The Meaning of Being Transgender.

Introduction:

This may be one of the most important documents that I’ll ever write, due to the fact that It may
have the ability to better help others in my situation, by proxy of those around them.

This is an article that describes in clear detail for anyone who isn’t trans-phobic: to understand what it
means for someone to be transgender. those who find themselves on the right-wing of politics are likely
to misunderstand what it means to be transgender, and anyone on the left-wing who reads this would
probably agree on that, however… It’s turned out that in my experience: both sides can misunderstand
equally in a few areas, the difference would happen to be that the right-wing tends to do it in a hateful
manner and the left-wing tends to do it in a supportive one.

The purpose of this article is to give an understanding of what it is like to be transgender and to clear
up some very common myths about being transgender, It’s going to lay out some of the most common
things said to transgender people and lay out precisely why they shouldn’t be said.

Summary:

Being transgender is as simple as having been born in the wrong body, it typically results in certain
factors in a trans persons life, such as: being told that they’re the gender that they’re not, making them
“confused” with their gender, if deep down you know/feel that your gender is that of the opposite sex,
and you’re told that your gender is the sex that you were born into, it can lead to confusion,
eventually it can click and you can truly realize your gender, and that’s where coming out, comes in.

Essentially: Coming out as transgender is the act of telling the people that have known you your entire
life that you’re actually the gender of the opposite sex. Coming out as transgender leads to the
opportunity to “transition”. Transitioning involves making your body characteristics closer to that
of which is commonly associated with that of the opposite sex, this is done so that when people
see you, you’re recognized for the gender that you actually are, rather than the one of the sex
they were assigned at birth. Something to note:

You don’t transition between genders, you transition your body to match said gender.

Right-Winged Haters and Left-Winged Supporters tend to get this so wrong, the right tends to have the
idea that: “a boy can’t become a girl” and the left tends to have the idea: “you can be whatever you want”
both are wrong and don’t typically acknowledge the fact that said trans person was said gender from
the start of their life, their body simply didn’t match it and they simply couldn’t fully realize it due to
how society works.

The transition has no impact on someones gender, It effects how people recognize them as said gender.
If a trans woman without transition had short hair and generally looked like a boy, she would get
recognized as a boy, she would still be a girl, her recognition as her identified gender would just be low.
 Extra Note:

While transition can boost the self confidence of many transgender people, some transgender people
are happy with parts of their bodies, and the only reason for feeling shame, is the fact that it can get
in the way of dating and their recognition for the gender that they identify as, due to this fact it could
be more ideal for society to change it’s outlook on transgender people, and to be more accepting.

Surgeries can be costly and even if you’re in a place where the government pays for it: it costs the
country that you’re in, a lot of money, money that the right-wing anti-social service groups would
complain about, while transition in certain ways can be important to a transgender persons mental
health, in quite a few cases, there’s no need to transition in certain ways, other than the fact that it
would change the way people look at them, some people only consider a trans-woman an “actual
woman” after she gets sexual re-assignment surgery and has a vagina. Said trans-woman may
have actually been happy with the penis that she was born with, but she would have gotten
the sexual re-assignment surgery and gotten the vagina that society says “makes her a girl”.

In reality, transition is only necessary in ways that make a person comfortable with their body,
what makes someone comfortable with their body can be as simple as long hair, laser hair removal
and some better clothing. While in some cases, it can require a lot more and even hormones,
none of that is what makes them who they are and society needs to start seeing that and with
this document, I hope to be part of what makes a future where trans women are truly understood,
where they are accepted with and without full transition. And to all the more right-winged readers
who would publicly harass anyone whom they recognize as a trans person, depending on where you
are: your actions can result in a trans person becoming more insecure and needing more of a transition,
this can cost your government money and could come out of your tax dollars, which it’s known that
right-wingers hate. So think first before harassing transgender people.

The rest of this article will be told from my perspective and a hypothetical one.

Myths about Transgender Women

.1 You can’t be Transgender and Lesbian.

