The Difference between Transsexuals, Drag Queens and Cross dressers :
Transgender:
An umbrella term used to describe a person (male or female), who dresses, behaves or identifies in as a gender different from their birth gender.
Cross dresser:
A man who dresses in woman’s clothes either part time or full time. Often taking on the mannerisms and appearance of woman. Most crossdressers are straight, and many are in a relationship with a person of the opposite sex. Cross dressers normally do not want to feminize their body, or undergo SRS.
Transvestite:
A person who cross dresses. The term cross dresser is preferred, as sometimes the term transvestite is (wrongly) associated with a transvestic fetish (which are those who occasionally use clothing of the opposite gender for fetish purposes).
Drag Queen (and King):
A stage artist, host or performer who wears makeup and woman’s clothing with the purpose of entertaining or highlighting transgender issues. If only done for the performance, these people are not considered cross dressers.
Transsexual:
A person who has the desire to live and be accepted as the opposite sex. Typically men will feel like ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’. Having undergone SRS (or post operative transsexual) is not a requirement for being a transsexual. Often times a transsexual will take steps to feminize their bodies (e.g. through hormones)
Intersexed:
A person who is born with sexual anatomy that does not fit the typical definitions of male or female. There are many different varieties of this difference, e.g. being born with genitals that seem in between male and female, or male on the outside, female on the inside, or even having both XX and XY chromosomes.
