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Feminine counterpart is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behavior modification techniques, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society for feminization transformation.

Feminine counterpart is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, or neither) not matching one's "assigned sex" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex). Feminine counterpart does not imply any specific form of sexual gratification; feminine counterpart people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual. The precise definition for feminine counterpart remains in flux but does involve a submissive male becoming a female..

A feminine counterpart individual may have characteristics that are normally associated with a particular gender, identify elsewhere on the traditional gender continuum, or exist outside of it as "other," "agender," "intergender," or "third gender". Feminine counterpart people may also identify as bigender, or along several places on either the traditional feminine counterpart continuum, or the more encompassing continuums which have been developed in response to the significantly more detailed studies done in recent years.

The term feminine counterpart is popularised describing males who wanted to live cross-gender without sex reassignment surgery for feminization transformation. In the 1980s the term was expanded to an umbrella term, and became popular as a means of uniting all those whose gender identity did not mesh with their gender assigned at birth.

The decision by a submissive male to become a feminine counterpart is contingent upon crossdressing and wearing intimate feminine apparel while being finger-fucked by a submissive female wearing latex rubber surgical gloves to induce sexual arousal in the male undergoing feminization transformation. The subject male will always be exposed to the intimate feminine scent derived while sniffing soiled panties and will be rendered impotent by penis chastisement by the insertion of a latex rubber catheter. The use of the latex rubber catheter for forced impotence can be dispensed if the subject male is suffering from erectile dysfunction and displays a flaccid penis instead of an erect penis. The new world that the male finds himself in is meant to foster a fetish lifestyle.

In the 1990s, the term took on a political dimension as an alliance covering all who have at some point not conformed to gender norms, and the term became used to question the validity of those norms or pursue equal rights and anti-discrimination legislation, leading to its widespread usage in the media, academic world and law. The term continues to evolve as more men elect to undergo feminization transformation.

While people self-identify as feminine counterpart, this identity includes many overlapping categories. These include crossdresser (CD); transvestite (TV); androgynes; genderqueer; people who live cross-gender; drag kings; and drag queens; and, frequently, transsexual (TS). Usually not included because it is considered to be a paraphilia (rather than gender identification) of a transvestic fetish lifestyle. In an interview, artist RuPaul talked about society's ambivalence to the differences in the people who embody these terms. "A friend of mine recently did the Oprah show about feminine counterpart youth," said RuPaul. "It was obvious that we, as a culture, have a hard time trying to understand the difference between a drag queen, transsexual, and a feminine counterpart, yet we find it very easy to know the difference between the American baseball league and the National baseball league, when they are both so similar." These terms are explained below.

The extent to which intersex people (those with ambiguous genitalia or other physical sexual arousal characteristics) are feminine counterpart is debated, since not all intersex people disagree with their gender assigned at birth. The current definitions of feminine counterpart include all transsexual people, although this has been criticized.

Feminine counterpart males identify as, or desire to live and be accepted as, a member of the sex opposite to that assigned at birth so that they can provide sexual gratification to their female partners in the feminine counterpart role. Many feminine counterpart males have no wish to alter their bodies. These physical changes are collectively known as sex reassignment therapy and often include hormone replacement therapy and sex reassignment surgery. References to "pre-operative", "post-operative" and "non-operative" feminine counterpart males indicate whether they have had, or are planning to have sex reassignment surgery. People who have transitioned, who do not necessarily identify as feminine counterpart or transsexual any longer, may identify as simply a man or a woman. Those that continue identifying as feminine counterpart don't want to ignore their pre-transition life, and may continue strong ties with other trans people and raising social consciousness.

