Charting Identities

via Google Labs:

Apparently, transsexuals and transvestites are waning, and transgender is ascendant. Not that we didn’t know that, but there it is in red green and blue.

I like the way dyke has remained a subcultural word (consistently small percentages over time), while I assume queer went from being used in the “odd or weird” way to the current meaning, dipping in the late 80s/early 90s.

One Reply to “Charting Identities”

  1. Some explanation for the graphs would be handy, like the sources (Google’s book scan for words). It doesn’t really chart identities, except by writers in books. It’s really a literary identity than a reality identity because it doesn’t distinguish the writer’s definition of the identities. It’s simply the use of the three words, nothing else.

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