Something that confuses people when they find out that I’m transgender is the fact that I’m lesbian,
people tend to think that since girls typically like guys, that since I identify as a girl, I have to like
guys, this is not the case as that would mean that for CIS people: any girl who likes a girl would be a
guy, and this would not make any sense. My gender is Female, I identify as female, a female who only
dates other females is called a Lesbian. The difference between a transgender lesbian and a CIS lesbian
is that one has a penis and the other has a vagina.
.2 You only “feel” like a girl because you’re low on testosterone.

This couldn’t be further from the truth and many right-winged arguments and observations debunk
this, that’s how discreditable it is, seriously!, multiple right-winged arguments from a right-winged
perspective can debunk this. I’ll list two:

.1

There are many feminine men out there that the right-wing refer to as “soy boys” some of these
men are actually very low on testosterone with a low sperm count (FACT), these men don’t identify
identify as transgender like this dumb idea that is believed about trans women implies.

.2

This is one that a guy would typically bring up if another guy said that trans-women are women too,
there are variations of this that essentially say the same thing. It always involves a guy who is raging
full of testosterone with massive muscles and it goes something like this:

“So if a massive black guy at a gym, raging with testosterone and ripped, were to say that
(person does deep voice of hypothetical person) “I’m a girl”, would that make them a girl?”

Basically, hormones have nothing to do with weather you’re trans or “feel” like you are or not,
most transgender women go on estrogen and require testosterone BLOCKERS, because otherwise:
they’re full of testosterone. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard even warped right-winged
arguments debunk this myth.

.3 You can’t be transgender and be a feminist

This ones a bit sticky due to the fact that CIS feminists can be a bit trans phobic, but at the end of the
day, I’m female, I advocate for equality and the abolishment of sexism and the inequality of women.

A sub myth of this would be that trans-women don’t experience sexism, and that’s not true, if you
“pass”, you experience sexism, though for trans-women who don’t fully “pass”, it might be slightly
less true, In my experience due to spending most of my time online, I’ve been openly “Jessica Winters”
I don’t go around telling everyone that I’m trans and It’s generally kept a secret to anyone who doesn’t
initiate conversation with me or end up reading my diary. I don’t see a need as to why someone should
know that I’m trans, it just gives them a stupid reason to judge me. This has lead to me experiencing
sexism online and a lot of homophobia due to also being lesbian. So to say that I don’t know what it’s
like would be completely and utterly untrue. I have experienced sexism and homophobia as well as
trans-phobia, I’m against sexism and pro-equality. I am a feminist. I don’t see myself and label myself
as the other people around me do, others may think of me as a “trans-woman” I think of myself as just
a woman.
There are many more myths about transgender women, however… those were the most important ones.
The next section will cover the things that you shouldn’t say to a trans person with some background
as to why, and what it is like for us when you say it, and it should give some insight on how to better
communicate with transgender people.

Things that you shouldn’t EVER say/do to a Transgender Person.

.1 You can be whatever you want to be

This may sound innocent at first as you’re talking to this person you presume to be a boy who
“wants to be a girl”, but the reality is that if you say this, that you’re misunderstanding the situation.

A transgender person is someone who was born into the wrong body, they don’t simply want to be the
gender of the opposite sex, they are the gender of the opposite sex.

.2 Refer to a transgender person as the pronouns of their birth sex prior to transition

Again, if you do this, It would show that you don’t understand and can be very upsetting to someone
who is trans, the hardest part about being trans if having people not understand us and properly accept
us, if you were to refer to a trans-woman as “he” because they haven’t transitioned yet, it wouldn’t be
very understanding. Instead, regardless of how deep her voice may be, flat her chest is and short her
hair may be, refer to her with the proper pronouns and treat her as you would any CIS woman.

.3 I had no idea that you were transgender (Mainly Online)

This is the equivalent to saying online to a black person that you had no idea that said person was
black, because there’s stereotypes engraved into your brain of how a black person should talk & act.

Transgender people are the genders that they identify as, you wouldn’t know that they’re not CIS,
there’s no way that you could possibly know this without seeing what they’ve looked like, and even
then, you’re unlikely to notice that someone is transgender unless you’ve been made aware of it.