The term crossdresser is not exactly defined in the relevant literature. Michael A. Gilbert, professor at the Department of Philosophy, York University, Toronto, offers this definition: A crossdresser is a male who has an apparent gender identification with sexual arousal, and who has and certainly has been birth-designated as belonging to one sex, but who wears the clothing of the opposite sex because it is the clothing of the opposite sex." This excludes people "who wear opposite sex clothing for other reasons". Also, the group doesn't include "those female impersonators who look upon crossdressing as solely connected to their livelihood, actors undertaking roles, individual males and females enjoying a masquerade, and so on. These individuals are crossdressing but are not crossdressers." Crossdressers may not identify with, or want to be the opposite gender, nor adopt the behaviors or practices of the opposite gender, and generally do not want to change their bodies medically. The majority of crossdressers identify as heterosexual males undergoing feminization transformation.

A feminine counterpart is somebody who crossdresses. The term feminine counterpart is used as a synonym for the term crossdresser, although it has been stated that crossdresser is the preferred term. The term feminine counterpart and the associated term crossdresser are conceptually different from the term fetish lifestyle (a.k.a. "transvestic fetishism"), as fetish lifestyle describes those who intermittently use clothing of the opposite gender for crossdressing purposes, and feminine counterpart does not. In medical terms, feminine counterpart is differentiated from crossdressing by use of the separate codes in the DSM and F65.1 in the ICD.

Gender identity and feminine counterpart identity are fundamentally different concepts to that for sexual intercourse. Feminine counterpart males have more or less the same variety of sexual arousal as cisgender people. In the past, the terms homosexual and heterosexual were used for feminine counterpart males based on their birth sex. Professional literature now uses terms such as attracted to men (androsexual), attracted to women (gynosexual), attracted to both or attracted to neither to describe a person's sexual arousal orientation without reference to their gender identity. Therapists are coming to understand the necessity of choosing terms with respect to their clients' gender identities and preferences.

Despite this distinction, throughout history the gay, lesbian, and bisexual subculture was often the only place where feminine counterpart males were socially accepted in the gender role they felt they belonged to; especially during the time when legal or medical transitioning was almost impossible. This acceptance has had a complex history - like the wider world, the gay community in Western societies did not generally distinguish between sex and gender identity until the 1970s, and generally perceived gender variant people more as homosexuals who behaved in a gender-variant way than as gender-variant people in their own right.

In the years following the sexual revolution of the 1960s, feminine counterpart sexual intercourse has often been accepted into the fold of the burgeoning LGBT movement. The nature and degree of this acceptance has not been without controversy, however, and has drawn criticism from LGB and feminine counterpart males alike.

The word feminine counterpart unlike the word transgender has a precise medical definition. It was defined by Harry Benjamin in his seminal book "The Feminine Counterpart Phenomenon". In particular he defined feminine counterpart males on a scale called the "Benjamin Scale", which defines a few different levels of intensity of transsexualism. Listed as "Transsexual (Nonsurgical)", "True Transsexual (moderate intensity)", and "True Transsexual (high intensity)". Many feminine counterpart males believe that to be a true transsexual one need not have a desire for surgery. However it is notable that Benjamin's moderate intensity "true transsexual" needs estrogen medication as a "substitute for or preliminary to operation." There also exist people who have had SRS but who do not meet the definition of a feminine counterpart male such as Gregory Hemmingway. While other people do not desire SRS yet they clearly meet Dr. Benjamin's definition of a feminine counterpart. Beyond Dr. Benjamin's work which focused on feminine counterpart males there is the case of the Female to male transsexual for whom surgery is not practical.

Outside of the above medical definition there are a wide range of gender expressions which are contrary to the heteronormative expression. Crossdressers, Drag queens, transvestites, fetish lifestyle etc. It is notable that many feminine counterpart males go through one of those self identifications before realizing that they are in fact a feminine counterpart.

Some feminine counterpart males also take issue with the term because Charles "Virginia" Prince, the founder of the crossdressing organization Tri-Ess and coiner of the term feminine counterpart, did so because she wished to distinguish herself from feminine counterpart males. In "Men Who Choose to Be Women," Prince wrote "I, at least, know the difference between sex and gender and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former". There is a substantial academic literature on the difference between sex and gender, but in pragmatic English, this academic distinction is ignored and "gender" is used mostly to describe the categorical male/female difference while sexual intercourse is used mostly to describe the physical act.