Transgender: a person who has a different perception of his or her gender (mental perception/role) from the natural 2-gender system that is reinforced by many cultures. Transgenderism is in itself a social construct.
Transsexual: a person whose gender identity does not match his/her birth sex. So they could be a woman wrongly born with male parts or a man wrongly born with female parts. It is an inborn condition and not a choice. A TS is not a person who thinks they are the other gender. It is that they are already the other gender and simply don't have a matching body. If you are not a woman before getting MtF surgery, then you should not get the surgery, not unless you have other overriding reasons. In that case, it would be more like a body mod.
Transvestite or crossdresser: a person, male or female, who assumes the dress and manner usually associated with the opposite sex but does not believe him/herself to have the wrong physical parts i.e. does not want to become a person of the opposite sex. Nor do they already believe the are that sex. A person just wearing clothes of the opposite sex is not necessarily crossdressing; crossdressing requires the intent to wear clothes of the opposite sex, often whether they physically fit or not. So that is why women can wear pants without being seen as crossdressing.
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Transgenderism is a state of mind that does not usually affect the body, just how one lives. A transgendered person feels his/her gender (sex of his/her mind) does not match anything in the binary, male or female only, construct of gender that society assigns to us.
If a person desires surgery, then it is likely because they were born with transsexualism and are seeking to eliminate it and assimilate. Such persons are a subset of cisgender or mainstream, not transgender.
Transvestism is simply dressing in the clothing of the opposite gender. Crossdressing is sometimes done for celebratory or theatrical purposes.
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