There are many other things that you shouldn’t say to transgender person, a lot of them are quite
obvious, but a lot of people wouldn’t think about the ones that are listed above, because they’re
said by a supportive person in a mostly supportive nature. The main reason why the problems and
lack of understand goes on, is because it can be hard to correct someone who is supportive of you
and doesn’t really see anything wrong with what they’re saying, on the contrary if someone bigoted
had said something, you’d potentially be more likely to pipe up and try to correct them.

Near Finale

This isn’t a book, it’s not going to drag on and on, the ending is near and the goal will be reached of
busting myths on what it’s like to be trans, if it hasn’t been done already. The next part is going to
give a hypothetical scenario that speaks directly with what it’s like to be trans and how crazy it would
be if people treated them the way that trans people are treated in their situations. This will be listed
in the style of a conversation and how annoyed you would be, and rightfully so. This is exactly
how it is like for me, when dealing with people who know that I’m transgender.
 Hypothetical Situation

Let’s imagine that I was once a CIS girl and I had swapped bodies with a guy, I would probably
enjoy it for awhile, then I would want to go back to my body so that I could Interact properly with
everybody that I knew again, now imagine… that the body swap was permanent, that I was stuck with
with that body, I would be in a mans body for life, but I would be me, the girl I always was, my body
would get in the way of social interactions, Let’s imagine that I was straight and that I loved guys,
my ability to date guys would be limited due to the fact that I’m inside a mans body and that straight
guys wouldn’t want to look at me, gay guys tend to be more supportive in the way that they don’t date
girls who are In guys bodies, this would make my options on dating very limited, I’m a girl, I love
guys, (Bleh. Not really, just in this hypothetical to prove a point) I’d be shit out of luck, I’d need
to change my body to be like the gender that I am (female) to attract straight guys. I would be a girl
changing this body isn’t what made me a girl, I was a girl: the entire time.

I know that I’ve skipped a lot of the process in the scenario that’s listed above, but I’ll get to the in
between, and to see if my point has been proven: I’ll be a little bit crude with my language, and if you
disagree and miss the concept of all that I’ve said in this document, you will find it offensive.

If my point has gotten across: you’ll have a reaction such as:

“That makes so much sense, I can’t believe how dumb that sounds”

Hypothetical Main Character (HMC)

Hypothetical Somewhat Supportive (HSS)

Hypothetical Conversation 01:

HSS: You can be whatever you want to be.
HMC: What the f***? You’re not getting this!!, it’s not about what I “WANT” to be, it’s the fact that I’ve switched
bodies and am trying to get this body to match who I actually am, since I’m stuck in it!

Essentially: the horror that you see above is what it’s like for transgender people from birth,
and nobody ever sees us for who we are. There was originally supposed to be more than just one
conversation example, but as I’ve addressed all of the important stuff already, there’s no need for more.
 FINALE
I believe that I’ve addressed all of the important stuff and stressed what it’s like to be trans and how at
the end of the day: it’s not much different from being CIS. I’d like to address something for anyone
who’s trans who ends up reading this: Be proud of who you are and don’t let anyone tell you what
parts that you should or shouldn’t have, no matter what, you are the gender that you are, and you’re
the only person who knows the gender that you truly are.

As for me: I’m Jessica Lynn Winters, and I’m a woman who was born in the wrong body,
and while I’ve had a pretty s****y life because of it, I’m happy about certain things about my body,
such as the lack of periods, the fact that I’m lesbian and could have kids If I actually had wanted.

I plan on doing so much with my life and rocking this body that I was given, proving the stereotypes
wrong and showing everyone that transgender people are normal people like everybody else.

I don’t plan to be active and fighting for trans rights, but rather to show people that transgender people,
are just like CIS people and getting rid of the stereotypes and fear of us.

P.S:
This has taken me two hours to write and I hope that this can be used in the future as a reference,
to what it means to be transgender and I also hope that it has the ability to breakdown stereotypes
and clear up myths.