My Life As A Transgender

She takes pride in her well maintained home and cooking expertise. Her schedule is full of running her husband’s errands throughout the day and having the breakfast, lunch and dinner completed that he requests. She finished two years of college courses at a local community college and would love to finish gaining her degree in nursing. The client would love to finish school, but her husband tells her that a degree is unnecessary since she should only be relying on him. Her husband’s attitude makes her feel insufficient and does not feel like a positive role model for her daughters to look up to. The client’s self-esteem is very low and the only time she feels pretty or worthy is when her daughters tell her they love her. She is at a point in her life where her self-worth is nearly destroyed, a place she never would have imagined before marrying her husband.

Over the past years there has been many phases of the struggle of being transgendered especially those of color. Transgender women of color have higher rates of murder and homelessness. Several states don’t even offer no legal protection in employment, health care, housing and other areas where these people face discrimination. We must realize the current phase which is equal rights, and we need to address the views of the public and make a change. Several people look at transgenders differently especially in cultures. Different individuals have a broad range of different beliefs about gender, not to mention that different cultures have their own way of defining feminine and masculine. Whether we view someone as transgender it really just depends

With so little transgender celebrities and almost no representation of transgender in the media, it is no wonder that you hear of so many trans youth killing themselves. The most famous representation of the transgender community is Sophie in Orange is the New Black, who was thrown into prison for credit card fraud to afford her transition. There is also Adam on Degrassi, a female to male transgender whose mom did not fully accept him until he was dying. Degrassi is my favorite representation of transgender youth because when people of the school found out about Adam, the jocks of the school started to tease him and pick on him, even throwing him into a window. This accurately showed what it is like to be living as a transgender person in a bigoted society where you don’t feel like you belong. One celebrity that comes to mind when some hear the term ‘transgender’ would be Caitlyn Jenner. Born Bruce Jenner and being a famous Olympian, she proudly came out as Caitlyn and made the brave decision to publically transition. But yet, people of the world did not want to accept her as Caitlyn. People even made pictures and posts saying “Bruce is not brave, our soldiers are brave,” and comments out loud saying “Gender identity is something Bruce Jenner is struggling with.” Although there was a number of support, trans youth cannot be expected to fully come out and love themselves if they have very little representation and

Watch the video "Growing up Trans" and read the articles thoroughly. Then use examples and evidence from these sources along with your textbook for full credit. Failure to use these sources will result in a zero.

Watch the video "Growing up Trans" and read the articles thoroughly. Then use examples and evidence from these sources along with your textbook for full credit. Failure to use these sources will result in a zero.

"[T]here is a profound difference between pretending to be something in imaginary play, and declaring who you are - insistently, consistently, and persistently. Those are the three markers that set Transgender [people] apart." In the summer of 2014, Debi Johnson gave a speech telling the story behind mothering a Transgender child; with this quote she grasped the concept behind what it means to identify as Transgender in the best way possible. In today’s society, Transgender people are the most targeted group in the LGBTQ+ community for hate-based crimes of violence. Seventeen percent of Transgender people were victims of such violence in 2009, with 11 percent targeted towards those who identified as female, according to the Office for Victims of Crime. The Transgender community is fighting for their freedom to express their way of life without the worry of judgment or discrimination. Acceptance needs to be found first in their own homes if they want to move further along in society. Security of life is greatly dependent on their acceptance into society. As teens and as adults they need to have ease of mind that they will be able to live normal lives without consequences coming from it.

Being transgender greatly involves identity, naïve realism, ethnocentrism, and relativism. This relates to ethnocentrism because one who is not transgender or doesn’t have a clear understanding may feel as though it isn’t necessary. I define ethnocentrism as the belief that one’s own behavior and beliefs are superior to others. In many cases, some people have even acted upon their sense of ethnocentrism committing hate crimes, homicide, or even murder. This is a reflection of their belief that they are superior. This also is a reflection of how societies enforce this concept of gender and feel threated when someone breaks the boundary. As one of my classmates said, looking at gender from a religious aspect, God is a sort of genderless being and when one is struggling with gender identity or transgender, it may appear as though they are making a statement. One that is telling everyone else that they are on the same level as God. Naïve realism relates to what the guest speakers discussed because they explained that there are a lot of people who tend to kind of stop and stare at them simply because they look different; they are foreign to them. To those who don’t understand being transgender, they may not understand how someone could such an identity crisis, as the feeling cannot be perceived by one who has not endured it. I found this to especially relate to identity because among age, language, and various other things, gender is one of the primary characteristics used to define self. If someone is experiencing an identity crisis, to whatever extent, that’s related to gender it directly correlates with the concept of identity we’ve been learning about in class. Understanding the concept of being transgender may require a sense of cultural relativism. I define relativism as the attempt to understand another culture’s way of life from their own perspective. If someone is wanting to

