I was playing around with Google trends a bit yesterday, and came up with this:
It’s interesting how the word “transvestite” was largely replaced by “crossdresser” starting around the middle of 2008. The only thing I can think of is that “transvestite” is a little too close to “tranny” which I wouldn’t want to be thought of as purely for the pornographic connotations. (If you include “tranny” on the chart, it dwarfs both “transvestite” and “crossdresser”. sigh.)
Can you think of anything else?
The term crossdresser is to me strictly bonded to my discovery of internet in 1999. In the same time I found that I wasn’t alone having the compulsion to dress. Till that time I knew just the term transvestite which here in Italy is still connected to perversion and prostitution. From that time I started surfing the web searching and using the term crossdresser, which by the way better describes me.
Personally, I go for the term ‘tgirl’ ….its far enough removed from the traditional terms like transvestite, tranny, cross dresser etc to minimise the seedier implications ….and it does what it says on the tin!