Transgender Stereotypes

Transgender topic breaks and makes stereotypes

The term transgender is, according to GLAAD, “used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex the doctor marked on their birth certificate. Gender identity is a person's internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or someone outside of that gender binary). For transgender people, the sex they were assigned at birth and their own internal gender identity do not match.”

Transgender people can also be referred to as transsexual and genderqueer, depending on their own wishes and a way to describe them in terms of name and gender pronouns is simply to listen for what other people use.

Problems with accepting transgender people have come up in several ways

including a wide opposition to allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.
Debate.org has an argument for discussion up currently titled, “Should we support transgender equality in schools?” with 57% saying yes and 43% saying no.
The highest liked argument on the yes side, “We ask students [to] be fair and nice. Why can't the school follow their own rules? Teachers ask their students to play nice and be friends, but I guess that doesn't apply to how the school treats their students. Is it really such a terrible thing? If the school is going to allow transgender students, then they need to respect those students and treat them the way those students want to be treated.”
And from the opposition, “No, there is a reason they were separated in the first place. Gays, lesbians, and transgenders have no right to change which restroom they want to enter. They shouldn't have rights to marriage or to decide which gender they want. God made them the gender they are. They became homosexual or transgender through life circumstances. In a recent study that was done, they all had one of four things in common. 1. Early introduction to pornography. 2. Traumatizing event before the age of 5 3. Abuse 4. Their friends "came out of the closet" at an early age. They were born straight. They should use the pot straight.”
A man by the name of Charlie Comero spoke out against North Carolina’s bathroom law in an article by Mother Jones called, “I'm a Transgender Man in North Carolina. Here's What the Bathroom Law Means for Me.”
He writes, “The day HB2 became law, I was there to testify in front of the Senate, and I had my speech prepared. I was sitting there listening to the senators talk about how important this bill is and how it would protect women and children. [...] It was absurd. I felt like I didn't exist, like I wasn't an equal human.”
The New York Times asked students from around the nation to pitch in and express their opinions on this highly controversial issue.
One responded, “1) I don’t think it is the federal government’s job to dictate what each school district does with its students. That is extreme government overreach, and it sets a bad precedent for the future.
“2) I think that it is endangering females by opening the doors for any man who wants to enter locker rooms and restrooms where females are. I am not saying that transgender people will be the ones committing crimes; however, these laws and orders will allow any guy who wants to to enter these previously all-female spaces without being restricted by law. If schools want to provide a gender neutral restroom or space where transgender people can go, that is one thing, but eliminating any place where girls can go and have privacy from men is a very bad policy.”
Acceptance, not only in bathrooms but in general is also a concern for some that can lead to an unexpected happy ending.
A Time article published the following excerpt, “I ask the groom-to-be how he knew his girlfriend was the one. They met at work, he says, and by the time he came out to her, they were already in love. “I said ‘I’m trans, and you’re not gonna want me anyway,” he recalls, unable to keep the smile off his face. “And she said ‘I’m in love with you, I don’t care about that.’” His friend Tiq nods and says, “That’s your wife, right there.””
Good Morning America posted a video of a transgender teen on their Facebook page June 16. The little girl described her life through note cards with bullying, being in the dark and coming out into the light and being accepted for who she was.
All of these are ways people view transgender people and who are a transgender person however, they are all missing the point. Gender is not a whole person label.
Gender is only a reproductive state, as defined by Oxford Dictionaries, “The state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).” And while it is stated, “sex tends to refer to biological differences, while gender refers to cultural or social ones,” gender needs to be used as a synonym to sex. There should not be cultural and societal standards laid out for whether or not a person was born with a XX or XY.
If we want to get technical, everyone starts out female until the Y chromosome kicks in.

That is the reason why men have nipples but not developed breasts, the testosterone prohibits their formation.

The way people think and decided to express themselves is a wide, beautiful spectrum that should not be slammed into two distinct categories: like politics, there are liberals and conservatives but a person’s range varies based on how far they are to either direction: hard left wing or moderate right.

In a given political party everyone all has varying political opinions that can prove to be more similar than others in that realm and more often than not different compared to the other side.

One can be conservative on social issues and liberal on economic ones- it is completely based on how you think but at the end of the day, there is one party you’d vote for one over the other based on their establishment and you can quite certainly change this view.

The same is with gender.

Transgender and non-transgender people break stereotypes by allowing men to identify as women and dress as they are stereotyped to dress and women to identify as men and do the same- dress the stereotype provided by centuries of

defining.
However, they make stereotypes by creating the illusion that to dress as the other gender is to be the other gender: Male Drag Queens are an amazing example of still being male but liking to dress up in dresses or stereotypically female clothing and put on makeup but this is not enough.
We are in a new age where those with an XX chromosome are less restricted on what they were told by tradition to wear- such as dresses and longer hair- and XY are as well- such as pants and shorter hair.
In the Good Morning America video, she liked dresses and heels but was made fun of for it. Her therapist taught her how to put on makeup which she was grateful for but just people she was born male does not mean she is a transgender person.
She is someone who was born male and likes long hair, dresses and makeup. That’s it. Just because you go against what is traditional set out for your birth gender does not mean you are different.
Those who take hormones to be more like the other sex aren’t different; there are people who take hormones for height, hair, mood and many other things in their stride to be who they want to be. Those considered to be transgender are not different- they are human.
With bathrooms, going with your birth sex is most likely best. As someone who has attended a various amount of Softball tournaments, I realized if there is a line for the women’s bathroom however you have a game soon and there is no one in the men’s bathroom, you go in the men’s. Even sometimes just because I did not want to wait so long.
I do not care which bathroom you use at all but with your birth gender being a factor, bathrooms usually accommodate to that sex’s biological needs.
For the men’s, you can pee standing up without having too much energy used trying to aim- I live with three guys, I know it can go terribly wrong. For women, you can buy and have a place to put your tampons, pads and liners when you are done- flushing them down the toilet is a very bad idea.
Gender and sex should not be subject to the definition of social and cultural variations but only by the way a person can contribute to the reproduction process.
The way a person decides to express themselves is a choice that is made willingly, not specified by two set categories. These categories only decided who you may be involved of the making of a child, not if you want or are societally allowed to wear a tux.
While tradition may have found dresses to be appealing on XX people and suits on XY, that does not define today’s opinions. It does not make someone different if they wish to go against this. There should not be a label difference on what type of human we define others on. We are all human, conventional or not.