American governmental laws which imply gender are written on the principle that there are two sexes, male or female. However, with nearly 700,000 transgender people living in our country today, these laws overlook a large portion of society(Gates, 20011). Men and women making a change from one sex to another sometimes struggle to fit in our society.Transgenders must overcome some obstacles and laws that can affect their passport, break laws of discrimination, determine what sports they may participate in, and laws that even limit their health insurance plan. To change the gender on a passport, or to get a passport with the correct gender marker, a transgender applicant must submit a letter from their doctor certifying that they have undergone …show more content…
Steps in the transition process can include changing the name and pronouns one goes by, updating formal documents to reflect a different gender marker and name from the ones assigned at birth, changing one’s style of dress and other aspects of gender expression, and, in some but not all cases, pursuing medical treatments such as hormone therapy or gender confirmation surgery that help make one’s body look and feel more feminine or more masculine. Medicare covers transition-related hormone therapy. Depending on a person’s specific needs, gender confirmation surgery might involve several different types of genital reconstruction procedures, breast augmentation or reduction, removal of the uterus and ovaries for transgender men or the testes for transgender women, surgery to change the shape of the face and throat is also an option. Some of those …show more content…
s and experiences include people whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth, people who transition from living as one gender to another or wish to do so are often described by the clinical term “transsexual”, people who “cross-dress” part of the time, and people who identify
Some people are unaware of the process for transgenders to become a different sex. Normally first they first meet with a mental health doctor and make a diagnosis, then create a plan. usually meeting with these therapists they will receive documentation to start hormone therapy with a doctor. After sometime on the hormones, they have surgery. Normally a male to female transition is cheaper, easier, and more of an efficient surgery. After this
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
Not all transgendered individuals desire a sex change. However, if a client wanted a sex change, a psychologist must verify if the change will have a positive effect on the patient’s psychological well-being. In an interview I had with a trans-gendered companion, she stated that she would not go for a sex change until the time was right. Her reason was that if she was to have the sex change now, she would endanger her friendships with many people. While this reasoning didn’t come from a psychologist, the resultant sex change must be beneficial to the client or else the operation is useless and will cause more detriment to the individual’s psyche. After medical treatment, hormone therapy is used to get rid of secondary sexual characteristics. In addition to hormone replacement therapy, clients may get surgery for breasts, genitals or other sexual characteristics; clients can also just use hormone therapy alone so that they can alter their bodies to appear more like their self-identified gender.
Gender Affirming care: For transgender people, this refers to the process of coming to recognize, accept, and express one’s gender identity. Most often, this refers to the period when a person makes social, legal, and/or medical changes, such as changing their clothing, name, sex designation, and using medical interventions. This process is often called gender affirmation because it allows people to affirm their gender identity by making outward changes. Gender affirmation/ transition can greatly improve a transgender person’s mental health and general well-being. A theory I personally believe that no character or any physical appearance can’t be prior than being human. I personally believe that sexual orientation is not more important than a human nature and his own appearance. A transgender should get a treat as a normal human Bing.
The term transgender is used to define individuals who do not identify with the sex that they were assigned at birth. For example, if a person who is born female decides later on in her life that she would like to identify as a man, that person would identify as a trans-man, and would most-likely use the pronouns “he” or “him” when describing himself.
There are significant systemic transphobia that occurs on an institutional or community level (Nadal, Skolnik, and Wong 2012). This type of transphobia is particularly damaging because they exist in systems that are enmeshed in the daily lives of trans people. Legislation can have detrimental impact on the mental health of LGBT people. One study found that when same-sex marriage was banned, it had detrimental mental health implications for LGBT people (Levitt et al., 2009). Many transphobic laws are based on historic gender binaries and are passed by voters who may not be aware of the impact these laws have on the transgender community. However, many incidents of systemic discrimination are malicious, conscious, and intentional. Systemic transphobia is found in macro level systems including
Regarding access to healthcare, transgender individuals often face the most obstructive barriers when attempting to receive care. Whether they are seeking access to hormones, therapy, general health services, reproductive healthcare, or specialty healthcare, transgender patients typically cannot get what they need without jumping through many hoops or hiding their identities. This occurs especially so in cases of intersecting identities -- where an individual is not just transgender, but is transgender and a person of color, disabled, gay, indigenous, undocumented, poor, etc. These intersecting identities interact in multifaceted ways to produce even more barriers for trans individuals seeking healthcare due to healthcare provider bias, insurance requirements, and doctors’ general unwillingness to help coupled with inaccessibility founded on racism, transphobia, homophobia, mental illness stigmatization, etc.
