Transgender 101: What does it mean to be transgender?

This would seem to be a straightforward question, and in a certain sense it is. But at the same time it requires us to reorient our understanding of and thinking about gender, identity, sexuality and biology.

For example, I am a transgender woman. That means that I identify as female, but I'm transgender because when I was born the doctor or nurse looked at my anatomical parts and said "It's a boy!"  Social and cultural boundaries at the time of my birth and in the sphere in which I was raised therefore determined that I must be male and I must be raised accordingly.

But the connection between anatomy (or biology -- the body we're born with) and gender is not so clear cut. For most people anatomy is fairly straightforward. One is either born with male body parts or female body parts, except for those who are not, in which case this distinction already breaks down. Regardless of this, we now recognize that one's gender is distinct from one's birth anatomy. Gender relates to how one identifies internally. Here we confront another obstacle in our traditional understanding. Not only do most people (and I speak here of western or more specifically American culture because it's the one I know) connect anatomy and gender, they also see gender as a binary: one is either male or female. But in fact gender exists along a continuum. People can identify as mostly male but partly female, or vice versa, or as half and half, or anywhere else along the spectrum. It doesn't have to be strictly one or another. Some people find they identify differently at different times. As much as we like to group people into nice, neat categories so we know how to view and treat them, gender isn't nearly so nice and clear cut as we have always been taught.

Since gender and anatomy are not inherently connected, and gender is not a strict binary division, one has to describe how one's gender and anatomy relate, and this is where the term transgender comes into play. Someone who identifies as transgender recognizes that the sex they were assigned at birth (usually due to anatomical features) does not agree in some degree with their internal gender identity. In my case, I was assigned male at birth (AMAB) but identify as female. If I identified as male, I would be cisgender, meaning that my gender identity and the sex I was assigned at birth are generally in agreement.

To complicate things further, we could add in a discussion of sexuality, which has to do with the sexual attractions one has. This too is distinct from gender and, to some extent at least, with anatomy. Many people assume that transgender women (to focus on my identity) must be gay men who like to dress as women. But that's not the case at all. A gay cisgender male is someone who is anatomically male, identifies as male and is attracted to other men. That doesn't describe me at all. I am a woman who happened to be born with male anatomy and is either asexual or attracted to other women, which would make me a lesbian. See how the terminology gets confusing? We want to have everything neat and tidy because that makes the world seem simpler, but that denies the reality of the lived experience of many people like myself. So let's put aside our dualistic, limiting perspectives and accept that people come in a wide variety.

I've done my best to give a brief introduction here. There is much more we could explore and probably will as this blog develops. Among other things the question of pronouns used to speak of people comes into play. (For the record, if you are speaking about me, please use she/her!) I highly recommend this article for further introduction to what transgender means. It includes some good links for further exploration as well.