Transage
A transage person is someone whose internal (intra) age identity does not match their chronological (chrono) age[1]. Some transage people report having a permanent, unchanging age identity, others may experience aging, or some other changes in how old they feel.
Types of transage identities
There are multiple ways to be transage[2]. These are the most common ones:
- Older-to-younger (OTY). These are people whose intra age is younger than their chrono one.
- Younger-to-older (YTO). These are people whose intra age is older.
- Agefluid or ageslider. This is a term for someone whose intra age shifts and changes.
- Xenoage. This is an umbrella term for age identities that can't be described through calendar years and human stages of development.
People's perception of their age is quite diverse, and the real amount of labels used to describe the nuances of transage existence is much larger[3]. There also exist alternative terms for the word "transage" itself: "chronosian" and "chronopeculiar". The former was coined by antis with a specific purpose of excluding transage people who are affiliated with the map community[4].
History
Although people have expressed feelings of age incongruence long before (e.g. "Peter Pan syndrome"[5]), the actual term "transage" appeared only in late 00s of this century. The first recorded mentions include an Urban Dictionary entry from 29 May, 2008[6] and a blog of Randolfe Wicker, a LGBT+ activist, who described himself as "a transaged male"[7].
Early 2020 saw a new wave of transage activism and public presence. The transage flag was designed by prominent Twitter map activist Rel and posted both to Twitter and to faer DeviantArt account on May 10, 2020[8]. Rel also provided the meanings of the stripe colors:
orange - beings who are older than their time lived
yellow - nonlinear and otherwise non-traditional age identities
white - opposition to oppression and systems that perpetuate it, including capitalism, gatekeeping, and things like ageism and age norms
pink - beings that are younger than their time lived
purple - ageflux and agefluidity
Several months later, in 2021, a campaign for transage awareness was started on Tumblr by a blog transage-page[9], led by mods Providence and Blue. A lot of transage terminology, such as the terms "intra age" and "chono age", identities like "mesoage"[10] or "pedage"[11] were created either by these two activists or Tumblr users inspired by them. Tumblr transage blogs of 2021 were the start of transid[12] and radqueer communities.
Transage-page mods also suggested March the 1st to be made a transage visibility day[13].
On August 10, 2022, a transage blogger who was also a map ally has designed a jellyfish mascot.
-
The original transage jellyfish design
-
Adapted jellyfish
Connection to maps
Being transage is not inherently linked to mapness, and most transage people are not maps. However, a lot of OTY transage people with an attraction to their intra peers have found themselves in map communities, either because they were unaware of their age identity[14], or because their attraction is equally stigmatized and map struggles seem relatable. Some other OTY transage people, such as Rel, the flag maker, are attracted to much younger children and are maps by definition. People whose age identity is not connected to childhood may, of course, also be maps.
There are other reasons why the subjects of mapness and transageness are often brought up together. In early 2017 a 4Chan troll project tried to introduce the term "clovergender", a supposed new queer identity for a chronological adult who feels like a child and therefore should be allowed to date children[15]. While the trolls targeted mostly queer people, this initiative worsened mapmisiac prejudices among internet users and increased hate towards maps and transage people as well. Many still believe this is the origin of the transage phenomenon. In reality, the combination of beliefs that cisage adults cannot date chronological children, while OTY people can, is not common in either the map community or the transage community.
Several prominent transage activists of the 2020s wave have explicitly condemned associations with the map community.
References
- ↑ What is transage? Transage Info.
- ↑ Terminology, Transage Glossary.
- ↑ Transage Archive Carrd.
- ↑ Chronosian.
- ↑ Peter Pan syndrome, Wikipedia.
- ↑ Transage by teagreen via Urban Dictionary.
- ↑ Full History of the term Transage and the Transage flag by Adèle.
- ↑ Transage pride flag, antifaperix.
- ↑ Transage-page, now suspended and only available in part on Wayback Machine.
- ↑ Identifying as a middle aged person.
- ↑ Identifying as a child. Not related to pedophilia.
- ↑ Transid.
- ↑ MARCH FIRST IS TRANSAGE VISIBILITY DAY, transage-page.
- ↑ Realising I’m not a map after 6 years in map communities, Miami Autumn.
- ↑ Are People Identifying as 'Clovergender'?, Snopes.
