The Transgender Community Is An Integral Part Of The Lgbt Community

In the late 1950’s to mid-1960’s, the transgender community faced discrimination such as physical and verbal harassment, denial of social spaces, and alienation in the media. This matters to us today because transgender individuals are still existing and are a part of our human population today. The community is also still struggling to find their representation in the media and in society. The transgender community is still facing a wide array of types of discrimination, from nasty looks to denied access of education. Gender identity should not be taken into consideration when determining another person’s worthiness of respect.

When discussing injustices, it is pivotal--for the sake of true progressive social change--to include all oppressed groups into the dialogue. Transgender People tend to be heavily misrepresented and demonized. Because of transphobia, there

Transgendered people in America have made many great strides since the 1990s. They have encountered violence, lack of health care, and the loss of homes, jobs, family and friends. There have been many phases of the struggle of being transgendered in America over the years. The current phase we must be in now is equal rights. There are many variations of discrimination against the transgendered community. In our society we simply do not like what we do not understand. It is easier to discriminate than to try and understand. We are all created different and we should appreciate our differences. The change must come by addressing the views of the public. There is much justification in the unequal rights of transgendered peoples. The Human

American society today is not any different from the past, except today people are apt to discuss everything publicly on various social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram just to name a few. Transgender persons happen to be one of those subjects that have become the hot topic of the new normal. Nowadays there are blogs, tweets, and pictures posted online of people’s transition “coming out.” Like the past, society is still tough when it comes to judging each other. Although transgender might not have had a recognized community in the past, it is prevalent that society is becoming more accepting of their community, and aware of issues their community faces. In this essay the names, nouns, or pronouns used will be in accordance to the individual’s preference.

Kidd and Witten define the term transgender vaguely, stating it “describe[s] people who transcend the conventional boundaries of gender, irrespective of physical status or sexual orientation” (Kidd & Witten, 2007, p. 36). This term is a reference for the ‘other gender’ that is not particularly male or female. Currently, within the American society, there is a growing awareness of individuals who are transgender. Much of this awareness comes from LGBT movements and

The United States is a divided society. We like to categorize ourselves according to political affiliation, race, and religion. We are members of the middle, low-income, or wealthy classes. We choose what seats to sit in during a football game according to the team we are rooting for. It is oddly comforting to know that you belong. All too often, however, transgender youth are denied that sense of ubelonging because they defy society’s categories of male and female. The gender binary divides society into two separate, unequivocal categories that marginalizes transgender youth and directly impacts their emotional health and well-being. Society’s collective response of demeaning, shaming, and violence further increases the divide.

Oppression is prolonged unjust and cruel treatment. The LGBT community has faced oppression for a very long time. Transgender individuals face oppression in a different way and are often overlooked by LGBT groups because they are finding themselves in a different way. Transgender people are treated cruel and even murdered because of their choices and decisions. These individuals are facing oppression based on themselves but also in ways such as poverty. With discrimination comes the difficulty to keep a job and a safe work environment. This group is one of the main groups forgotten about and misunderstood. Instead of facing oppression for one reason these individuals face cruel treatment just walking down the street. It is impossible

Transgenders are being categorized as being mentally ill. Though transgender counseling exists it only focuses on pathology and diagnosis. Transgenders are also severely at risk of hate crimes. In the United States alone, there are 321 transgender hate crimes per year. Transgender hate crimes can be compared to Muslims post-9/11. There’s no law to protect them from these hate crimes and nothing is ever really done to show them that they have rights too. There’s no law protecting them with employment right’s either. Due to discrimination they are vulnerable and led to no job, homelessness, suicide and even no health care. ( Anneliese A. Singh, Danica G. Hays, and Laurel S. Watson 20)

While discrimination is pervasive for the majority of transgender people, the intersection of anti-transgender bias and persistent, structural racism is especially severe. People of color in general fare worse than White transgender people, with African American transgender individuals faring far worse than all other transgender populations. Many transgender people are also the targets of hate crimes. They are also the victims of subtle discrimination—which includes everything from glances or glares of disapproval or discomfort to invasive questions about their body parts (Bassichi, Lee, & Spade, 2011). Discrimination laws and hate crimes laws encourage us to understand oppression as something that happens when individuals use bias to deny

A REPORT OF THE NATIONAL TRANSGENDER DISCRIMINATION SURVEY” which is a comprehensive survey taken by over 7,500 respondents a part of the LGBT community to discuss their experiences of discrimination that will further encourage the implementation of better protection towards gender variants. Authors concluded the:

Grant et al. (2011) explain on the Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey that 19% of their sample reported being refused medical care due to their transgender or gender non-conforming status, with even higher numbers among people of color in the survey. In addition, the survey indicated that 50% of the sample reported having to teach their medical providers about transgender

Coming out as a transgender, identifying with a gender expression that differs from the assigned sex, has proven to be quite difficult through the ages. While the acceptance of transgender people has grown significantly higher throughout the years, people’s stance on them are still quite divided, and the uphill battle for transgender rights has proven this. Just giving transgenders the right to simply go to the bathroom they identify with has shown to be controversial according to the TIME cover Battle of the Bathroom. The TIME magazine makes sure to note the problem defiantly “far more than public facilities” (Scherer par. 9). Transgender rights are a problem that Jamison Green, president for World Professional Association for Transgender Health, thoroughly addresses in a report written by Alan Greenblatt for CQ Researcher. Jamison Green’s specific purpose in that report is to justify why transgender people deserve basic human rights like everybody else, as shown in society, through his use of facts, qualifiers, figurative language, counterarguments, and appeals to logic and values.

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.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) found that about “15 percent of respondents were living in severe poverty (making less than $10,000/year). For transgender people of color, those rates were even higher, with 34 percent of Black and 28 percent of Latina/o respondents reporting a household income of less than $10,000 a year.” Leaving people of the transgender community at higher risk of poverty, resulting in homelessness and in engaging in reckless activity such as selling drugs, and

The social issue that I chose which affects society today is transgender inequality. These issues are more recently gaining attention and becoming a prevalent topic of inequality within our country. A transgender person is someone whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. As more and more transgender people share their stories in the media, the social problems that arise from these stories are discrimination within their everyday lives. They suffer from scrutiny and judgment from their peers, and thus many hide their gender identity from family and society. This social injustice can be as simple as a glance or staring, or offensive comments and questions to violent hate crimes. Transgender people are prone to violence and harassment, and often not feeling safe in any aspect of society. They are fired from jobs, denied medical insurance, and being murdered left and right solely for being transgender. “A staggering 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6% of the general population, with rates rising for those who lost a job due to bias (55%), were harassed/bullied in school (51%), had low household income, or were the victim of physical assault (61%) or sexual assault (64%)” (National Center for Transgender Equality). The structure of this paper will consist of adding all the research that was gathered over the semester, news articles and peer