Can you define the term "transgender"?
I think it's like the one with the mangina.
I have no idea.
Someone who has 2 parts.
2 parts?
Yes
Okay.
Someone who's trapped in their own body.
I never really knew what that term meant.
Maybe it should be explained a little more, what transgender is.
In the United States there are an estimated 700,000 transgender adults.
As their numbers increase, it's important to educate ourselves to their reality.
Honestly as cliché as it may sound, I've felt different since little.
When I was growing up, when I was a child in my early teenage years
I really didn't know what a trans was.
Um I knew I was different from an early age.
From an incident in my family that I wanted a Barbie.
TRANSGENDER
A term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex
The doctor marked on their birth certificate.
Gender Identity
It's one's private sense of being a man or a woman.
For transgender people, the sex they were assigned ay birth and their internal identity
do not match.
I remember before my transition I would have to try to like be like dudely.
I transitioned really fast.
Like in a year I looked totally different.
Transition
The process of changing to the opposite of a birth-assigned sex
Usually through sex reassignment therapy
Including hormone replacement and gender reassignment surgery
Transexual
A person who has gone through gender reassignment surgery.
Not to be confused with Transvestite
A person who dresses in a style or manner traditionally associated with the opposite
sex.
After you get your, your gender reassignment surgery, like everything changes.
Like all the chemicals in your brain change like once you start moving things around.
So male to female transgender people, when you move parts of your body it's
Your brain realizes that there's something different.
Since I've gone under my surgery, like your brain releases an LH hormone.
LH Hormone is a hormone produced in the pituitary gland.
In females an acute rise of LH triggers ovulation.
In males, it stimulates production of testosterone.
Your brain releases an LH hormone and starts to look for um a uterus.
Being that I don't have a uterus, your body is a little confused.
So you have to monitor your hormones and make sure you don't overproduce the LH hormone.
Or you're not, you don't develop any cancer or like you know you have to really be in
control of that.
What were your concerns before getting surgery?
Not looking the part that I saw for my self.
Even in the beginning of my transition, I even cried.
Like oh my god, I don't wanna be the trans girl with the peach fuzz
And the razor bumps on her face.
I was like I don't wanna be the girl that doesn't have what she needs to be passable.
Passable
The point in transition when a transgender person feels comfortable enough to go out
in public.
What are some questions you just shouldn't ask a trans person?
I feel like the most annoying question is just like "Oh so do you have all the surgery?"
"Do you have your man parts?"
I don't like it when people asked me if they know like what kind of surgeries I've had
done.
That's annoying to me.
Which gender pronouns should we use for trans people?
Well I think that pronouns are extremely sensitive with trans people.
And if I present myself as female, it should always be "she" and "her".
You know, period. It's really, it's that simple.
If you could ask a trans person one question, what would it be?
Are you happy, and do you enjoy life?
I... can say that I'm happier now.
You know I'm not unhappy.
But I feel like my life would be better had I been born biologically female, I think.
But I don't think I would be as strong a person as I am today.
I definitely can say I have a newfound confidence
And um a newfound happiness that I'm very, very, very content with.
Well I'm a hundred percent happy of who I am.
I think that there's no other way I would rather be.