April 4, 2012 Transgender

I googled "transgender" to see what I could find because this class sparked an interest during discussion. I found the American Psychological Association (APA) website and it was titled, "Answers to your questions on Transgender people, gender identity, and gender expression." The very beginning stated this:
"

What does transgender mean?

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or something else; gender expression refers to the way a person communicates gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice, or body characteristics. “Trans” is sometimes used as shorthand for “transgender.” While transgender is generally a good term to use, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-nonconforming will identify as a transgender person. The ways that transgender people are talked about in popular culture, academia, and science are constantly changing, particularly as individuals’ awareness, knowledge, and openness about transgender people and their experiences grow.

I feel like transgendered people can be so misunderstood. I honestly couldn't really explain what/who they were until last semester when I took Soc. on Gender. We had to read a great book about Transgenders in the workplace. It was amazing to see how they were treated equally until they revealed that they were trans. After it was out in the open, all of a sudden discrimination was flying left and right. One example in the book that I found so interesting was about the issue of sexism. There was a woman who had to give a presentation to her colleagues in a business that she worked at. (It was some sort of office/business place) Anyways, she gave the presentation and explained her work to all of them and all the men came out of the room and were complaining about the presentation. None of them were impressed or satisfied with her work. Soon after that she transitioned to a man and applied to the place as her "brother." As a man she gave the exact same presentation as she did before and when it was over a man walked out and said something like, "Wow, Ben's way better than his sister."

Here's a GREAT video on a Transgender child
I also mentioned in class a story about a child who was raised gender neutral by his parents and how they didn't reveal the sex to anyone except very few people. I'm posting the link to the article below. Apparently after 5yrs they revealed the gender and it's a boy. It's pretty interesting. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089474/Beck-Laxton-Kieran-Cooper-reveal-sex-gender-neutral-child-Sasha.html

I also found a tragic story on Gwen Araujo, who was a transgender that was murdered. She faced death from a hate crime just for being different. There is even a movie made after her case called A Girl Like Me. I'm interested to see it.

And here's the picture of the transgender that I brought up in class who had children.










Random image for the day: It's so powerful to me