You just covered pretty much the bases of where I have to admit I just can't wrap my head around it. I try, but I fail. I've been in discussions with people about these things, and some of the people I've been discussing with have degrees in physics and biology etc, and well, I come up short. Very short. When someone who understands the science of, well, everything to a degree I never will, how do I argue with them? When they say that at the core level, every cell in your body knows if you're male or female, how do I respond? I have nothing to counter with outside of "but there are many people that are born this way". When they say gender and sex being different things is bullshit, what do I say?
I've tried doing my research, but I found no solid science on it, so, yeah, I'd welcome it if anyone can provide.
I just really want to understand, but I don't. I hear people talk about how you feel embarrassed wearing the wrong clothes, and then people who don't want to do surgery, and so many different people who have only one thing in common, not feeling at home in their assigned gender. Why if you don't even want surgery, what's the problem?
Why? Why do the clothes matter? Why do you feel like you're a different gender? Why isn't gender and sex the same? Why does it matter?
Why can't you wear whatever clothes you want? I mean, I'm male, never defined myself as anything else. But I have long hair, I have a couple of skirts, I sometimes wear eyeliner and nail polish. It's not feminine to me. I just do what I feel like doing, and don't give a damn what anyone thinks. So I really don't understand when someone comes out as transgender, and then immediately changes their clothes, grow their hair out, etc etc. Who stopped you doing that in the first place? Why do you have to be a woman, or man, to do those things? Why not just do them?
So that was probably very incoherent, and a lot of questions, but I mean no offense if anyone should take any. I just really want to understand better.
As has been discussed previously, this sort of thing is where TERFs take umbrage with the whole idea of being transgender, because it often uses or requires some notion of femininity or masculinity that helped someone define and understand their identity, and such in the eyes of many is against the idea of feminism.
The three things to remember though are A) Human biology is not a perfect, consistently constructed thing and B) We are creatures that recognise and act upon patterns, whether in rejection or acceptance of them C) We are creatures that act and live within society, also whether in acceptance or rejection of its norms.
That is to say, until greater studies have been taken and we have a much greater understanding of how biology relates to identity at a more fundamental level - or putting it another way, how does bunch of lifeless matter come together and suddenly has thought? - we cannot say definitively how it relates to our personal understanding of gender. Yes, there has to be some level of distinction for the sake of reproduction; in your typical human female, part of its brain will be dedicated to registering that it has a vagina, that such is compatible with the penis of a human male, and that such is erotically stimulating (as an incentive for reproduction by making it a highly desirable and enjoyable act). But if you want to argue the 'gender is in your biology' case, what happens if that toggle to say 'I like penis' is
not in a particular person's brain? What if that 'I like penis' trait is in the brain of someone whose biology is otherwise coded 'male'? What if the part of them that is meant to recognise that they have a vagina is instead the instinct to register a penis, at which point it's thoroughly confused, especially because society has helped to inform it that boobs + vagina + certain clothing trends = female, and after correlating that information it has found an abnormality within itself. And that's all entirely feasible, because every chromosome that informs the build of your body is in fact of billions of 'letters' which can vary completely wildly. We are not precision machines built on a factory, we're the result of a staggeringly long case of trial and error that manages to come out generally within the same margins - typically two legs, two arms, one of two genitalia variants, nose, etc - but nothing is outright guaranteed.
Edit: To add to this point further, there have been some studies and indications that found the brains of transgender men to more match cis men than they did cis women, despite 'biologically' being women in terms of outward appearance, and transgender women's brains being kind of in the middle:
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/01/26/scans-show-difference-in-transgender-brains/
So no, whatever part of you determined your genitalia is not everything.
So yeah, that's why the 'biology' argument should still see some scrutiny. On the patterns and society end of things, while we nominally say that people should be able to enjoy whatever they want, in reality we still heavily code and correlate things, to the point that they
do work somewhat as markers for identity. We can mock concepts completely while still implicitly supporting their widespread use. I know that restricting skirts to women is silly, but I would still never be caught wearing one unless the context was intended as being deliberately farcical. I wouldn't turn up to a business meeting wearing a Call of Duty shirt, however much comfortable it is - it has implications both in how we project ourselves to others, but also how we presume others will read us. No matter how much you reduce it to an abstract of 'just wear or do whatever you want', the actual, practical reality will depend on the specific context in which one exists -
you may be comfortable and confident enough in yourself to just do whatever you want, that isn't the case for everyone else, especially when that context often involves, 'You are a freak/sinner/diseased person', potentially screamed at them by their own family and 'friends'. For others, that kind of confidence can only come by coupling it with an affirmative statement that cannot wholly be ignored, even if it's just changing the colour of their hair.
Can a transgender person officially change his/her name to male or female or are there legal issues and hidrances (USA mainly)?
Short answer is: Varies. In many countries there's just no legal option whatsoever. In countries like the UK it's generally fine through the same process of changing your name as anyone else. In the USA, it varies state by state. Most allow it in some capacity, but the majority have some particular rule about it - for example, you may need to a get it approved by a court, and to get it approved by a court you very probably need to undergo sex reassignment surgery. For anyone who either does not want that or cannot afford it, that's a bit of a problem. In some cases, they require it to be 'declared' to the community via a public outlet, which basically paints a target on the individual's back in many communities, thus discouraging name changes.
Ok so I have a quick question that I'm still not 100% sure I understand (my other questions were answered in depth early in the the thread, which was a fantastic idea by the way);
If you have always felt you weren't the gender you were born as, and have come out, transitioned, and living your life as your true gender, why do you/members of the community/everyone else still refer to you as trans[gender]? Surely there is a point where you have truly moved to living every aspect of your life as that gender, so why is the trans prefix still applied?
If it is as support for other trans people struggling with coming out I totally get it, I just wondered if there was another reason
NB: the use of 'you' is just as a subject, not referring to the OP or anyone specifically
Because humans are very often sticklers for detail, and a simple 'trans-' prefix helps qualify and contextualise things, particularly for non-transgender people trying to understand the situation. To use a very basic example, telling someone that Caitlyn Jenner is a transwoman helps to clarify potential confusion about the fact that the world once knew them as 'Bruce' - it carries across the point that there was a time that they were assumed male, but now it's recognised they're a woman. It reduces the explanation and clarification into that single prefix.
And yes, it can also be for the sake of providing that signal that continues to affirm that yes, transgender people still exist. There's some hefty debate about this point, but simply becoming 'man' or 'woman' after a transition, without simple acknowledgement of their prior context, can reduce trans visibility but also reinforce the gender binary.
