Being Transgender Identity Papers

Imagine, you go to work in your dress shoes, black suit, buzz-cut hair, red power tie, and nobody pays you a second look. But, the second you get home, you kick off your shoes, and don high-heels, the suit is replaced with a dress, your short wig is taken off, and you let your long curls fall, and your tie is in the closet, with a necklace in its place. Such hiding of true feelings is not an unheard concept in the transgender world. Millions of transgender people will never express their true feelings in their lifetime. This is similar to The Intruder by Andre Dubus, Kenneth Girard a

My client for this week’s assignment is a transgender women named Gwen. Gwen has come to the counseling session because she has agreed to share her story with others in the hope that her story will help and inspire other transgender individual who are struggling with their assigned gender. Before beginning her transition from male to female Gwen describes herself as a very different individual, one who was going through the motions of life, but finding little to no pleasure in her daily activities (Queer Theory in Action, 2011).For example, Gwen daily routine before the transition was work, go home, eat and then bed. She would use sleep as an escape from her unhappiness with her life. Also, before Gwen began the transition she was very depressed

There’s been a lot of debate on the treatment of transgenders, in efforts to better the lives of those who suffer from gender dysphoria, both in a social and medical context. However, there isn’t much scientific understanding of the important ideas and questions that have sparked these debates. For instance, there haven’t been any explanations as to why, even after gender affirming and sex reassignment, transgenders are still at higher risks of mortality and suicidal behaviour than the general population (Dhejne et al. 2011). Despite this lack of understanding physicians and mental health care providers have arrived at a number of methods for treating individuals with gender dysphoria. One such practice is “gender-affirming,” rather than challenging, the therapist accepts

In a lot of places around the world more and more people are coming out as “Transgender.” The term transgender means that the person’s gender identity does not correspond with the gender they were assigned as having at birth. From personally having a transgender boyfriend I have since realized that these people experience a lot of discrimination in and from society. Many people simply just do not understand what the term transgender means and they see it as someone just “wants to be a man” or “wants to be a woman.” While there may be people who present it this way, it is more so that the individual just “feels” different, and “feels” as if they are “in the wrong body.” Some people experience this feeling at a young age as my boyfriend did in his elementary age. We live in a world who put these people down for being who they truly are, and no human being wants or needs that.

Coming out as a transgender, identifying with a gender expression that differs from the assigned sex, has proven to be quite difficult through the ages. While the acceptance of transgender people has grown significantly higher throughout the years, people’s stance on them are still quite divided, and the uphill battle for transgender rights has proven this. Just giving transgenders the right to simply go to the bathroom they identify with has shown to be controversial according to the TIME cover Battle of the Bathroom. The TIME magazine makes sure to note the problem defiantly “far more than public facilities” (Scherer par. 9). Transgender rights are a problem that Jamison Green, president for World Professional Association for Transgender Health, thoroughly addresses in a report written by Alan Greenblatt for CQ Researcher. Jamison Green’s specific purpose in that report is to justify why transgender people deserve basic human rights like everybody else, as shown in society, through his use of facts, qualifiers, figurative language, counterarguments, and appeals to logic and values.

His mother holds up another dress, remarking on how cute it is and handing it to him to try on. She ignores the uncomfortable look on his face and tells him to hurry up. He sits in the dressing room in silence, looking at himself in the mirror, the dress hanging on a hook beside him. He furrows his brows, covers his chest with his arms, and stares at the face looking back at him. It doesn’t look right, he thinks, trying not to cry. All his life he had been called “she” and “girl” and it never felt right. No one told him it was okay to feel this way when he brought it up, instead yelling at him, telling him he was just confused. It made him sick, pretending to be a girl, but no one listened or cared. Due to the many misconceptions about them, transgender people face harmful discrimination, whether being told their feelings are invalid, that there is no such thing, or being killed for who they are. Identifying as a gender other than the one you are assigned at birth is seen as unnatural in a world ruled by a rigid gender binary, so understanding transgender people’s experiences is necessary for a safe life for them.

Imagine this morning you woke up as the opposite gender. You would go about your day as normal, insisting that you were the same gender you were the day before despite the fact that everyone else insists that you are the opposite gender which you woke up as this morning. Maybe eventually you would go along with it and say that you were the opposite gender even though it feels wrong to you. Maybe you would continue to insist otherwise even though no one seems to listen to you. This is only the first of your problems though, as you would soon realize. You would run into many other problems throughout your day. For example, which bathroom would you use? How would you deal with being stuck in a body that just feels wrong? How should you dress yourself now? These are only a few of the problems transgender people face every single day, in addition to the bullying, discrimination, and non-acceptance from other people.

