When someone has a baby, apart from “Is everything alright? Did it all go well?”, one of the first questions that people ask is “What is it? A boy or a girl?”.
Some definitions are helpful:
Sex: a biological identification based on identified genitals – can you see a vulva or penis and testicles?
Gender: a social construct based on identified genitals – there are expectations of thinking, emotions and behaviour associated with what genitalia a person has. These expectations can change over time and place but most people identify strongly and instinctively with the gender they were given at birth.
Cis woman/man: a woman or man identifying as the sex and gender they were given at birth.
Trans man: someone who identifies as a man but was born with female genitals and was identified at birth as a girl.
Trans woman: the opposite – someone who identifies as a woman, but was born with male genitals and was identified at birth as a boy.
Sexuality: very different from gender identity – sexuality is about what sexual attraction you may (or may not) feel to a gender or genders.
On what do we base our answer? A baby is one day old. What do we know about it? The answer is based only on the genitals that we can see. However, science tells us that there are chromosomes, hormones and gender identities, and that these do not always match up. When I worked at one of the local universities, I had two students who were recognised as transgender. They were young men. I didn’t see them as anything else. Recently one of my relatives has started the process of transitioning from being a young man to becoming a young woman, an identity she believes she always had – and it was just her body that was wrong. A male conservative MP has recently said that they identify as a woman. I thought it was time to ask some questions to help me understand trans issues correctly and learn to put aside some of my stereotypes and prejudices. I have asked honest questions and received honest replies.
I found the first important thing to remember is that everyone is an individual. Just because someone is transgender does not mean they will agree with everyone else identifying similarly. The people I spoke with, did not want to represent other trans people; they were giving me their own opinions and ideas but I have pulled together their comments. Secondly, the people who we see in the media do not represent everyone. They are people whom the media people want to show – often very different from the ordinary person in the street.
I would like to thank the people who gave me their time and patience and agreed that I could ask any rude question that I wanted, so I started with:
When you say that you feel that you are a man/ woman, what is it that makes you feel that?
All answered in the same way. They asked me how I knew that I was a woman, what it is that makes me sure that I am a woman. I couldn’t define it; I just know that I am. So, why was I asking them to define their instinctive feelings? In the same way as I instinctively ‘know’, so does a trans person. Why should a trans person be required to do something really difficult that a cis person wouldn’t be asked to do?
Do you think that your upbringing as one gender influences how you are as you transition?
Most agreed that it probably does – we are all influenced by our upbringing. If trans women seem to bring with them some of the ‘privileges’ of having been brought up male then maybe parents/ teachers/ society in general should start to reconsider how we influence our children to one kind of behaviour over another. If a trans woman has more confidence (physically and in society) because she developed that as a boy – that does not take away her womanhood. It was suggested that if I went to somewhere like a rural village in Afghanistan where women have little or no status, my upbringing would mean that I would have the confidence to demand more – but that doesn’t make me any less a woman. Although one of the trans men did say that he had to learn to have confidence and the difference between being seen as a young woman in society and being accepted as a man was really surprising to him. It took him a while to adapt to a different social status and develop a confidence in taking his space.
Do you think it endangers cis women if trans women use the public ladies’ toilets? It could be a man pretending to be a woman.
No. A trans woman is a woman. They are more likely to be endangered going into a men’s public toilets. Most public ladies’ loos have signs showing that men may be cleaning in there. It would be a lot easier for a man to put on a high-viz jacket and pick up a mop than to pretend to be a woman. Some men can be a threat to any woman. A 2020 report from Galop showed that half of the trans people who responded had experienced a transphobic attack in the street in the previous 12 months and that two-thirds said they do not use public toilets because of fear of attack. Another survey by vpnMentor, about online bullying and abuse, found that transgender women feel the least safe online while cisgender men feel the safest. Women do fear attack by cisgender men, but most attacks occur in the home by someone the woman knows. This is not true for trans people.
What about the thorny issue of trans women competing in sport against cis women?
This question brought about the most varied comments. Some people thought it was a red herring that people focused on because they thought it was a legitimate way of attacking trans women. Others thought it was an issue that did need to be addressed and a solution found but that it is not beyond the wit of sports governing bodies to come up with a solution. It is also not as easy as the media would have us believe to compete as a trans woman in elite sports. Research has yet to determine the impact of hormone treatment and development of bones and muscles. Lots of trans women compete – and lose and so no mention is ever made of them. There are examples of trans men, who have not had the advantage of training through adolescence as men, but who can compete successfully – so it’s not all about building a ‘male’ body when you are young. And let’s face it – how many elite sports people are there around? The very term ‘elite’ says that this is not the large-scale issue that the media would have us believe. It is surely possible to devise a solution which is fair to all.
Why is there so much more media coverage about trans women than trans men?
The general feeling was that I should ask the media representatives who seem to fixate on beautiful – or muscular – trans women. There are an estimated 13,000 trans people living in the UK today. Ordinary trans men and women are just going about their normal everyday lives, out of the media glare.
Finally, a very personal question: how did families react to the news of a son/daughter or brother/sister reassigning their gender?
This was very different for everyone. Somebody had a grandfather (in his 90s) whose response was that he had thought his grandchild was gay. He said he couldn’t understand it but still loved his grandchild saying he could not stop loving them but that he had difficulty remembering all the grandchildren’s names anyway and he apologised if he ever got the new name wrong because it was a lot to remember at his age.
Another person was not so fortunate. They no longer saw their parents, which is very sad. Others said that the parent or sibling who was the same sex as the one they were transitioning to, were the most accepting and supportive – for example, a brother of someone who transitioned to become a man accepted their trans status more quickly than had their sister.
Family acceptance was very important to all my interviewees – families are where your love and acceptance comes from first.
Karisa Krcmar
If you, or a friend or family member, care about online safety, you may be interested in a new safety guide that gives tips and practical suggestions for online safety. You can find it at: www.vpnmentor.com/blog/lgbtq-guide-online-safety
Sources:
https://galop.org.uk/resource/transphobic-hate-crime-report-2020/
https://www.quora.com/How-many-trans-people-are-in-the-U-K
https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/lgbtq-guide-online-safety/