Questions regarding LGBT issues and particular terms

So occasionally, in the setting that my story takes place, when people perform a Body Surf, they end up in a body that does not correspond with their gender. Because this is quite normal and happens occasionally, it makes sense they would have developed some sort of term for it, but because the setting is very different from 'modern day real world,' I doubt the word 'transgender' would be used.

• I've been contemplating using the word 'urning' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranian

as it sounds exotic enough to work and has a similar meaning (as it originally refered to the idea of a man having the mind of a woman)

• The only thing with this is, it was originally used to describe a Trans Equals Gay interpretation of homosexuality. And even though it's VERY unlikely someone (except a few well read folks) would actually know it was an 'actual term that was used at one point' I'd rather not have to worry about using a term to incorrectly/offensively label a group.

Any thoughts?

First, I'd shy away from the term "Uranian" because to the untrained eye, it looks like it would reference people from Uranus and... yeah. Talk about your hanging curveballs over the heart of the plate.
Second, and much more important, what is the root of sexual orientation in your universe? The commonly accepted explanation IRL is "a combination of biological and psychological factors," but you're going to have to assign weights to each one- a very homosexual person winding up in a body with very heterosexual hardwiring would logically lead to a very weird disconnect. You might want to establish some kind of omnisexual/asexual default that kicks in when the consciousness starts picking up on too many contradictory signals. Alternatively, you can avoid this by making it strictly biological or psychological, though there's Unfortunate Implications in both cases. A further complication is that this question- "why are we the way we are-" is a very touchy one in the GLBT community, due in no small part to early investigations being devoted to wildly misguided attempts to "cure" us. This had led to the whole topic getting blackballed.

Well in my setting, sexuality is mostly focused on as being pyschological more than anything else. (This is a fantasy setting we're talking about though) For example, if a someone was a straight man and Body Surf ed into a female body (whose previous occupant was straight as well) he would still be a gynophile. And I wasn't planning on using uranian anyway, but does urning still have some Accidental Inuendo?

"Urning-" sounds like it has something to do with pottery, but that's all that comes to mind. (Of course, you could throw in a folk etymology and say "basically, it's putting the same contents into another jug- shaped a little different, but otherwise the same.")
Though, let's be honest, someone who Body Surfed into a different sex would probably be curious as to their new functionality, at least the first time around. They wouldn't all act on it, of course, but I can see a Yaoi Fangirl or Yuri Fanboy winding up in a body of the opposite sex and getting a very rude awakening when they tried to act on their fantasies (admittedly, pretty lowbrow comedy.)
It's good that you have the details on hand. I wouldn't focus too much on the sexuality aspect, obviously, but tying it mainly to psychology does make it convenient for characters to bring along their baggage (so to speak.)
Actually, you might have to come up with alternative-alternative sexualities- "men who have sex with men but only when they're women" would probably be a category you'd see crop up along with the inverse.

edited 1st Sep '13 3:59:25 PM by edgewalker22

If the duration between switching bodies is fairly short (a few months to say, 2-3 years) you could call them something akin to "visitors". I can't think of the more precise term I would use but it gets across that the person is just temporarily in a body that has the opposite sex of the body surfer's gender.

I have to return some videotapes. My Wall

An 'invert' used to be a term used. Relatively inoffensive, accurate and obscure. Perfect.

'All shall love me and despar!'

All of those would actually be pretty good variants. Thanks :)