[hankhavelock]

Hmmm... neither "shemale" nor "ladyboy" are copyrighted for a special meaning, I think... :-) It's true, though, that many would mean an Asian transgendered girl when using the term "ladyboy". To me it would also cover other races, though. It's more of an age-thing than race to me. I mean, I wouldn't address my good Danish, elderly (70) transsexual friend: "Wassup, u sexy ladyboy..." That would be bad style... and she would most likely think I had gone crazy :-)

A femboy is to me more a very sissy gay bordering on being a ladyboy. Normal as a first step in transsition.

"Shemale" is probably originally a "porn-term" referring to a transgendered woman with breasts (as well as penis, obviously).

And now we're at it...

There are some fairly good articles on this in wikipedia.org. I guess you can say that the concensus is that the term "transgender" is the generic term covering every body who is more or less "bending their gender" - a neutral umbrella-term.

A "transsexual" person, though, is some one who directly identifies as being of the opposite sex than what he or she was born as. As opposed to a "transvestite" or "crossdresser" who likes to dress and be the part but does not identify as the opposite sex.

And then there's every thing in between... :-) It's a very personal thing, apparently, how transgender-people see themselves. So needless to say, these terms are only a hint.

One important thing, though, is to stress that gender identification and sexual orientation are two very different things, and even though the absolute majority of Asian transgendered women are sexually attracted to men, then you'll in the West find that many more transvestites and transsexuals are sexually attracted to women. Hence the term "trans-lesbian..." (which also would include transgendered women sexually attracted to other transgendered women) :-)

SO here's the 1000 dollar question: What is a "straight" transsexual woman? :-)

Peace!

H