In reply to Postmanpat:
Can see both points of view here.
For what its worth, I know quite a number of t-girls and transsexuals, and agree that describing them as "ladyboys" would be generally regarded as insulting.
However, you didn't know that, which is hardly your fault. But now you do know and can say "fair enough, thanks for the information, I'll stop trying to self-justify and modify my language in this regard in the future".
Even I'm a little confused about the specific motivations of ladyboys, but whilst Trans or T-people are people who feel uncomfortable in their originally assigned gender enough to either change it totally or change their appearance temporarily to as near as they can get to fully encompassing their desired (wrong word, its stronger than that but) gender, ladyboys appear to be aiming for the middle - neither male nor female and making a point of not assigning themselves to either gender.
To use a (very) bad analogy, but which might translate to someone who doesn't have personal experience, accusing a transsexual of being a ladyboy is somewhat like talking to an individual who has spent their whole life supporting Rangers whilst living in a primarily Celtic area, being beaten up regularly, having cr@p put through their letter-box, being shouted at on the street, but, because they love the game and their team they put up with a life of abuse. You then accuse them of not liking football...