I hope I am posting in the right place. I've come up with a couple of mental pictures of the different types of transfolk and how they relate to things. I hope this is insightful.

One mental picture is that of a barge to travel between 2 points. So there are people on Boy Island and people on Girl Island. Here are all the possible combinations.

• Most were born on their respective islands and are natives. That describes most people.

• Then you have those who make a permanent one-way trip. They are immigrants and could fall into 2 types. Some do what they can to become eligible to live in their new homeland and get as much legal paperwork as they can. Others don't. The first would fit what I call transsexuals who eventually transition all the way and assimilate to the extent that is physically and financially possible. The second may describe some garden-variety transgender folk who might also adopt a full identity on that side and stay out of everyone's way (they don't follow all the laws, but at least they pay their taxes). There are also those who make a ritualistic one-way trip such as the Hijrah and members of various tribal cultures ("berdache" in some NA cultures).

• There are those who just visit the foreign island for short trips. Those would be crossdressers. Those could be subdivided. Their trips might be just for leisure (garden variety "weekend crossdresser"). Some may be sex tourists. Some may take business or athletic trips, such as professional female impersonators and some drag entertainers, as well as drag competitions. Some may be sent away temporarily for punishment (petticoat discipline and some BDSM). Some are sent there ritualistically (like in Victorian culture where boys are raised as girls until they age out).

• Others may have work visas such as some male sex workers and some drag entertainers.

• There are those who consider themselves citizens of the vessel. They may not be welcome on either island. They may be expatriates. Or they don't believe they belong in either place (nonbinary). Some may have been born on the vessel and have an unclear origin (intersex).

• Then there are those who won't get off the vessel when it reaches its destination. That's fine, as they have that right. But some may interfere with other passengers exiting. "Once you are transgender, you're always transgender, and you owe your loyalty to us by staying on the vessel." Some trans have that attitude. They refuse to transition all the way and set up obstacles for others. For instance, one non-op transgender canceled a reassignment surgeon who said that transsexuals need the surgery (and transgender folks don't), and bullied him into retirement. "Transgender is just as valid as transsexualism, and you can be a woman with a penis..." That's the sad reality of the slippery slope thing. Once you divorce gender identity and presentation from physical sex, not only does that help those who need to transition for therapeutic reasons and are otherwise psychologically sound, it also allows the slippery slope to occur. And if you can be born with a penis and still be a woman, even if never fully female, then generally one must also admit that if the penis is irrelevant, you can keep it for life and still be a woman. Yet if you want to stubbornly hold onto any vestige of masculinity, do you really have any femininity? Thus one can depart from reality at this point.

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I was going to describe it in point-by-point format purely from an immigrant standpoint too, but the above covers it. There are lawful and undocumented immigrants. There are sex tourists. There are casual visitors. There are the occasional criminal guests/residents, visitors with the "what happens here stays here" attitude, and those who use visiting as an excuse to let go of every inhibition, standard, or moral. ("I'm not gay since I never screw guys without wearing a dress.") Some respect the homeland they are visiting or immigrating to, and some don't. Some immigrate or visit with less than altruistic motives such as infiltration, spying, political interference, or attempting a coup.

I hope the metaphors and allegory help give clarity about trans issues. For instance, trying to talk about TSs and TGs as separate will usually spark the same type of rage and lower levels on the debate pyramid that lawful vs. unlawful immigration creates.