The Trans Spectrum

Should transgender individuals change the way they behave just because they are not fully accepted into society? Of course not.  Transgender individuals are free from choosing the way they want to perform in society.  They are free to be who they want to be.

We may thing that being a transgender is a birth defect in which their brain and their bodies don’t match up. That is not the case though.  Transgender individuals identify themselves with the gender sex they were born with and gravitate toward femininity or masculinity as they begin to explore their own identity.  They become curious about their gender, their femininity, their masculinity and are driven to perform their gender expression as a natural way.

In the transgender spectrum, people are culturally marked and excluded in which they are perceived as different individuals who are not part of the gender norms.  Because of their specific gender transgression- that is changing their gender expression and becoming either more feminine or masculine- transgender people are discriminated and stigmatized for altering their bodies and navigating into a different gender.

Many transgender individuals don’t have the same benefits as we do; they rather lose many life chances that other individuals receive in our society.  They face many challenges from issues such as health-care benefits to brutally comments from individuals in the street. Transgender people face a wide variety of discriminating barriers to full equality. I have come to witness how many transgender people are discriminated in our own world and they are told by others how they are a disgrace in which they should be shameful for what they are doing.  It is hard for to us to accept transgender people because we see them as out of the normal, as people who are not part of our gender norms.  Our society picks on them because of their gender appearance, and transgender people tend to be discriminated worse off as it is easier for us to accept a gay or lesbian person.  Anything outside of the traditional gender binary is discriminated and people discriminate transgender people- from outing them to ridiculing them. According to the Transgender Europe’s Transgender Murder Project, 238 transgender individuals were murdered worldwide.  It is no doubt that many are brutally harassed and some are even murdered.

Related Video: Transgender Woman Found Murdered in Detroit

Transgender people are seen as issue to society and violent crimes are playing in the transgender community as society projects their hate upon them.  Transgender people are harshly discriminated and for them to be murdered has become a tragic reminder of that reality.  Our society tends to stigmatize transwomen more than transmen as they are the ones who are mainly receive the harsh comments from society.  We have come think that they are demonized and have the fascination to be part of the femininity community.  We see them as artificial and unnatural in which they are trying to mimic a gender identity to which they do not belong to. Transgender people are not seen as part of the gender norm and our society tends to target them because of their specific gender transformation as they unveil their feminine gender expression.

Many transgender individuals are reluctant to identify themselves as transgender because of fear of discrimination and harsh comments. Some transgender individuals hide from their own transformation as to not suffer and be oppressed by our own society.   

Society relies on rigorously maintained concepts of gender and gender expression and it creates a challenge for the transgender community.  We are not open-minded and it is difficult for us to accept decisions that are not part of the heternormative.  However, we should not judge or view transgender individuals as abnormal, instead we should try to understand their transformation and give them the opportunity to express their own gender identity.  No one is perfect, and each individual has the freedom to choose whether they want to be masculine or feminine.

Transgender people should not be afraid to express themselves, and as a society, we shouldn’t deprive their want to become more feminine or masculine.  Transgender people are completely independent of one another and in essence, we all have the choice to choose who we want to be.  

Sources: 

Meyers, Jamie Ann.  “We Matter! Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013.” HuffingtonPost. 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.

Ring Trudy.  “Transgender Woman Found Murdered in Detroit.” Advocate. 18 Nov. 13. Web. 26   Nov. 2013.