PermanentTemporary it absolutely was a stretegic and long-term plan, at least in the UK.
I've seen something similar for the US, but have lost the scanned images of the article that talks about some of it. Bit more complex because different states have different laws, but the transsexuals - transvestites strategy was also used there.
Anyway, back to the UK strategy. A glimpse of it is explained here -
womenspeakscotland.com/2021/06/23/the-trans-umbrella-is-older-than-you-think/
Press For Change is the organisation that is pretty much solely responsible for the Gender Recognition Act being passed in 2004. They championed the use of the term ‘trans’ precisely because it made no distinction between ‘transsexual’ and ‘transvestite’.
(From Christine Burns: Pressing Matters Vol. 1)
‘Until human rights campaigners like us came along, talking about umbrella concepts, this diverse community had got along with a relatively stable lexicon for many years. There were ‘transvestites’ and ‘transsexuals’ – TVs and TS’s in the community shorthand – and that was more or less the only language you needed to know for more than a generation since Harry Benjamin had coined the latter term in his book ‘The Transsexual Phenomenon’ in 1966.
‘Our successes as a campaign were grounded in progress made for people who fitted the clinical definition of transsexual. At the heart of this was a tacit understanding that people in positions of power might be persuaded to change laws for people with some kind of clinically underwritten status – something they couldn’t help being. This is why ‘Transsexualism – The Medical Viewpoint’ was seen as strategically important and why all the key court cases had rehearsed the developing scientific understanding of a basis for us being born or developing this way. It was also why the government would expect to include a medical definition of ‘transsexual’ in the forthcoming employment protections they planned to consult upon.
‘We knew in our hearts at that time that policymakers and judges weren’t yet sophisticated enough in their understanding to contemplate rights for people whose difference appeared self-identified or impermanent or maybe even optional. That didn’t mean we weren’t going to try where possible. There was a valid freedom of expression case to be made for people to be able to present in whatever way they wish. But we were also pragmatists, careful not to frighten the horses at this early stage. (Note, however, that in the Equality Act 2010 – which replaced the Sex Discrimination Act – the requirement for having been medically diagnosed was finally removed).
‘I cannot recall exactly how we reached a consensus inside Press for Change. It wasn’t written down in email correspondence – it arose in telephone or face to face conversations, including the long calls I was now having with Claire McNab on Sunday afternoons before setting off for another hotel. Somehow or other, however, we arrived at a consensus that if we maybe all used the word ‘trans’ as an umbrella term – and words like ‘transsexual’ only when we needed to be more specific’ then maybe some of that would catch on gradually.
‘And so that is what we did. From there on, without fanfare, my essays and our web content discreetly began to use this language. Claire took the opportunity during the move of the PFC website to revise the existing content in the same way.
‘In the weeks and months ahead people would sometimes ask what the word meant or why we were using it. Then we would explain the rationale and suggest why we thought it was important. The change was gradual. In fact it took years for the word to begin sounding familiar and to hear it in other people’s language. In 2002 when we were consulting over government press releases to announce the forthcoming Gender Recognition Bill, the officials still weren’t convinced that enough people understood the new word to use it. Yet today most people seem to embrace the word naturally – when they are not simply calling themselves men or women.’