purely matter-of-fact manner, with no other consideration of the information I was providing.

"What? You can't say that."

"Say what?" I responded in surprise.

"Tranny. It a derogatory term."

"No it's not," I responded equivocally.

"Yes it is. You're a transphobe."

"No I don't," I said, as we now both got rather agitated.

"You obviously hate transgender people," she spat out with a venom, and turned away dismissively.

So much for any further idle chit chat.

I could not understand the reaction to the use of the word tranny. The writer was now in his late sixties, raised during the Sixties and Seventies. During that move from teen to adult he had occasionally encountered transvestites, transsexuals and "drag queens" and knew about those people who liked to cross-dress or present as the opposite sex. In addition, many Australians who liked to abbreviate terms for general speech, and at the time the word tranny was one of those - a simple, generic term referring to transvestites or those others with forms of the behaviour where original sex is rejected or ignored to varying degrees and one presents as the other. 

As a child of the Sixties was raised to accept all sorts of people and races, because it was not cool to do otherwise during a period which was very much a decade of cool, even for a young man who was moving through primary school, into high school and then work and university.He clearly remembered that Tranny was both generic and a term of endearment. It was very common in Australia, from the early Sixties through into the new millennium. It was not a derogatory term at all - at least, not as far as this writer was aware - though it could be used by those who were homophobic or simply hateful, as could any such term. If so, it would need to be uttered along with a variety of words which clearly indicated the negative thoughts that person was attempting to express, such as: "That awful, disgraceful tranny. I hate them." As far as this writer was concerned, it was not, by its nature, singularly derogatory, and he had never heard any person use the word in that manner. Also, he did not foresee using it that way in his remaining years.

So it was with a degree of bemusement that the writer sat there and listened to the charge of uttering hate speech. Needless to say, an argument ensued in which the writer rejected the accusation out of hand, not only in regard to the implied behaviour, but also because he truly believed tranny to simply be an innocent word commonly used during throughout his lifetime. He saw no reason to change this view, despite what he was now being told.

"You cannot say that!" she repeated, getting quite upset at the writer's defence if the word.

And so that argument went on for a minute or two more, until both realised any discussion would prove fruitless. As the next break in the conference agenda approached, she turned to him as she got up out of her chair and, with real emotive force, uttered in almost a whisper: "I hate you!"

"WTF!" came to mind in response, followed by utter bewilderment. Perhaps a new dawn will bring some understanding in regard to what had just come to pass.

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2. Why?

The aforementioned incident was very upsetting, obviously for both of those involved. The next day the writer awoke concerned over what had taken place, and wondering why it had happened as it did. He soon found an answer, when he went to that font of wisdom and truth - or should I say "dispenser of disinformation" - namely, Wikipedia. Therein was an entry for Tranny which clearly stated at the outset that, as of May 2026, the word continues to be considered a derogatory term. However, upon further reading of the entry, there was a caveat. Apparently - as the writer knew - Wikipedia informed the reader that prior to the 2010s and the rise of the modern Transgender movement, tranny had been a simple word commonly used in Australia and overseas also in the context of reflecting endearment, such as with the phrase: "My tranny friend" or similar. However - and here's the kicker - during the early 2010s a group of modern transgender agenda supporters and influencers sought to continue to use the term in that way - generally and with the implication of some affection. Unfortunately this was not accepted by another faction within the transgender movement, and the word was weaponised.

What do I mean by weaponised? In connection with the rise of the transgender movement around this time, and in an effort to promote the issue and gain political support for change, an active campaign was launched around the word transgender and its derivatives. The campaign sought to heighten the need for transgender support legislative action on the part of government, and to move this along, an effort needed to be made to show that the transgender community was subject to negative discrimination. Therefore, related words and phrases came under consideration.

It was apparent that the innocent use of the term tranny could not continue, and it was decided by some person or group that it should be presented as being only ever derogatory. Clearly it was not then and had never been for the previous half century. However, it now became so according to certain people setting the transgender agenda, and in this way was weaponised. Namely, it could now be used as an example of discriminatory language to support the calls for stronger action on the part of society to support the transgender movement and remove any and all real and claimed forms of discrimination.

The commonality of the use of the term tranny in Australia prior to its transformation and weaponisation can be seen throughout the following university student newspaper Tharunka article from 1994, wherein all manner of transgender issues are discussed and the individual is more often then not referred to as a tranny, and not in any derogatory manner.

* Tharunka, University of New South Wales Students Union, 19 May 1994:

The term transgender is becoming a fashionable word, even in polite society, but what does it really mean?

