Our culture likes to make things simple
and gender isn't.
It was the constant fight of
me saying there's nothing wrong
with being this kind of girl as opposed to
well, I'm not a girl.
We really see transgender as an umbrella term.
I know lots of people
lots of men
who have vaginas.
It's not always easy thing to be in the
middle
I so prefer someone just
...treat me like human being.
Our culture has a pretty simplified
model of gender, or traditional gender model.
A model that says someone who's body
has a penis would be identified as male,
they would behave in a stereotypically masculine way,
they would identify themselves as a man
and they would date a woman.
That's what our normative or traditional gender
model is-- someone whose body sex is what we consider
female has a vagina, would behave
in a stereotypically feminine way, would then identify themselves as a woman
and would date men.
There are a huge number of individuals in this world
don't fit into those models.
but identify primarily as a transplant
I am and transgendered woman
identifies genderqueer because I feel
like it's more accurate to how I feel
in terms of my aunt and identity
you want to talk about transgender and I
we say
have to start by talking about gender
spray the comment critical piece in the
word
well
I use this somewhat simplified version
sex
Sandoval gender identity from the other
piece i
touch on and sexual orientation largely
because
and its relationship to gender and back
this mystical computer
changed %uh sex
against is about physical
characteristics organic
components in our bodies are anatomic
aspects of who we are sex hormones like
estrogen and testosterone
and comes up and it's often strongly
related to Antalya
I'll what is jammed
all what's essentially a social
understanding
how we are engendered sense in the world
its can be so mean that we do ourselves
I can also be something other people
seeing us
and typically when you have a boy you
give the boy trop
us action figures a girl you might give
dolls selling kits
very gender decisions weekend or color
weekender clothing
it's fine for girl to behave as in ask
them way or with my car
homeboi until she reaches puberty and
then she spots or
them up been within that and more I'm
powerful gender stereotypes of what it
once was
behave because I felt different alive I
think I overcompensated by doing things
that were
kinda like hyper feminine you know like
I had long hair
work dresses makeup I'll
Kendra danny is nothing more that how we
see ourselves and gender
way you can't look inside your body for
it's inside your head between your ears
people translate that into wanna are
common cultural choice
is it a man or woman clearly gender
isn't it has to be unique because we're
all too complex for st.
STR gender and to simple terms well
the relationship between gender and
sexual orientations important to discuss
here
a lot but think that one is the other
and vice versa
when people say gay they often think
they're talking about trans
the same time I like to make a
distinction that all
gay people are not trained general
treasury are not gay
everybody has both the gender and sexual
orientation well
best traditional 10 tomorrow that's what
our yes but our
advertising uses: are film seems that
are
paperwork going to ages the people to
fill out paperwork
they ask you check one box or the other
don't leave any room for complexity
the traditional gender mom doesn't
actually fit large numbers of people
and were given two choices we can either
change the people
we can change the mall it
when I was a really small child I'll I
do basically remember
feeling confused as far as my own gender
was concerned
there are times and might have heard
that I did feel different in terms of my
gender
like I never really thought there is
something wrong with me or something
different about my gender I don't think
I ever really thought about it I just
knew that
I was in his family and as other girls
and I just felt kinda different
that their at me thank you to getting a
boy and girl have sort of like
I think at the time people were telling
me that as a boy but I felt like a girl
same the think there is any different in
that the growth eight years old at the
time
for most people the sex they were
assigned at birth
is a pretty good match with their gender
identity for transgender people
it becomes clear very often at a young
age that
there said to themselves is different
than what's reflected in the mirror
what's reflected when they look down at
their bodies I would actually physically
get
all the time haha when I started to
develop breasts and I started to use
actually get to a place where my body
was becoming
more woman like and I didn't really
understand it
I wasn't comfortable in the assigned
role at being a boy was born in
because I had its certain genital you
know
situation I
down there was a cure that the boy and I
know but I never felt bad and I never
get i'd never I don't think I was ever
max lan in any way I was consistently
challenged every single day
my gender somebody had to make some
comment about it somebody had to say
something about it
I'll I was started by kids all the time
there was a lot of anxiety I think when
I was growing up
about me i Houston and I wives and
might make their gay teacher comment
another integrity hines
it's going to end up in new ones wearing
a dress Bianchi
him in there right now I think I grew up
internalizing a lot a chance though be
at that there was too much pain and
homophobia
wow there's so much anxiety about me
being so feminine and
trying to fix me there have always been
people
arm in different cultures and overtime
who would fit into the definition the
people who
living across gender way or who live
outside the norms
love on just mail or just email or just
man just woman
they started having a lot of friends who
will for coming out
as trans or a standard there and I
really
didn't quite understand and it just
seemed really foreign to me
and as I start to learn an effort to try
to understand what was going on with
them
a lot of this a lot a bit ranging from
me
I actually met my first chance for rent
and in the right moment for whatever
right reasons he can just look at me and
said so how do you feel like it and
and I can broke down that's basically
been my experience my entire life that I
don't really care
that an outcast exactly
that you said that that history it's a
lot live from me
intent in my pocket is about
trying tiny except myself
the hell really a while not in a bad way
but definitely away 20
five years making it was just really
really
to say I'll like I can identify
tender Claire
an alternative to the traditional than a
mile be in moldova call the authentic
gender model one that actually
represents
everybody all six billion people are
plant
using the same four components sex
gender role
gender identity and sexual orientation
but looking into those
as being more complex and just one or
the other
looking at that as a scaler spectrum
well
thing now gunmen at half price
the woman they have very small breasts
are no press we know that people
body hair differs people's colossal
structures differ
hormone levels to frame with their chin
and how it differs