There are a few different types of transgender people, but the main two are female-to-male (FtM) and male-to-female (MtF). For FtM transgender people, typical treatment includes hormone replacement treatment, breast removal surgery, and some trans men also opt for surgery that gives them a phallus. For MtF transgender people, typical treatment includes hormone replacement treatment, breast augmentation, facial reconstruction surgery to look more feminine, and some trans women opt for a surgery that changes their genitals so they will have a vulva. All of these procedures are cosmetic and some of them are even used for cis-gender (person whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth) people. “Cosmetic surgery is a unique discipline of
The lack of education in medical schools regarding transgender-related care results is a shortage of provider willing to perform transition-related care. Therefore, there is simply a lack of providers able to treat transgender people, making it difficult for transgender people to receive care. Transgender people report having to drive countless hours in order to reach providers for hormone treatment or report having to leave the country in order to receive genital reconstruction surgery (Puckett 7). Unsurprisingly, 29-63% of male-to-female transgender persons in urban groups report unsupervised hormone use (Roberts 984). This is a serious point of concern considering hormone treatment has dangerous side effects including
In America today, change is occurring all the time. It seems so simple just to make a change in the world or within ourselves, but in reality, the people of our society are terrified of the idea of change. Change can come in many ways, such as in technology, education, the workforce, etc., but a big change that seems to be an issue in the world today is the idea of change in gender, also known as transgender. Transgender can be defined as, “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex” (Merriam-Webster). People struggle to wrap their head around those who are transgender because it is not what they were taught growing up. Even though being transgender is becoming more and more familiar today, the concept of changing gender is difficult for people to obtain and is negatively impacting society and the workforce today.
Sex and gender seems to be the primary focus in trying to determine the identity of transgender. Before any form of cohesion can take place to discuss transgender, the biological aspect must first be noted. Origin identification for each individual is biologically identified as male or female, and at times intersex. "Our gender includes a complex mix of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics. How do you act, talk, and behave like a woman or man? Are you feminine or masculine, both, or neither? These are questions that help us get to the core of our gender and gender identity ("Gender and Gender Identity at a Glance," 2014)". According to society, an individual's sex identity is normally assigned at birth, thus, as a transgender, one will identify him/her self as an expression, i.e., masculine, feminine, male or female, opposite of his/her biological identity. " Some people, for example, may have been born with a penis,
When they reach an age where they are considered to be able to assemble reasonable decisions they can start the process of transitioning, which is the process they use to match how they feel to their appearance. It can start by changing their hair, clothing and name to using hormones and surgery. Every person’s way of changing is different, not all transgender people have the same process. Some choose not to change anything in their appearance but still ask to be spoken to as if they were the opposite sex and others change everything about themselves to the point where it isn’t even noticeable that they were once a different sex.
Addressing the issue of transgendered people in a community that has been a key element for the various movements and social groups that fight for the rights of the minority in recent decades is also to address the issue of the paradigms on which citizenship is based and built, have had special relevance when dealing with the sexual rights of people. All human beings regardless of their sex, religion or sexual orientation have the right to the recognition and respect of their sexual and gender identity.
The problem with transgender rights is that they are not treated as basic human rights. The main cause of this problem is that some people look at it as "not in the norm" or "out of the ordinary" and as a result, transgender people are either out casted, bullied, beaten, killed or denied certain rights. A human male wanting to transition into a human female and vice versa should not make them less than exactly what they are, a human-being. A possible solution would be for people to take the time to research and educate or interact with more transgender people and learn something about their decision instead of going into the problem blind with the assumption that all transgender people are not normal.
In the case of transgendered individuals their gender identity- the sex that they see themselves as- is different than their actual sex. So, to make the two differing sides- body and mind- to match up, transgendered individuals change their physical bodies to blend seamlessly into their self-identified gender in society. Much like the transgendered man, Chaz Bono, who was born Chastity Bono. He was a man trapped in a woman's body and he told interviewers how he went through reconstructive surgery in order to feel like a man, instead of two separate people. *