SgButterfly

Most of us still think of the world as having two sexes – you still hear that ‘joke,’ “They haven’t invented another one.”

Most of us internally identify as what our body parts tell us we are, as a man or a woman.

But sometimes identity does not match up with the sex you were pronounced to be at birth.

One woman at a recent trans forum in Moncton put it this way: “If being transgendered is simply a choice, then, by that same logic, I am also choosing to breathe oxygen, drink water, and wake up to go to work . . . If we had it our way, we would have been born in the right body.”

“Transgender” is not an identity that is widely understood.

Recently the Canadian TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation introduced a transgender character, Adam, who explained being a trans man in easily relatable terms: “I’m a guy. Like 100 per cent dude. But I was born in a girl’s body. I’m a FTM, female to male transgender . . . I’m a guy between the ears.”

Some transgender people have surgery to change their sex (often understood as being transsexual). Some don’t. Some maintain a connection with both genders. North American Aboriginal communities call “two-spirited” people who have both male and female spirits. Some don’t identify on a male/female gender “coin” at all.

Positive, informed depictions of trans people, like that of Adam on Degrassi, are rare.

Transgender identity isn’t related to sexual orientation – trans people can be gay, straight, bisexual, asexual. Just like those who are cissexual, which means those whose gender identity match the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transgender identity gets mixed with orientation, in part, because of the inclusion in the LGBT acronym (which has now actually been expanded to LGBTTIQQ2S: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, and two-spirited).

Nor is transgender about having a problem with the traditional definition of “femininity” or “masculinity.” A lot of women have problems with the old dictated norms of “femininity,” but not with being female.

Transgender is a deep discontent with inhabiting the body you have. On that note, recently there was a documentary from Cuba about a male who underwent sex reassignment surgery, only to find himself “trapped in the traditionally assigned gender role of a housewife.” Where he was a woman trapped in a male body, now she is a woman imprisoned in a gender role. Welcome to the struggle.

Those in the trans community face higher rates of violence, depression and suicide than those in the cissexual community.

At the Moncton forum on transgender issues, held during Moncton’s Pride Week celebration, it seemed that a recurrent experience among the speakers was that of not knowing of the term ‘transgender’ until years of searching had been done.

One speaker spoke of furtively reading a school library’s encyclopedia in search of answers. The book’s cursory definition of “cross-dresser” was all that person had to hold onto for years. Another participant spoke of visiting scores of doctors and mental health professionals, none of them able to help, none of them aware of transgender identity or able to offer it as explanation.

Because of the lack of information, the lack of a support network that could help name what these people were dealing with, the transition often begins once they are adults, despite knowing from the time that they were children that something ‘was different’ about them. One speaker at the Moncton forum explained that transitioning was like gambling, but it was all your security that you put on the table – your home, your job, your relationship with loved ones. Then you wait and see what came back to you.

What can friends, family and communities in general do to support them as they transition? All of the speakers agreed that transitioning is difficult to understand and that there will be questions and moments of resistance. No one expects that the average person be an expert on transgender issues, so they gave guidelines:

“Use proper pronouns and names and treating us as you would any other person of that gender, and you are golden. This is 90 per cent of the struggle.”

It sounds like all that is needed is respect. It helps to remember that many of us non-trans “also question and resist the arbitrary and restrictive sex/gender roles expected of us based on our born physical sex,” as one blogger put it recently.

Next Thursday (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women), a rally is being organized at St. Thomas University to support transgender student Michelle Rayner who, because of being confused for a male, took a bloody lip in a women’s bathroom on campus.

Michelle writes, “By having washrooms clearly marked by gender lines, it becomes a safety issue for those who fall between, and after paying for an education there is a certain expectation of security of the person. . . This is only one example of students who are disadvantaged by the current system; I have witnessed several students accompanied by children on campus, students who are uncomfortable in public change rooms, and students with mobile disabilities waiting for the single accessible facility to become available. These students would also benefit from a wheelchair accessible ‘family washroom’ installed in every building . . .With the option of a ‘family washroom’ students can choose the place they feel most comfortable and secure.”

* Elsie Hambrook is Chairperson of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Her column on women’s issues appears in the Times & Transcript every Thursday. She may be reached via e-mail at acswcccf@gnb.ca

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