The typical narrative of gender non-conforming individuals I have been exposed to is that of a “man born in a woman’s body”, so while I found myself at a disconnect from my assigned label as a girl, my limited understanding of gender left me confused when I found I was no more personally connected to a male label. Recently however, I have learned that it is possible for someone to fall past the traditional narrative of transgender America; identifying as neither man nor woman, both man and woman, or somewhere between the two. Gaining this knowledge allowed me to realize with the discomfort I find in being called “ma’am”, unease in being referred to as a “daughter” or “sister”, and disassociation with conventionally female pronouns she/her, that I could identify my gender as agender or more broadly,

In recent years, a growing body of research and literature from a variety of professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association (APA) and the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), has attempted to better understand and meet the needs of transgender individuals and the clinicians who provide their care. This is reflective of a societal shift towards inclusion, as well as a growing number of transgender individuals on the caseloads of clinicians. The APA, for example, made changes to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 2013 to reduce stigma and improve clinical care available to the transgender community. Specifically, the DSM-5, “changed gender identity

I wanted to get multiple perspectives and a diversity of representation in my piece. I also wanted to take a look at the difference of how cishets talk about and describe being transgender compared to a trans person because it is a part of their own experience. I feel like that the interviews went pretty much as expected when I interviewed trans people and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. I was surprised with the responses I received from some of my cishet interviewees because quite a few lacked knowledge about what transgender means and the experience of identifying as a trans person. I feel like that even those who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community that do not identify as trans are still considerably knowledgeable about what it’s like to be trans. I think the reason for this is that a lot of queer people usually know or spend a lot of time with other queer people. I feel that the same goes for cishets. The divide between these two populations is the reason for the lack of knowledge and

The one thing I did notice as I began my research into this topic was that there was a surprising lack of transgender voices being heard in peer-reviewed sources. Only one article that I used for my final paper actually interviewed transgender people. I know that I can still improve as a writer. There mistakes I don’t catch, and there are errors in almost any final copy I turn in. There will probably be errors in this essay that I don’t catch. Even though I know that I have plenty of room to improve on the technical side of my writing, I am proud of the fact that I took that essay as an opportunity to present a transgender person’s view on a trans issue, even if only a few people will ever read

Secondly, the exposure to the difficulties our transgender population navigates has been enlightening. I do recall, a number of years ago seeing a transgender person evoking feelings of animosity. Fortunately, I learned that such feelings are simply a reflecting of insecurity in one’s own masculinity. Ones I came to this realization, I was able to expel my negative impulses when faced with a transgender person. However, it is still a difficult phenomenon for me to understand as my exposure to the community has been limited, which is why I chose to seek out a transsexual person for my interview of an “other” assignment. Additionally, it was insightful to hear the stories of the trans people who spoke in class as further understanding facilitates greater acceptance.

Attending school throughout the eighties and nineties, I never encountered many issues centered around diversity in school. There were a couple girls that dressed what some may call “boyish” occasionally, but we never really thought much of it growing up. It was in the 12th year of my education career that I came in contact with a student who looked and sounded like a boy, but wore the clothing of a girl. Being confused by this when I first laid eyes on him, I remember asking the student’s mother his name so that I could accurately determine his gender. His mother politely replied, “Her name is Marquise.” He was living as, what Serano (2013) called as a “trans woman.” It was then that I realized what gender identity and expression truly was. Gender according to Catalano and Shlasko (2013), carries a vast range of cultural and social meanings and individuals decide the way in which they wish to express their gender to others. This student was definitely born a male but was clearly identifying himself with the female population. Once I got to truly know the student, I learned that he was taking hormones in order to start the journey of changing his identity and referred to himself as being transgender. It was truly surprised at how well our students treated him throughout his four years with us. Additionally, students and teachers alike treated him with respect and gave him just as much attention as the rest of the student population. I, myself, learned to see him as just another student but for some reason I could never bring myself to calling him a “her” or refer to him as “she.” It made me feel as if I was saying the wrong thing. Although, many people look at transgender individuals and see it as weird, Marquise taught me so much about how looking and acting different from society’s normal is actually completely normal.

Going to a public bathroom and feeling comfortable and safe is taken for granted by a majority of the public in today’s society. Most people have no hesitation about using their bathroom of choice because their gender identity matches the sex posted on the bathroom door. But, what happens when a person’s self-identity contradicts societal norms? Transgender men and

The most obvious challenges I have faced living as a transgender male have been physical, but the hardest I have faced have not only been personal, but emotional. I have encountered countless overly personal inquisitions, questioning looks, and awkward introductions. Existing as a biological female for a large portion of my life imbued that period of time with many challenges. As a child, I fought passionately with my parents to shop in the “boys” section of the store, to play hockey and lacrosse, and to never step foot in a dress. I often wondered why other children would point and snicker at my choice of clothing. I even asked my distraught mother why I was “put in the wrong body” at the age of three. I had to grow up and not only learn, but understand and accept that I am not the same as everyone else. I had to come to terms with the fact that most people do not face the challenge of waking up every day and overcoming the feeling that something is fundamentally “off” that cannot truly be “fixed”. “Average” is a description I often longed to be labeled in the past, but over the years I have discovered that striving to be above average is the true key to success.