A Creative Crossdreamer Vocabulary

Book excerpt: Jack Molay presents a collection of very short essays, reflecting on different side of the lives of gender variant, transgender and genderqueer people, crossdreamers and crossdressers included. These essays are presented as entires in a dictionary of real and imaginary words relevant to gender variation. He looks at the ups and downs, confusions and revelations, invalidations and affirmations experienced by trans and gender nonconforming people. "We need words that can help us understand our lives, our identities and our place in society," Molay says, "not because we are to use all these words in everyday conversations, but because they can make the invisible visible to ourselves and others." The book also includes an extensive glossary of transgender and queer terms, a glossary that may be of use to many who are trans, have trans friends or family members or who work with gender variant people.