gendertrash

English

Etymology

From gender +‎ trash. The first known use was as the title of a transgender-interest zine published out of Toronto from 1993-1995. The first attested use as an independent word was in two 1995 magazine articles by Riki Wilchins.

Noun

gendertrash (uncountable)

1. (derogatory or humorous) People of gender identities or gender expressions not represented by the gender binary and/or conventional conceptions of gender.
   • 1995, Riki Wilchins, "What's In A Name: The Politics of Gender Speak", Transgender Tapestry, Winter 1995, page 47:

     From this viewpoint, transgendered bodies and genders are that outside; and it is precisely by discarding us as “gendertrash” if you will, by stigmatizing us or delegitimating us off the grid as merely “aberrant” or “deviant” or (Virginia Prince here) “defective” or “pathological,” which enables the binary grid to continue to appear as immaculate, uncontaminated, and “natural.”

   • 1998 November 10, Dale Elizabeth, “Re: What Changing One's Sex Really Means....”, in soc.support.transgendered‎^[1] (Usenet):

     This not only serves no purpose and makes *you* look like an ugly person, it also […] lends legitimacy to the kind of thinking that leads the bigots to insist that we're *all* gendertrash.

   • 2008, Stephanie Schroeder, “Queer Parents: An Oxymoron? Or Just Moronic?”, in Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, editor, That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, unnumbered page:

     In the most straightforward way, [Dorothy] Allison was responding to the typical question by a horrified liberal to gendertrash who likes rough trade: Honey, I got nothin' to hide.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:gendertrash.

See also

• genderqueer