Every few days a discussion breaks out about which terms are best used to describe transgender people. Is it transman, trans man, etc.? So let's talk it through here. And remember- language evolves, and esp in an area like this one, where many people don't keep up on the latest thoughts and usage, someone using a term another considers offensive does not mean they were seeking to offend anyone.

So I'm moving some posts here, and we can take it from here.

I've repeatedly expressed frustration over the lack of a suitable noun for transgender(noun), so I don't fault you for the title, even though I agree that if you were to follow official prototcol, something of the likes of transgender people, as suggested by Trolly, would be a proper consideration.

we also say “black people”, I’m not quite sure why you think this is problematic.

"Trans" might be a bit non-standard but it's already used as a noun just like "blacks".

I feel like the rules of etiquette for transgender terminology don't allow for stand-alone nouns, and although there are ways to to get around that and still communicate effectively, I just find it annoying, and perhaps genuinely unnecessarily constricting. For your example, the relevant nouns concerning the adjective black that are absent for the adjective transgender would be blacks or blackness. Whereas you don't have transgenders or transgenderness. You will note that GLAAD advises against transgenderism, perhaps for legitimate reasons, but that is yet another example of not being able to use a stand-alone noun.

If you aren't donald trump you probably shouldn't be talking about "the blacks", so an odd comparison, but I can't think of anyone who has used "trans" as a plural noun! Do you have a mainstream reference to it being used that way?

I didn't say "the blacks" though...just "blacks" without the definite article-- that's completely fine.

As for "trans", idk. It would be impossible to search for it using the tool I would normally use. I've used it before in the other thread I'm pretty sure.

In general you should say "black people" over "blacks" too. This isn't quite as clear cut as with "trans" where I think you just entirely made it up that anyone actually uses that as a plural noun. If you ever find a reference of a mainstream source using it that way, let us know!

edit: To elaborate, here is Merriam Webster:

This might shock you but I don't really care for what style guides say.

It's a living language.

Damn if we're gonna get into Uke's language policing let's just lock anything to do with Trans and I may have got that wrong
(Trans)

I didn't respond to campfirewest at the time because maybe my initial guess was wrong. But then:
Turns out I correctly guessed that the way Luckbox would use "trans" in a sentence was "the trans". And I am thus also correct that "the blacks" was the appropriate comparison. Regardless, one ought to not say either of those expressions.

Minor corrections regarding language could happen in any thread, big or small, but shouldn't be more than a quick note and getting back to the topic at hand.

In the Dave Chappelle SNL piece that he did on Kayne, he said how you should never precede "the" with "Jews", and sure that's basically correct but because it's a living language rules are always meant to be broken.

I met this Israeli girl last month and I was asking her about what sort of stereotypes Israeli Jews had about American Jews (this is a true story), and what she said was that "the Jews in America are considered like spoiled princesses by Israeli Jews".

We can use the definite article there because we're talking about a set group of people. A similar sentence with "trans" could be something like "The trans in the Netherlands aren't really too keen on the trans from Belgium".

Note that this isn't the plural form, it's the collective. Compare: "I saw three Mongolians at the supermarket" (plural) with "The Mongolians here are a lot different than the Mongolians in Mongolia" (collective).

Now in some sentence with "the blacks", I agree that it's problematic but it's problematic because of issues dealing with racism. In an analogous sentence to the Mongolian example like "the blacks here are different from the blacks in Africa", the issue isn't that the sentence is grammatically incorrect, the issue is that it's semantically ridiculous because people who have darker colored skin aren't some unified group that can be made into a collective. So while saying "the Jews" or "the Mongolians" might oftentimes be antisemitic or anti-mongolian, it won't always be, whereas "the blacks" is always by definition going to be racist.

Well I agree that "the blacks" is problematic because of issues dealing with racism. But why wouldn't "the trans" be similarly problematic because of issues dealing with transphobia? It is also just much less common - you still haven't shown any mainstream source calling trans people "the trans".

Well no, because "the blacks" is inherently racist whereas "the trans" is not inherently transphobic.

It will probably be easier to find examples of "the gays" and then draw analogies to "the trans" from there, and I'm searching the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) for those. Most of the "the trans" examples that I'm finding are with "trans" as an adjective but I'm sure I can find one or two.

You get that even if you find "one or two" examples somewhere in your internet search, this wouldn't minimize the point that "the trans" is highly highly nonstandard, right? Any style guide or mainstream source I've ever seen uses "trans people", and maybe it is theoretically possible to say "the trans" in some not inherently transphobic way despite "the blacks" being inherently racist - I have no idea why you suggest that - but it is irrelevant. Just use "trans people".

why it's problematic? are you kidding?

let's start with there is no black color on the color spectrum. "black" people are never black. simply because the colour black doesn't even exist. they might have a darker pigmentation.

the dark man is always the bad man we have been told. the "dark man" or boogie man in tales.
black is always associated with something negative or dangerous.
black birds are good and dark ones are evil. crows and pigeon i.e.

So if you want to start with your grammar fascism you should start there imo.

You're too caught up in style guides, mainstream sources, and what is standard. That's not how linguists operate. They are concerned with describing the language in its full range of what is possible, not with prescribing usage.

I think using the color black to describe humans who aren't in fact black is just plain wrong.
I think that's worse than mislabelling genders. and it's not even close.

try wearing black at a wedding.
something that uke doesn't even want to get into. he knows the use of black in literature at least he should know. it's derogatory of African people imo. just call them African and no problem. since that sounds worse to many people than black they settled for black but it was given to them incorrectly.

there is no color black, it does not exist. that should tell us all we need to know imo.

Linguists mostly worry about how words are actually used and not fanciful ways they might possibly be used, but that’s not what you’re really interested in here.

How about I handle the language stuff and you handle the chemical engineering or whatever you know about that almost universally has nothing to do with whatever is discussed here.

Here is an example though.

Another I'm pretty sure from the same person

https://nabcj.org/
https://www.aabe.org/
https://www.asil.org/blacks-american...ernational-law
https://www.mabhe.org/

Used in text:
https://naacp.org/find-resources/his...rs/web-du-bois
https://naacp.org/articles/viewing-s...il-rights-lens
https://naacp.org/resources/strength...merican-family
https://naacp.org/articles/aging-whi...-they-grow-old
https://naacp.org/find-resources/his...milton-houston
https://naacp.org/resources/recognit...ights-movement


That being said, I would personally only use it in demographics when comparing white and Blacks. I would otherwise always err on the side of Black people because I don't want to deal with backlash even if I personally think it's not a big deal.

There is often no perfect term when we group people together, especially when dealing with the social construct of "race". But I think you'll find that taking everyone a person might refer to as "black", and calling them "African" would be far more problematic.

I'd also suggest that if you mean intentionally mislabeling genders, you're way off. I feel weird as a white guy saying what does or does not offend someone of a different race/colour, but in very general terms I'm fairly confident that many people who would commonly be categorized as black don't take offense to it. I find it hard to imagine anyone not being offended at being intentionally misgendered.

Is there a reason you are providing a screenshot and not a link? The claim wasn't that it was possible for you to find somewhere a text passage on the internet of someone using that expression.