In society, social categories are based on “real or assumed physical, biological, or genetic differences” (Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 2013, p. 12) to create privilege, a desired cultural currency, for particular groups (Taylor, 2013). Hence, gender and sexual orientation are two of these social categories (Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 2013), and transgender people, “whose gender expression, gender identity, and/or sex identity does not match the expectations of the dominant norm of society” (Catalano, McCarthy, & Shlasko, 2007, p. 219), are placed in the subordinate groups of these social categories (Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 2013). Hence, the subordination of transgender people is based on the misguided premise of the sex/gender binary, which states there are only

Within the past couple of years, LGBT issues have been showing up more in our daily lives than ever before. Taking a closer look at the T in LGBT, there have been stories and articles about transgender individuals and this has triggered a large variety of emotions and opinions from people all over the world. Someone who is transgender is an individual who identifies as a gender that does not match the gender that is assigned to him or her at birth. One of the biggest stories that brought transgender individuals into the mainstream spotlight was the announcement that Bruce Jenner, an Olympic gold metal winner, is trans gender. This was broadcast to millions of people as he told his story in an emotional interview with Diane Sawyer. Laverne Cox, a transgender woman, has had a predominant role in the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” for the past 3 seasons and has also helped spread awareness about the trans community. With all of these stories being seen by more and more people, there have been some that haven’t been very accepting of the transgender community. Transphobia can lead to aggression towards trans individuals, causing abuse that may cause physical and emotional damage. Trans individuals are being policed by not only society, but also by institutions.

Personally, I have no problem with transgender people. I believe that if someone is happy being transgender then let him or her be happy. What they are choosing to do is not harming anyone; it is actually helping the individual. The suicide rate is high in the LGBT community due to the fact of not being accepted by others, or feeling alone and having no help. It makes me sad when I see people judging others for being who they are; everyone deserves a chance to be

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.

Transgender inequality has gone on for a lot of years, causing commotion, suicides, and more. Due to the lack of respect to transgender people, some feel like they don’t belong here, because of all the hate they get from others and end their life which should never happen. In 1952 “Christine Jorgenson became the first American to have a sex change” (The New York Times). The first transition from male to female sex was starting the new transgender phenomenon. One person started something and now a bunch of people do it. If someone else isn’t comfortable as who they are why would another make fun of them, when they know they are already nervous in their own skin. Transgender is a category that more people should take a stand on and protect: “That’s why we defend free speech and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender” Mr. Obama said (The New York Times).On New York Times it states, “It is always a tragedy when anybody takes their own life, doubly so when they are so young.”This week Leelah Alcorn took her own life. In her

Many people do not understand what it is like to be transgender but choose to speak over transgender people even when they say it is wrong and not how it is. If people would just listen to trans people then there would be less issues. To help people understand what is going on in this world for trans people I will explain what is happening in today’s world. I will show you some of the issues trans people face in the public eye. Even with talking about all of theses different experiences they are still not everyone's point of view and can not be taken as something every trans person experiences. There are trans people who will never experience any of this hate and others will only experience the hate and none of the good parts.

Transgender people are no strangers to society: the concept of not feeling comfortable in one's birth-assigned gender has been around since man can remember. It's quite puzzling to see that many centuries later, people still treat transgender people of an alien-like nature, of some sort of non-human species. Transgender people have been discriminated for long enough. The discrimination sent towards them is wrong: they're just humans who made changes to their lives for the better as all people have. Transgender people are regular people who do not deserve the amount of discrimination directed towards them as they get right now.

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.