Understanding Transgender

With so much misinformation around, it is important to get to the facts and logic behind sex and gender. Understanding transgender requires briefly exploring the biology of sex and how that is different to the gender representation constructs so that we can understand why gender identity may not align with biological sex. Mental illness is often co-occurring with trans gender identity for both societal and biological reasons. Trans affirming care addresses both of these aspects and decreases trans people’s mortality.

Transgender describes a the concept of a person whose gender identity is not the same as the sex registered for them at birth. In chemistry, “cis” describes two parts of a molecule that are on the same side and “trans” means the two parts are across from each other, or not the same side. In a similar way, cisgender means that the gender identity and birth registered sex identity match (they are on the same side). It is not a slur, just a recognition of alignment. Transgender means that the gender identity and the birth registered sex identity do not match.

Let us take a look at why biological sex and gender identity are not the same.

Biological Sex is not Gender

We need to differentiate between biological sex and gender.

Biological sex is what category you fall into so far as far as your biology is concerned if there is a condition that has a sex driven component. For example, some conditions exist for people who are intersex (not XX or XY chromosomed, such as XXX chromosome) and not for people who are classically XX or XY.

The chromosomes that a person has does not define their sex either. While most people who have XX chromosomes will be biologically female, with the expected female features of soft skin, breasts, vagina and uterus, there are people who are born with XX chromosomes and do not have some or any of those features. The same applies for XY chromosomed people.

While determining what is a biological man and what is a biological woman is quite easy for most of the population, there is no single biology definition that always works. The major problem here is a category error. We have been raised with the simple idea that animals come in two sexes, male and female, and that there is a simple way to tell what that is. Both of these statements are literally wrong. There are more than two biological sexes in most species of animal, including humans, and no simple way to determine what that biological sex is for all members of each species.

Now let us look at gender.

Gender is a construct. Your society constructed what it means to be “man” or “woman”, and what actions indicate that you belong or don’t belong to those labels. In my society, here in Western Australia, if you care for your children, you are considered to be doing “women’s work” and that is not “manly”. To be fair, that has been changing over the last few decades. It is still rare for father’s to be considered nurturing, or for mother’s to be considered stern and stoic.

Think about it “what does it mean to be placed in a category of people called man?” People asked this almost always go to discussing biological bits, rather than behaviours. So let us replace that with “what does it mean to be manly?” How many people with those man biology bits are actually manly? I suspect an honest answer is going have fewer people fulfill “manly” than “man”.

We tend to think of manly people as Masculine, and womanly people as Feminine. When we try to picture who Manly people look like, they often are imagined as grizzly adults. Picturing Femininity, we often think of young ladies, often teenagers. This seems a bit odd. A mature and functional woman is not really fitting the aesthetic of feminine, rather seeming more matronly. Hopefully you can see that the societal ideal female (the construct) does not actually represent the majority of women – the gender trait is not representative of the biological grouping.

Transgender is an Umbrella Term

Transgender is an umbrella term for a variety of ways in which people become aware of themselves not fitting the construct of the gender they are assigned due to the biological features they appear to have.

This can include:

  • Sex reassignment
    • Where you change your sex assignment to match the person that you feel they are
    • Pronouns will be the sex that the person has switched to
  • Non-binary
    • Where you feel that neither “masculine”/”male” or “feminine”/”female” describe you well
    • Often preferring they/them pronouns, although may prefer she/they or he/they
    • This is a common step through phase for many people as they recognise that they are not cisgendered, but don’t yet know where they will land on their personal gender identity
  • Agender
    • Where you feel that you are not any thing that the term “gender” refers to
    • Often avoids pronouns as they are all wrong / uncomfortable
  • Gender fluid
    • you transition fluidly through multiple feels of gender and other nonclassical identifications of self vs gender construct and or biology
    • Pronouns can vary significantly
  • Genderqueer
    • Another way to say transgender
  • Bigender
    • you feel that you are both male and female
  • Pangender / multigendered
    • you feel that your gender is more than one category, for example male and genderfluid
  • Androgynous
    • Mostly not used anymore, but can signify a blending of male and female without any emphasis on either

Trans and Mental Health

Any time that your identity is at odds with how society categorises and treats you can cause mental harm. Additionally, there are a number of co-occurring (comorbid) biological conditions that have a large overlap with being trans that can affect our mental health.

When your identity is at odds to how you feel and are treated by others, this can cause quite a lot of psychological harm. That harm can manifest as anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicide. The majority of people experiencing gender dysphoria have these symptoms, and the risk to the trans person is high. Many studies have found that trans affirming care is the key to significantly decreasing mortality. This can be as little as a single family member, friend or professional taking your experiences and feelings seriously and allowing that how you feel about your identity is true.

