My Gifted Life

What’s in the name? I’ll claim a good deal of confusion, Transgender, as a term, encompasses a wide variety of behaviors and degrees of accommodation. All these have in common is that they are variants to the “normal” gender binary. A person can be trans and not have made any transition, or they could be living the life of the “other” gender. This leads to a good deal of confusion and understandable concerns.

To me the word is too wide. It includes crossdressing men and transwomen for example. The men don’t even identify as women and often just dress up for the weekend or for get-togethers. This calls into question what it really means when we talk about transgender rights. It isn’t one thing. Having a transgender woman who’s a crossdresser use the ladies room is really quite objectionable, whereas the average transwomen goes unnoticed. Even transwomen who don’t pass particularly well at least understand how to behave appropriately.

Even among those who commit to a transition and become transwomen or transmen, the fact is that it is an imposition on natal women (or vice versus men) to undress in a ladies only space without having had reassignment surgery, otherwise some use of a private space would be appropriate.

I think the quickest route to acceptance for the trans community will be to recognize these different circumstances and apply some sensitivity to them.