Transgender, a person (transexual or transvestite) who identifies and/or expresses a gender identity that differs from the one which corresponds to the person’s sex at birth, sometimes involving a partial or full reversal of gender.
Two Gender & Justice classes ago, we watched a film titled, Almost Myself. My eyes opened to the transgender person’s lives, and I still am not quite sure if I understand the concept of being transgender quite yet, but I am on the path to. (And to add on to that, it doesn’t matter if I or anyone else does not fully understand it, they deserve their rights and humanity.) The topic of transgender surrounds the identity of a person, but as after watching that film, it also seems to surround sex & gender roles. Those roles in itself are horrendous in most circumstances, and if individuals are undergoing physical transformations to fit socially, patriarchal constructed gender roles, I am worried.
It appeared to me finally on November 12, 2010, that the Universe opened up, at least the immediate Universe around me on the the topic of Transgenderism. Where after watching Almost Myself, within the week there have been 2 separate occasions while watching television the topic of transgender or transexual have come up.
The first being on Late Show with David Letterman where Cher was a guest. The conversation led into a discussion on Cher’s transgender son Chaz, who was born female.
The second being on the The View (Begin @ 8:00) during their hot topics where they discussed a Kansas mom allowed her young boy to dress as Daphne of Scooby Doo for Halloween.
In the former, Letterman of course, kept laughter surrounding the conversation to ease uncomfortableness though allowed a serious topic to be aired.
In the latter, The View’s discussions surrounding transexual and transgender persons took on the form of both confusion, dissaproval, and ignorance. But, you could’ve guess that.
In the case of David Letterman’s show with Cher, Letterman kept the jokes going, however, Cher kept her ground and peace in explaining how Transgender persons feel. Transgender is not always the same thing as being homosexual; transgender is the feeling of being trapped in another gender’s body. One could be born female, undergo surgery to become male, and continue to be attracted to females. It mostly surrounds identity, not sexual preference. The audience was in support of Cher and Chaz because of Chaz’s bravery since it is a struggle within one’s identity during the process and there being a hostile atmosphere surrounding the subject due to prejudices. Overall, it was nice to see Letterman asking appropiate questions on Transgender persons and giving time for Cher to speak on the matter.
As for The View, their topic began with transsexual persons and led into a topic on transgender. God love Sherri Shepherd, of course, was against having a boy dressing as a girl. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, for the first time I was proud of her, said to not give power over certain matters especially surrounding a child’s Halloween costume, “Parents express their fears through their children.” Whoopi Goldberg added that adults make certain matters into bad things because of their prejudices because a lot of times, children don’t see anything wrong if another child is dressed as the opposite gender. Adults are whom which make transgender and transsexual wrong, not children. And then, Joy Behar finally said it, she finally said the issue of men dressing as women has to do with homophobia.
Though I agree with all of the statements expressed in The View, except Sherri’s, the topics of transsexual, homosexuality, and transgender is that patriarchy tends to turn a blind eye to when women becoming more masculine. Patriarchy doesn’t mind as much when females act, appear, or surgically become more masculine because it therefore uplifts the male, patriarchal standard. I wonder how the conversation would have gone with Letterman if Cher were to say her son underwent surgery to become female? Allora, if a male becomes more feminine either through being a transgender, homosexual, or transvestite, patriarchy shoves the male out since he is castrating masculinity.
Yes, Letterman is very different than The View women. However, in both shows when the subject manner arrived at a female becoming male, tension was subdued and a form of acceptability came about. But when a male becomes or acts like a female, all hell breaks loose.
There is always an underlying of misogyny and there may be a continuance of confusion and misunderstanding of transgender persons. But, with all of its lacking, at least we are discussing the matter and not sweeping it under the carpet like we did with so many other individuals.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 
The desired aesthetics/physical shape of one’s body that one feels most comfortable with is not the same thing as gender expression and exists independently of sexual orientation. Put another way, one might be born with a male body, experience a deep need to have a female body, express themselves as butch via clothing and body language and identify as a bisexual woman. Similarly, a person who has transitioned to a male form, and adopts a masculine gender expression may be attracted exclusively to men and identify as neither a man nor a woman.
Think of human identity being measured and plotted within a multi-dimensional coordinate system. With sex, gender, and sexuality, there are several axis of being at play here: sex identity (what shape of body do you feel comfortable inhabiting), gender identity (do you identify as a woman, man, or both/neither), gender expression (masculine, feminine, or both/neither), and sexual orientation (attracted to women, men, both/neither, pansexual, asexual etc.). Transgender expression can combine any position on of the first three axis and can coexist with any kind of sexual orientation. There are many possible variations and there pretty much exists a real life person to fulfill every possibility.
Do a good many trans folks fit into the standard pink and blue boxes of societal notions of gender after they transition? Sure… but so do cis (non-transgender) people, too. Trans people come from all walks of life and all parts of the general population. Is it surprising that they reflect the values and tastes of the general population? As you’ve no doubt noticed, people still largely inhabit a range if identities and expressions that conform to standard gender prejudices/expectations. However, you always have outliers, regardless of whether you are speaking of trans or cis people. As with non-conformists of any minority population, the media tends to either ignore them, or exploit them in ways designed to undermine the acceptability of the population in question.
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Oops. I meant to use the plural “axes” instead of the singular “axis.” Oh well.
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This was very enlightening timberwraith, it gave me more insight which I needed. Thank you for your reply. The concept of gender and sex, I understand, it’s pretty simple really. But then you took a step forward (now, if I might say, I am not a dumbass) however when you then said gender expression, I think that was the “missing piece” I needed to fully understand the concept of transgender. Personally, though I am female, I don’t think everyday, “Hey, I am female. I am in the women’s restroom. I am wearing a skirt therefore I know and feel I am female.” Alot of times, I just feel human, if that makes sense. I have a brain, two arms, and two legs, oh and yeah I have breasts but I mostly am only thinking day to day, I am human. Not female, not male, just human. So I think you just put into words what I felt.
Secondly, I loved how you identified the concept of just feeling and believing to be in another body. Tell me if I am wrong, but it’s just the thought (putting all gender norms, stereotypes, and expectations aside), that you want to be male or female. Just the feeling of being. If that makes sense? Well, I get it I believe..
Thanks so much for your response, I appreciate it. It was clarifying and needed.
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With transition so long in the past (16 years ago), that pretty much describes my every day experiences, too. At this point, being a woman isn’t anything special. It’s just one of many aspects of my life here on planet Earth.
I can’t speak for all trans people, as there are a wide variety of experiences and a great diversity of forms of expression across the four axes I described. Having said that, the sense of being female (or needing to be female) has a kind of shape and texture of emotion that doesn’t necessarily connect with any social convention. As with any emotion, it simply is, in the way that happiness, sadness, love, anger, etc. simply are. This emotional sense has a particular intuitive directive embedded in the experience. For me, that directive entailed the sense that a female physical form felt natural to me and a male form felt uncomfortable and wrong. Again, this directive was encoded in emotion just as needing to spend time with a person you care about is encoded in emotion. You can describe the experience in words, but words will never truly capture the actual experience. The experience is not reducible to logical, easily related terms because emotion, by it’s very nature, is subjective.
Anyway, that sense of needing to be female doesn’t necessarily include an affinity to dress or behave in ways that society deems “feminine.” For some people, it might and often does, but in my opinion, the need to be of a particular physical form can coexist with a whole host of other kinds of expression.
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I completely agree. Humans are multi-facetted and it is a shame when society or individuals hone into only one part.
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