our bodies our porn differently they
also change over time
that makes shoes change their bodies for
this sex would have to be played out
differently for each individual
by my own history as far as being chance
percent is really understanding and
really remembering every pilot light
transition
and remembering what struggle was I went
through in order to get
to wear I am today add
two surgeries and then I loans for five
and a half years
and had paid a lot of money and have had
to work really hard
and I'm really broke well
gender roles do change over time and
they change within cultures
incident Western American culture the
only emotion
that we really give and allow men to
have
is either anger or serve still awake
pride
it man crime concern that Eminem but
that's not the way in all cultures and
cultures man
on crime very openly are expected to
have considered masculine behavior
so it's clear that it's not have genetic
component poor man since I biological
component
by crying or anger can be seen as social
aspects of we r expressing happened that
night then in spirit
an outwardly is crucial for me to be
true to myself and for me to be happy
well third component
will be gender identity city is unique
for each individual
so six billion people explain gender
identities not even a specter my scale
just individual points
I never really felt like a lot of other
people that I know
in terms have being born in the wrong
body I feel
pre comfortable and comfortable enough
that I don't think that I'm going to
physically transition
I don't know think contains well
file he's will be sexual orientation
I'm artificial my likes to say that
mandate women
imitate that know it's much more complex
network
their people that their women that date
when there
the men their people that they both
sexes are genders
some people are flocking to transgender
people something for celibate
because a day at their masculine are
people are man
identify more with a gay male community
or as a gay man
then anything
I don't identify as I can but
to each of these aspects were talking
about
sex gender role gender identity or
sexual orientation
is sensor spectrum or scale something
bass explosive as opposed to narrowing
contracted
one way to define transgender people
is people who don't conform
or identify with the expectations
associated with the gender or sex they
were assigned at birth
year consul overly concerned about the
rest of the world
because what is at me if I started
transition
have to interact with the rest of the
world if I had just been dealing with
myself
I think I would have come to terms with
it senator that I actually did
now very attached to my own identity
being as a transmit people come from
different places and different cultures
and
arm races and classes so the terms that
people use for themselves may
really very people have really different
terms in words they're used to identify
themselves
tracking drag queen by gender on the
gendered
female to male male to female trans
woman transgender man
transexual them clean tranny transgender
s
no definition a transgender will be
people who feel that
the binary gender system of male and
female doesn't leave
enough room for their identities well
I can identify as a man or woman and
there've been times in my life when I
have
really conformed more to more
traditional
like femininity but never really felt
that right for me
a definition a genderqueer for a person
might be
someone who doesn't om identified with
the I'm dichotomy of the norms of a man
or a woman who might feel somewhere
in between they might feel like I'm on
somebody who identifies as a man and a
woman
or neither a man or a woman or something
right in the middle
people assume that although the
transgender people out there are going
to a medical gender transition
and we know that determine the relative
on population of people
out there who might be gender
non-conforming
a relatively small number of people
actually go through
on what would be considered a full
medical transition they don't always
understand that
if I don't feel like a woman as I was
supposed to pick those born it
female on socializes now then that must
mean that I'm transitioning
to be a man and that doesn't really fit
for me
if you are in a situation where you work
in an agency or some place where you
have a lot of contact
with individuals coming in and
in in numbers gotta have some way
to be able to to equalize it so that
transient the people have the ability to
identify themselves
and have the space to do that and have
you interact with them in an appropriate
way
people are looking at me and they have
to give me an ultrasound
on my lower abdomen and
they're looking at my paperwork and its
just you know of course in says
something about checking
first things like cysts ovarian cysts
and all this other business
I mean the technicians are just like
dumbfounded
like they've really didn't know what to
do a really didn't understand what it
was that they were looking at its not
always
easy to know how people refer to
themselves for me I think it's really
important that
decided engine the level that and see is
used
hair we can take a look at someone
and see based on the way they're dressed
or how they look that might be incorrect
guess the other way to find out would be
something
that sounds simple which is ask to ask
someone
how do you identify yourself how do you
identify your gender
what pronoun do you like to use always
really appreciate it when people ask me
what my
gender identity my pronoun preferences
the problem with asking
is that sometimes people feel like it
should be obvious
based on how they look I think make
presentation is fairly clear
I think even if even if it if it might
not be fully successful
on what had going for I think it's clear
so asking might offend somebody arm but
one other ways around that is to
actually ask
everybody their gender at the center we
have intake forms
and screening form so that everybody who
walks through the door we ask them their
sexual orientation we ask them their age
we ask them there on race or ethnicity
and we also less than their gender
identity so that allows us to actually
have people self-identify
so we don't have to guess by looking at
somebody what their gender is
sometimes it does feel like I'm putting
myself on the chopping block
for sure but I'd rather people ask
questions
a minute they're not nice questions
then now try to understand
meter some aspect that way I am
beyond me being transgender and I think
hearted
weights but if thats me is when people
can't get past that
one of the important things is to not
just reduce a transgender person to
only having this identity I work at
buyers I go pro
I'll for events and benefits
not a morning person and I might
anything
and ideas times and I can and the
performance I day
hey and their path I am a dog's owner
you know like all these different things
is
so painful seem
never last really is in itself
three-year
to the Judean doubt I'm and should be
applauded for that
we should not be persecuted for that he
should not be discriminated against
in tonight's services housing job to
that
we should be celebrating and we should
be in
that arise and I think that's about it