Commonly used as a pseudonym for transsexual, it has the ability to cover a much wider field of gender diversity. A leading trans spokesperson believes that it should not be considered as a label at all. Rather, that we can only talk of people with a range of transgender issues. This point of view occurred when the cross-gender community came together to discuss issues we thought were really important to our lives. We found that rather than there being a focus on medical definitions and explanations, which had kept our community apart for so long, we could really find common ground in social issues such as those of marginalisation, invisibility, discrimination and isolation (1).

While the transgender community can be seen to be made up of transsexuals, hermaphrodites and transvestites (usually hetero, but also gay and bisexual), it actually includes anyone who lives outside the gender norms which our society constructs. That is, anyone who transgresses or transcends the defined gender boundaries. Indeed one radical tranny has gone so far as to say:

"The definition of gender in this culture includes a) the assumption by the person of any of the characteristics of the other sex whether by means of medical intervention or otherwise; or b) the identification by the person as a member of the other sex; or c) the living or seeking to live by the person as a member of the opposite sex." (3)

This need for a precise definition is caused by the massive discrimination against the transgender community. A recent study has shown that a third of trannies reported rape by a single assailant, one in eight reported pack rape and about forty percent reported incest. Ninety percent reported discrimination of some form with many reporting systematic discrimination. (4)

This is especially true with regard to employment but also in daily dealings with landlords, government agencies, the police, the medical profession, and even various gay and lesbian organisations (although this is decreasing). Similarly, the restriction of transgender issues to the sphere of the medical profession has seen the massive neglect of our needs in other areas. Probably the most critical one is our identity as regards to the law.

Because of the mandate of heterosexuality, to be a woman means to love men, and to be a man means to love women. So in fact, every lesbian and every gay man is transgressing gender roles and gender rules. Whereas not all transgendered people are lesbian and gay, all lesbians and gays are transgendered. It is not a matter of lesbians and gays including transgendered people. It is a matter of transgendered people including lesbians and gays, and no one is going to like that." (2)

But there is still some debate about this within the community. Camille, from her perspective as an hermaphrodite for instance, sees transgender as being the 'other' of the gender boundaries (see her poem), as it encompasses everything contained with the normal definitions but at the same time also transcends them. While I like this view, my own is more conservative (I would say Virgo-ian) and is based on the realities for the present situation.

Our drive for basic recognition and human rights from the bureaucracies means there will need to be a fixed definition of transgender identity. The relevant paragraph from the recent proposed amendment to the anti-discrimination legislation (which unfortunately failed to pass) describes transgender this way:

"Transgender in relation to a person of one sex means: the law only recognises two sexes which are assigned at birth (or as soon after as possible in the case of intersex children) and which determine the way society sees us."

Any change in gender identity causes the establishment a large number of problems. Currently no state in Australia will issue a new birth certificate for trannies (5) so that any process which requires that one be produce (e.g., opening a bank account ) is a potential source of embarrassment for all of the parties concerned. Consequently many trannies try to avoid such confrontational situations and miss out on many opportunities available to everyone else. Another problem has been the treatment of tranny prisoners. A tranny may be fully socialised as one gender and living completely in that gender identity but s/he is usually put into the prison of her biological gender rather than the one suitable for her social gender.

Probably the greatest cause of distress occurs in the realm of relationships. A case was recently contested where a tranny who was given a pension suitable for a woman in a defacto relationship, had the decision suddenly reversed because she was not post-op. Even though she had been living as a woman for over ten years. Because she didn't have the twelve thousand dollars for the sex change, she was still considered a man under Australian law. (6)

The strangest case regarding this two gender blinkered view of the law occurred in Brisbane in 1979. An hermaphrodite (gender identified as male) had his marriage annulled on the grounds that he was not a man. The judge in his statement said, "I am satisfied on the evidence that the husband was neither man nor woman but was a combination of both, and a marriage in true true sense of the word ... could not have taken place and does not exist." The decision leaves this person without any sort of legal identity, neither male or female.

Some transgender people are still being made invisible. There so much more which can be said. However, these are some of the issues which face the transgender community today and which force us to stand up and challenge the system. The needs are so great that the potential of transgender, as a process of transcending the constructed gender boundaries, still remains in the future. But in concluding it is interesting to note the promise of transgender was seen many years ago by Kate Millet who said that as long as we still retain the categories of masculine and feminine "each personality becomes little more, and often less than half, of its human potential."

