Transgender Identity Essay

Clara’s Gender Identity Draft "A lot of people see gender as very one-sided, girl or boy, but in reality, even the choices of one, the other, both, or neither just don't feel right.” Many people don’t realize that there are more gender identities than just “male” and “female.” In June 2016, The Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that about 1.4 million US adult’s genders don't align with the one they were assigned at birth. One can identify as the opposite gender from their assigned sex, as no gender, as both, or as a unique identity not so easily categorized.

It is a common misconception that gender, sex, and sexuality are linked. In reality, sex refers to biology, whether a person was born with male or female chromosomes and genitalia,

Cisgender, for example, is the word that describes when your gender identity aligns with your sex. It is the reverse of transgender. Most people identify as cisgender or 'cis' without even recognizing it, but it is a gender identity, too.

If you identify as transgender it means you feel like you are a different gender than which you were assigned at birth. Though transgender typically refers to transitioning to the opposite gender, it is an umbrella term for any other genders such as

Such as finding acceptance by yourself and others, and having gender dysphoria, the confusion and anxiety that comes when your gender feels undecided. Gender dysphoria can become particularly severe during puberty. To make the dysphoria even worse, there can be significant stress given by society for people to follow gender roles and binaries, which can make “labeling” your gender even more difficult. All of these stereotypes are often used by many people, making it hard to find someone to accept you for who you are, which could result in depression. For non-cisgender people of races other than white, it can be even more difficult to find people willing to accept your identity. The rate of transgender suicide attempts is about 9 times the amount of the rest of Americans. About 40% of trans people have tried to kill