There is a strong correlation between Transgender and Autism. Autism has strong co-occurrence of various conditions such as anxiety, ADHD, depression and risk of Self-Harm and Suicide.

It can be difficult to separate out whether the trans mental health of a person is due to conflicts with society or a co-occurring biological mental health issue.

Good trans affirming care considers both identity conflict and co-occurring conditions in medication, medical intervention and mental health therapy.

Trans Myths

Any time that the status quo of society is challenged, we find that there are those conservative people who resist changing that society and who will attack the people who they think are causing the society upset. Many myths, lies and misrepresentations are made to justify why they don’t want the system to change.

Some common myths are:

It’s only a fad / phase

Other phrases that are frequently used to describe this is “it’s just popular right now”, or “you are only following a trend”, or “this is caused by peer group pressure” or “you are just rebelling right now”.

If you have been questioning your gender identity for more than 6 months, then the chances of you deciding that you are cisgendered is remarkably low. It is common for you may go through a few of the above identities as you try to figure out what is right for you. You may know straight away and go straight from asking not to be identified as the assigned from birth sex to the gender that is right for you.

Young children can’t be transgender

While it is more common for you to realise that you are not comfortable with your assigned gender as a teen or young adult, many trans folk recognised as children that they felt gender dysphoric (uncomfortable with their assigned gender based on their biological sex), they just didn’t have the language or environment where they could discuss it without being bullied, gas lit or pressured to conform.

Trans means hormone therapy and corrective / affirming surgery

While this is true for some, it may not be true for you. There are many ways to express your identity and feel comfortable.

Transgender people do not like their bodies

While it is true that some people want to change their physical biological presentation with hormones and or surgery, you may not have any desire to change the physical aspects of your body, while still identifying as a gender other than the biological sex you were assigned at birth.

Transgender means the parents failed

Research has shown that people who identify as trans rarely do so because of their parents. More commonly, trans people seem to be more to do with biology than to do with experience such as parenting, schooling or a peer group.

When parents are informed by their youth that they are trans, frequently this is the first time the parents have become aware of their youth’s discomfort, and upon noting that your friendship group is trans friendly, assume that this new aspect of you they have just become aware of is caused by the group, so falsely blame the peer group as the cause. This puts the cart before the horse. Frequently, people who are attracted to socialise with trans friendly groups, that is people who are more open about gender variation, are people who are already not comfortable with their assigned gender identity. It is through the encouragement, support and recognition of from their peers that they now have the courage to inform their parents.

Tran identity can be taught / trans people turn other people trans

As was covered above, trans gender seems to be more related to biology than experience. This implies that you don’t learn to be trans, nor can you pressure someone else to be trans.

Trans gendered athletes have an unfair advantage over cis gendered athletes

The sports and medical science exploring the possible benefits claimed in this unfair advantage have been thoroughly examined and found to be either false or negligible.

Let me define that negligible aspect.

To be an elite athlete means that you have a genetic quirk that allows your biology to go beyond the average person. This could be more efficient mitochondria, a larger lung capacity, a variation in skeletal structure, more efficient red blood cells and so on. The gains given by these biological variations is more advantageous than the remnant of transition. For example, the muscle cross section of puberty of a male remains in part when a person has transitioned to being female, giving a minor muscle advantage compared to regular women. However, that is a minimal advantage compared to the previously described biological differences that elite athletes have over non elite athletes, thus it is a negligible advantage.

If we were to decide that elite athletes cannot have a biological advantage, then we would not have any elite athletes at all.

Trans gender people are preying on people in bathrooms and toilets

This is a claim without any evidence of reality.

When we look at the statistics of who has been prosecuted for assault in public bathrooms or similar, the ratio of offenders who are trans gender is close to zero, substantially lower than the ratio of trans gender people to cis gender people. What this means is, if you are going to be assaulted in a bathroom, it will most likely be by a cis gendered person.

Trans gender people are doing it only because they want the advantage of the sex they are transitioning to

While each of the binary genders has certain benefits of being that gender in some situations, the cost of being trans easily surmounts any advantage of being identified as that destination gender. It is fascinating and ironic that the people who are so heavily discriminating against trans people ignore how harmful that discrimination is when claiming that being trans is all about getting the perks of that destination gender. It is like stating that having $10 is very nice, so spending $100 in fuel to pick up a $10 note is smart… no, it isn’t.

Trans people don’t go through the process of leaving cis gender because of the potential perks of becoming another gender. Trans people inform others they are trans to decrease distress around being mistaken as cis and forced into an identity that doesn’t suit them, despite the cost of being trans.