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3. The case against

It would appear that the weaponisation of the word tranny came from Great Britain around 2010 and not locally, as in Australia (Kaveney 2010). The Guardian of London referred to its apparent "continued" use as a term of abuse. However, individuals within the transgender community did not accepted this categorisation, preferring to support its continued use and an end to its recasting as a derogatory term. As transgender entertainer Justin Vivian Bond noted, the weaponisation of tranny:

"... steals a joyous and hard-won identity from those of us who are and have been perfectly comfortable, if not delighted to be trannies." (Lowder 2014)

Australian Kate Bornstein flip flops around the significance of the term, pointing to its long use in the 1960s and 1970s in Sydney by the trans community as "a name for the identity they shared" (Bornstein 2009).

Christan Williams, in his search for the origin of the word tranny, went back as far as 1983 (Williams 2014).

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 4. Origins

1960s

* Kate Bornstein attributes use of the word tranny to transsexuals and drag queens working in Sydney, Australia, in the 1960s. Used to identify a group and also as a term of endearment.

1983

* Christian Williams suggest the word came from gay men during this period.

1994

* Tharunka article, Sydney, make frequent reference to tranny and trannies. 

2010

* Tranny initially cited and promoted as a derogatory term by The Guardian, London. Subsequently promoted as such by the UK transgender movement.

2014

* Public questioning of the weaponisation of the word tranny, away from its traditional use as a generic term and also term of endearment. 

2026

* Wikipedia continues to cite tranny as a derogatory term and a slur. 

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5. References

Bass, L., Why We Shouldn’t Use The Word ‘Tranny’, Huffington Post, 2016.

Bornstein, Kate, "Who You Calling A Tranny?", Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger, 12 July 2009.

Gregoire, P., Is ‘Tranny’ a Derogatory Term?, Vice., 2014.  

Kaveney, Roz, Why trans is in but tranny is out, The Guardian, London, 30 June 2010.

Lowder, J. Bryan, Is "tranny" a slur or an identity? Who decides?, Slate Magazine, 30 May 2014.

Mahmoud, Jess, Lets talk slurs: On the term "Tranny", Medium, 29 April 2017. 

McCallum, D., Please Don’t Say Tranny, Queer Life, Medium, n.d. 

Molloy, P. M., Op-ed: It’s Time to Stop With the T Word, Advocate, 2014. 

 

Michelson, Noah, The trouble with Tranny, Out.com, 14 November 2014. Text: It's been a long couple of weeks for the word tranny. First Glee came under fire for using it in its Rocky Horror Picture Show episode, when a student said he couldn't take part in the musical because his parents didn't want him "dressing like a tranny." GLAAD discussed the incident in a blog post saying, "The word tranny has become an easy punchline in popular culture, and many still don't realize that using the term is hurtful, dehumanizing and associated with violence, hatred and derision against transgender people -- a community that is nearly invisible in media today." And last week, after we used the term tranny in a story on President Obama's gay drag queen nanny, we received some heat, too, and several people asked us to delete the word. I pushed to keep tranny in the headline for a variety of reasons but mostly because as a writer and editor, I know that words have power. While I agree with GLAAD that too often (especially within mainstream media/culture) the word is used pejoratively, we must always take into account the context in which the word is being used and who is using it. In the right hands and mouths (hint, hint: ours) the word becomes powerful -- liberating, even -- and loses the sting and stigma others want us to feel when we hear or read it. I am also of the mindset that we should look for opportunities to open up discussions about difficult subjects instead of simply erasing or deleting something (or maybe even worse -- replacing letters in a word with asterisks or hyphens in a misguided attempt to soften the word's blow, which, in my opinion, just makes it look that much more perverse and thuggish). Because of how challenging -- even downright scary -- the word and the shadow it casts can be, this seemed like the perfect chance to give a little more attention to a very controversial and misunderstood term. So, I reached out to both GLAAD and activist and gender theorist Kate Bornstein to see if they would weigh in on this subject. Bornstein was quick to give me permission (and her enthusiastic blessing) to run a version of her piece "Who You Calling A Tranny?" which was originally published in July 2009 and which I think eloquently explains the word's origin and argues for a reclaiming of it by "gender and sex positivists." GLAAD put me in touch with Justin Tanis of the National Center for Transgender Equality who sent me a short statement explaining why the organization opposes the use of tranny due to its power to demean and harm trans people. Give them both a read and then let us know how you feel about the word tranny (or fag or dyke for that matter).

Serano, Julia, A Personal History of the “T-word” (and some more general reflections on language and activism), Whipping Girl, 28 April 2014.

Some observations on the tranny word, A Gender Variance Who's Who, 1 May 2014. 

Wikipedia, Tranny, Wikipedia, accessed 17 May 2026.

Williams, Cristan, Tranny: An Evidence-Based Review, The Trans Advocate, 28 April 2014.

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Transgenderism: Bibliography | Issues | Peace Plan | Tranny |

Last updated: 17 May 2026

Michael Organ, Australia