[@Fillet]

If labeling someone as a transgender makes no difference to how the RP perceives them in terms of traditional gender roles, then what's the harm in ignoring it? Labeling a character as such allows for future events to bring up the transgender issue if the player feels like it. Labeling a character as "male" and then bringing up a possible transgender issue in the RP would cause significantly more confusion.

Perhaps the gender comes up in a moment of conversation between a few sympathetic or curious characters, or perhaps it never comes up at all and the player simply...plays. In any case, the assertion that someone [i]must[/i] be strictly "male" or "female" unless their transgender status makes a difference to the character or the story inherently implies that "transgender" is something different--something too special to mention unless it matters. Personally, I find that a little off-putting. Just read "transgender" like you would read "male" or "female" and the issue goes away. How other characters perceive/interact with a distinctly labeled "transgender" is an entirely separate matter from the character's actual gender identity.

I do, however, understand your complaint when it's a blatantly careless labeling for the sake of being different--the people who do that are abusing the identity for special snowflake purposes, but the line isn't particularly clear between a special baby and a genuinely transgender character whose gender identity simply has little effect IC. Since that's the case, perhaps give characters like that the benefit of the doubt since there's no issue to be had, honestly.