Transgender Panel Analysis

Scholars have been critical of the medical establishment’s and state’s involvement in constructing and policing of transgender identity. These kinds of pressing issues have occupied the small existing literature. There is not much information and studying what is being done on transgender in traditional areas, family studies research, such as their dating behavior and formation of intimate relationships in adulthood. There is little research on the issues around being parents, their children’s experiences with having transgendered parents, as well as relationships in the family as a whole, and relationships in work and school.

Fifty years ago, nobody could ever have imagined how widely accepted transgender individuals would be in modern times. Countries all around the world had only ever known about the social distinction between men and women, which is known as ‘masculinity vs. Femininity’. However, now it is much more complex than that; as transgender and gender confused individuals are more widely accepted, it has become more of a case of sex vs. gender. “Sex is the biologically based distinction between men and women centring on sexual organs, while gender is the social and cultural rendering of masculinity and femininity.” (Oakley, 1972) And even though transgenders are accepted into society they still face inequalities such as not being accepted into a particular community, ostracised by families and friends,

Thesis Statement: The terms “Transgender, gay, and lesbian” has made their way around the world, fast. American’s have turned these terms into a household conversation. According to http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/, there are about 700,000 plus estimated people that identify themselves as transgender gay, and lesbian in the United States. All people deserve love and happiness no matter the race, sexual preference, or religious views.

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.

Discrimination has been a problem for many years, from the slaving of African Americans dating back to 1619, to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) individuals being shot in the streets a few weeks ago. However one specific group of people, transgendered people have been targeted for decades, yet they haven’t had the mass media coverage as other discrimination issues have. Focusing on their physical abuse, and psychological impact and the substance abuse from the discrimination they face; I hope to highlight these issues and show that they need help fighting this discrimination as well, and this isn’t just an individual problem but the bigger society’s issue.

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

Stories involving transgender people have been in newspapers, magazines, and tabloids for over fifty five years. These stories have captivated and intrigued American culture from the start, but not always in the most positive light. It began in 1955 when Christine Jorgensen, born George, publicly announced her gender confirming surgery and began life as a legally recognized woman. There was a media frenzy with headlines such as “Bronx GI Becomes a Woman!” and “Bronx ‘Boy’ Is Now A Girl”. But instead of “withdraw[ing] from public attention [Christine] turned the notoriety to her advantage with a series of lucrative tours on the lecture and nightclub circuit” (McQuiston 1989). “By cultivating the demeanor of a lady and refusing to call herself

For transgender individuals whose gender identities may be visibly different from the norm, there are questions and assumptions from other people about their gender identities in their daily lives (Serano, 2013). For example, during childhood and young adult life, Green (2013), a transsexual male, was constantly judged and questioned by others based on his lack of physical femininity and “inappropriate behaviors” for a female. Additionally, in a male-dominated society, trans women become victims of trans-misogyny, which is defined as a trans person being ridiculed for their expression of femininity (Serano, 2013), because it is inconceivable that a male “inheriting male privilege [would] ‘choose’ to be female instead” (2013, p. 445). Thus, trans women are subjected to violence (Stryker, 2013) and stereotypes (Serano, 2013). During the 1960s, trans women working the Tenderloin district of San Francisco were abused by the police (Stryker, 2013). Transgender women were arrested on suspicion of prostitution, humiliated in front of other prisoners, and placed in men’s jails, where transgender women were susceptible to physical harm including assault, rape, and murder (2013). In the media, trans women are often depicted as sex workers and objectified when they pursue medical transitioning

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

The transgender community makes up a controversial, growing culture in America. Promoting the idea of tolerance, self-love and acceptance, the Transgender community helps support a community that is statistically not commonly received well by the American people of 2015. Many view this uprising as a positive, revolutionary movement that aims to not only help the minority groups of America but progress mindset of all people from potentially

Being accepted as a transgender in today's society is not only a continued struggle but it has also become another defining statistic that continue to raise hate crime rates nationwide. The excitement and bold move granted by the government to pass a law that allowed individuals of the same sex to be married appeared to break through needed to secure gay and lesbians place in the world. With this life changing event, the hinges on the revolving door appeared to strong enough for the LGBT(Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender) to conquer another hidden secret; life as a transgender.

In Transgender Students and Bathrooms the author Mike Kennedy, found evidence of students who have fought due to being treated unequally because they identify themselves as transgender. “The Maine Supreme Court ruled that the Regional School Unit 26 violated the rights of a transgendered girl after the policy was reversed when she reached the middle school age, where they banned her from using the girls’ restroom”(19). Many times, a problem that transgender Americans face within our society is being accepted in one place of establishment, but not in another. While there are quite a few places who have made an effort to help those who are transgender, there are many places who refuse to do so. Our nation is split on how to handle those who are transgender, but it is clear that it is not

In recent years, our nation has seen an increased number of transgender students demanding to be included in activities and facilities they have been excluded from in the past. This has introduced a growing number of events that contradict the norms and labels our society has in place regarding gender and sex roles. The very definition of what it means to be female or male is being challenged by this small portion of the population. In their fight for gender autonomy and gender equality in the education field, they have made great strides to be acknowledged and treated as the gender they identify with; instead of the gender that our society’s norms place on them because of their birth certificate sex.

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 research process for this essay started out surprisingly difficult. I had tempered my expectations for the amount of information that there was likely going to be, but even so I was surprised to find so little on informed consent. Only when I was considering changing my topic all together did I realize what my problem actual was. The problem wasn’t the subject, but the terminology. Words and phrases such as informed consent, hormone replacement therapy, and gatekeeper were all terms used by the transgender community and therefore ones I knew, but not by the professional community. Once I realized there was a disconnect between the communities I was able to better comb the databases for useful articles, and cut the time I spent researching in half.