The T in LGBT

I was reading a thread a while back about how the LGB sometimes resents the T when it comes to getting laws passed for rights and somesuch.

Anyway, I'm completely ignorant when it comes to anything about the T so I've come to ask anyone who's knowledgeable about the matter to help me understand.

What's the T in LGBT stand for? Transgender or transexual? What makes these two terms different from each other. And if you want to go further, differentiate gender from sex. And lastly, what is a transvestite? I see that last term being used synonymously with the the other two and it confuses me.

Thank you for answering. And if there's a thread about this already, well I didn't see it.

[Ben]

Transgender is the umbrella term for people who would deviate from the black and white world of male and female; transsexuals and transvestites fall under this umbrella.

Transsexual people identify as (or would identify as) the opposite gender.

Transvestites are people who cross-dress. People who are not transexual may be transvestites—for example, people who have been identified as male all of their lives who may dress in a traditionally 'female' manner.

There are also other variations, such as people who identify as being outside of traditional male-female boundaries, and are androgynous, genderqueer, or third-sex etc.

[Rikudo]

I thought it was Trans.

[Stuie]

Ben has said most of it and he's all correct.
You also asked about the difference between sex and gender. Sex is based on your biological equipment, basically, male, female or intersex. Intersex, in its most basic form, pretty much are people who have different chromosomes to their sex (XX for females and XY for males) or have conditions that block sex hormones. They can have ambiguous genitalia which have features of both sexes. A surprising thing about intersex people is about 1% of people are intersex, which is a higher percentage than redheads, although the vast majority will not know and it may only show up when they find themself to be infertile or something like that. Gender, on the other hand, is based on what's in your head and there's a pretty vast spectrum of this.

Trans people and intersex people often have similar legal issues regarding change of sex and all the associated legal documentation. You'd notice how almost all forms require you to fill in your sex. The legal issues of this for trans and intersex people are really severe. I don't really understand resentment from the LGB segment of the whole spectrum. (I don't particularly like the word community, as I don't feel that there really is a cohesive GLBTIQ community, but that can be left for another discussion.) The TI part of the spectrum are much much more at risk and have huge legal problems. The discrimination they face is incredible and the murder rate for trans people is scarily high. At the end of the day really, the TI and LGB groups have rather different legal needs, but the TIs need a lot more law reform before they are equal in the eyes of the law.