Prefixes are groups of letters that change meaning. Trans- as a prefix designates movement, change. “To be trans- is to be transcending or surpassing particular impositions, whether empirical, rhetorical, or aesthetic.” 1 To transgress or transcend beyond constructed boundaries of gender, the transgender person utilizes their capacity and longing for change. “Trans- represents mattering’s vital capacity to become more and other than it already is through movements, connections, intensifications, and reconfigurations that traverse existing material arrangements.” 2 Transness involves opening up and embracing change.

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In Lessons From a Starfish, Hayward compares the severing and re-growth of the starfish to the prefixial potential of transgender metamorphosis. The prefix re- implies a turn towards something new. She considers the surgical reworking of the skin to be intertwined with the trans- of transgender transformation. 3 The journey to becoming looks different for everyone. Whether one adjusts how they interact with others socially through gender presentation or physically transforms their body, the result is a change or a movement towards something new.