9781422275245

Words to Understand Assigned gender: The gender written on your birth certificate when you were born. Revered: Honored. Validate: To support the truth or value of something. When you were born, the doctor took a look at your reproductive organs and made a determination that you were either a boy or a girl. At that time, there was no way of knowing how you felt inside. Your parents and everyone else used their preconceived ideas of what makes up a girl or boy and guided you toward that direction. They dressed you in the clothing they felt appropriate, they found activities they felt either a girl or boy should do, and bought toys based on your assigned gender . Nobody questioned whether or not you felt comfortable with this identification. You, however, felt that someone got that gender wrong because inside, you felt you didn’t comfortably fit into this mold. When Assigned Gender Feels Wrong Most transgender people say they felt there was something “off” about their assigned gender from an early age. Maybe as a little “boy” you were attracted to your mother’s silky clothing and makeup, or as a little “girl” you preferred helping out in your dad’s workshop and playing sports. You may have had people tell you that you weren’t supposed to like a certain thing or that you shouldn’t behave in a certain manner. You may have tried to do what was expected but that feeling inside never went away. Somehow you knew that something wasn’t correct in how you were expected to interact with the rest of the world. You probably felt confused. That is how things normally start. You most likely kept this feeling quiet because you either couldn’t

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Being Transgender