Wantapair, are you suggesting that a criticism is some kind of religious act? How about realism, or voyeurism, or activism, or catechism, or even schism? Or any of a great many other verbs turned into nouns that reflect that verb?
Adding ism to a word doesn't make it religiously oriented or even relevant to religions. Transgenderism is fine as an action noun, although perhaps transgender activism might be a more descriptive way of phrasing it (still an -ism, still non-religious).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/-ism?s=t if anybody wants a (dubious) reference.

Fire&Ice, I had the same reaction to B's use of the gender binary, but decided it wasn't worth replying to. Much like B's denunciation of those of us on here who haven't walked the exact same path as B or come to the same conclusions as B. B's penchant for mixing his views of those of us on the forum with whatever source material he quotes, then retreating to saying "I was only referring to the original article" (or something similar) whenever his point is challenged in a way he cannot answer, just makes me stop reading. So do his personal attacks, and I will not give any semblance of credibility to his position by taking his double-dog dare of dragging my personal relationships into it. If he feels his situation resonates with his point, fine. Far be it from me to say it doesn't. B is the authority on B, not me. B can judge someone else guilty then demand they prove their innocence if he wants. I said my piece, then let others have their turn. Regarding the current spat, I am not particularly inclined to find the original article reliable anyway. I have no reasonable way to ascertain the true facts of the situation (assuming the entire piece isn't a fabrication to create a column and sell ad space). Even if it is taken at face value, as I previously posted, it is necessarily highly incomplete because it does not have the other party's perspective or narrative in it. B can stand on the two-legged stool if he likes. I'll pass.

Snide as usual.

Bryony, I'm through debating this issue with you. You've made your point. We will have to agree to disagree.

Clara

Well, yeah, you HAVE a sex change, so, it's done TO you.

No, no, WAP. You don't become transgender by having anything done to you once out of the womb. Also, we are trying to get away from "sex change", SRS, and GRS. These surgical operations don't change one's biological sex or gender identity any more than putting on a dress or growing boobs. The proper terminology today is 'gender confirmation surgery", because it brings one's body into alignment with the person's gender identity. Gender confirmation surgery includes FFS, BA (breast augmentation), and vaginoplasty. For someone who identifies as female rather than male, these interventions are often needed to reduce GD.

Clara

https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY

George Carlin was awesome. He was doing comedy in that routine. Why did you post the link without saying what it was a link to? Are you suggesting gender-related surgery is some kind of joke? Carlin had fun with the language topics, but if you listen to recordings of him while trying to assign meaning to any of his material, you have to stop laughing and become critical. FYI, if you are a Carlin fan like I am, don't do this. It will ruin some of his funniest bits for you. He mixed a wide variety of things in order to come up with the volume of material he went through, much like Benny Hill did. Adjacent changes in wording in that routine are not all of the same nature. His delivery makes them all sound funny. But quite often, changing how we describe things is not only intelligent, but necessary to allow us to advance our knowledge and change our perspectives on things we take for granted. If you dig into how much things like gender are deeply baked into many languages, you will be amazed at how very often gender cues are used.
My wife and I sometimes play at a game where we look for those things in conversations that happen around us. It's fairly incredible these things go on so ubiquitously without conscious recognition. Marketers rejoice!
I think there is so much progress and change happening with respect to our situations/conditions/whatever you want to call it, that it is pretty obvious that this is a case of language needing to change and grow in order to adequately communicate the concepts. Despite my not having any interest in gender surgery of any kind for myself, I have to say I greatly prefer the term gender confirmation surgery. It is far more accurate than using the old terms which had negative societal baggage built into them.

George Carlin was awesome. He was doing comedy in that routine. Why did you post the link without saying what it was a link to? Are you suggesting gender-related surgery is some kind of joke? Carlin had fun with the language topics, but if you listen to recordings of him while trying to assign meaning to any of his material, you have to stop laughing and become critical. FYI, if you are a Carlin fan like I am, don't do this. It will ruin some of his funniest bits for you. He mixed a wide variety of things in order to come up with the volume of material he went through, much like Benny Hill did. Adjacent changes in wording in that routine are not all of the same nature. His delivery makes them all sound funny. But quite often, changing how we describe things is not only intelligent, but necessary to allow us to advance our knowledge and change our perspectives on things we take for granted. If you dig into how much things like gender are deeply baked into many languages, you will be amazed at how very often gender cues are used.
My wife and I sometimes play at a game where we look for those things in conversations that happen around us. It's fairly incredible these things go on so ubiquitously without conscious recognition. Marketers rejoice!
I think there is so much progress and change happening with respect to our situations/conditions/whatever you want to call it, that it is pretty obvious that this is a case of language needing to change and grow in order to adequately communicate the concepts. Despite my not having any interest in gender surgery of any kind for myself, I have to say I greatly prefer the term gender confirmation surgery. It is far more accurate than using the old terms which had negative societal baggage built into them.

I linked it with what Clara said, wasn't that enough of a clue?
She's talking about the new and different phases of the word used to describe us. Have you heard of the term, "PC", politically correct? In other words, as Carlin said, we can't call someone retarded anymore, we have to call them mentally challenged, now! He's telling us how completely ridiculous it is that we have to keep changing terminology every time someone farts, or, should I say, every time someone causes an odiferous air wave fluctuation by an accidental bi-labial fricative. All of a sudden I can't say, "transgendered", anymore because someone thought it just MIGHT be mentally and/or emotionally harmful to transgendered people. I'll bet I could ask a number of my TS friends what they are and they'd all say, "transgendered". Carla, Wendi, Pam, do you CARE if anyone calls you transgendered? I'm SURE they'd ALL say, "No!"
I can't call black people "black" anymore, because that might be offensive to them. I have to call them, African-Americans, now! But it's perfectly fine for them to call me white instead of Scotts-Irish-German-Slovak-American!! I guess it's okay for me to call them nigger, though, because they do it themselves all the time! And it's okay for them to call us, "cracker", "whitey" and "honky".
JUST to be clear on that last part, I'm NOT by ANY stretch of the imagination "voicing" an opinion against black people, I'm "voicing" an opinion against the verbiage used to describe people and how we have WAY too many rules already for how certain people should be described!! I couldn't give a rats ass WHAT colour someone's skin is!! Just like I don't care at all about what clothes someone prefers to wear or what gender they prefer to be or what gear they were born with between their legs or even that they might be "differently abled", they're ALL human beings to me!!!! We SHOULD ALL be trying to become a WHOLE!!!! We SHOULD ALL be trying to become EQUAL and by coming up with more and more restrictive names for everyone's personal condition is making each and every one us more compartmentalized!! THAT, on the whole, is what George was trying to say!!
Are we clear, now? I'm a closet TRANSSEXUAL and I'm on George's side!!

WP, your comments display your mindset, just as my comments display my mindset. I find it hard to believe you are participating in this kind of forum, never mind the activity we are engaged in, but you don't think how we use words to communicate is important.