transgender

Origin

The adjective sense is derived from trans- (“extending across, through, or over”) + gender, modelled after transsexual (adjective) and probably modified from transgenderism which was coined by the American psychiatrist John F. Oliven (1915–1975) in 1965; the terms transgender, transgenderal, transgendered, transgenderist, and similar terms arose in the decades after this. By the 1990s, the word transgender had acquired its current senses, and had also largely displaced the earlier term transsexual: see the usage notes. The noun and verb senses are derived from the adjective. Regarding noun sense 2 (“synonym of transgenderism”), compare transsex (noun).