The use of "transgender" rather than previous terminology increased in the early 1990s to emphasize gender rather than sex and to reject describing all trans people based on medical and psychological criteria. Transgender is a combination of the prefix trans-meaning "across, beyond, through, to change"-and the noun gender, creating an adjective that highlights the journey and/or change with one's gender identity. The term transgender was first mentioned in 1965 as a synonym for transsexual in Sexual Hygiene and Pathology to make a distinction between sexuality and gender identity. Transgender people might transition socially and/or physically from their assigned gender to their actual gender identity. Conversely, some transgender individuals may experience what is known as gender euphoria, a term used to describe a "positive and exciting feeling of one's gendered self". However, not all transgender people experience gender dysphoria. Some transgender individuals may experience at least one form of gender dysphoria during their life, usually manifesting as an intense distress with their assigned gender. Transgender people can be binary or non-binary. The realization that their gender is different from what they were assigned can occur as early as three years old or in childhood prior to the onset of puberty. A person's gender identity-their sense of gender-usually develops when they are very young. The birth assignment-generally defaulting to assigned male at birth (AMAB) or assigned female at birth (AFAB)-assumes that the individual's gender identity will correspond to their assigned sex.
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Infants are assigned a sex that is recorded on their birth certificate, which is usually based only on the appearance of external genitalia.
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Transgender, often shortened to trans, is an umbrella term that describes an individual whose gender identity differs from their assigned gender at birth (AGAB).