Trans vs Trans*
At the moment, “trans” is the most widely-accepted and adding the asterisk can be offensive. It appears to partly be a subjective thing, since either one can be considered offensive depending on who you talk to (like "queer" which can be a simple term, a slur, or something positive). Some articles and posts:
- http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/01/10/trans_what_does_it_mean_and_where_did_it_come_from.html
- http://practicalandrogyny.com/2013/10/31/about-that-often-misunderstood-asterisk/
- http://nataliereed84.tumblr.com/post/65412526336/
- http://reclaimingwarlock.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-i-dont-use-asterisk-after-trans.html
Some decent definitions of things can be found here.
"Smash the gender binary"
Smashing the binarist idea of gender roles is good. Destroying the actual gender binary is a bad idea. The vast majority of people would be highly uncomfortable with the idea of suddenly having no gender options (or more than 2-3) and having genders helps transitioning trans individuals.
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