Transgender Courage

To be clear, I am not transgender. As far as I am concerned, I was born female and I identify as female, though I am a bit of a “tomboy” and not at all “girlie”. To be honest, I never really understood why people choose to change genders. I understand the L, G and B of LGBTQ. Sometimes I understand the Q. I just could not understand the T. Why not just continue being male or female, but just dress the way you want to dress and love who you want to love? Why go through the process of gender reassignment?

That said, I do not need to understand the T in order to understand that transgender persons are human beings just like me, deserving of the same respect that I would hope they would give me. I do not need to understand their decision to change genders because it is really none of my business. These are two fundamental facts that everyone needs to understand and respect, but unfortunately, many do not. I have given a lot of thought to this subject over the course of the past few years. I have sought to understand gender reassignment, the terms “binary” and “identification” (as applied to gender) and “pansexual” (as applied to sexuality) and so far, I understand “identification” the most. I think understanding “identification” is a stepping stone toward understanding gender reassignment. The greatest piece of understanding though, which I think should be a third fundamental fact that everyone should understand and respect about transgender persons is what has brought me to write this blog entry. This new revelation is courage. It requires a great deal of courage for a person to decide to be transgender.

It takes courage to come out of the closet as LGBTQ to anyone. I identify as bi-sexual. I am attracted to both men and women, though for me, I am more often attracted to men than women. I know this is not true for every bi-sexual individual. Some are equally attracted to both, while others might be more attracted to women. Asking a bi-sexual person to break this down into percentages however is disrespectful and annoying, so please refrain from doing so. There are a multitude of reasons why, but only one reason I will explain here because this entry isn’t about me or bi-sexuality. My ex-boyfriend asked me to break it down into percentages. I can break this question down into two parts personally. On the one hand, I tend to be with more men than women, so one could say I am more attracted to men than women. On the other hand, I personally think women look better physically than men, particularly au natural, so then one could say I am more attracted to women than men. When you balance it all out, mathematically I am 50/50. This offended my ex-boyfriend because being the self-absorbed prick that he was, he wanted me to say that I am more attracted to men and that I find his body attractive. I didn’t. His body, like so many other male bodies, I find to be functional. I will let your imagination determine what I mean by functional. The point is that when you ask a bi-sexual person to break it down into percentages, not only are you asking the impossible, you are asking to be personally offended.

I do not tell everyone that I am bi-sexual. Most of my family does not know. My children do not know, primarily because two of them are so largely influenced by their father and one of them I think will have a difficult time processing that information right now. Since I am not currently in a relationship with a woman, I do not find it necessary to tell my children right now. My former co-workers, who were predominately conservative, did not know. I am a terrible example of a proud bi-sexual. I largely lack the courage to tell everyone.

Those who do have the courage to tell people that they are LGBTQ do not typically go stand on a mountaintop with megaphone in hand and shout it to the world. They do not necessarily go on live television and announce it either, though some brave celebrities have. Most come out at first to a few friends in whom they feel they can trust, all the while their heart is pounding and they have giant butterflies doing cartwheels in their stomach. They hope their friends will say something like “well, for Pete’s sake, why are you trying to be something you’re not then? Why not just be you?” What if they don’t say that though? They might just start with going to gay bars and clubs and later test the waters with strangers they may never see again first. In time, they will test the waters with individual family members, but it’s certainly not something they are going to announce at the next family reunion or major celebration. Maybe they will tell their co-workers, but this could backfire and cause them to lose their job or chances at promotion. Though most employers will not tell you this is the reason, it still is a credible threat. Each person an LGBTQ person comes out to will require the same amount of courage that each person before them required. Deciding to transition to another gender requires a whole other level of courage.

Transitioning is changing fundamental things about who you once were. A person’s hormones, body, voice and gender assignment changes. Many of them undergo surgeries. All of these procedures take courage to go through. Additionally, the amount of courage it takes to face people while going through these changes and after having undergone them is double that of what it took to come out as LGB or Q. Transgender persons are courageous human beings who deserve to be treated as human beings. You do not have to agree with how they live their life, but you should at least agree that they deserve the same amount of respect you do.