Below are a number of commonly-asked questions concerning transgenderism. These questions are hard to answer in a couple sentences without missing a lot of important subtlies and often there are several accepted answers. In spite of these challenges, the following answers are offered as a primer to introduce someone to what being transgendered is about.


What does it mean for a person to be "transgendered?"
A person who is transgendered is someone who's sense of their own gender does not match their physical genitalia. This "sense of their own gender" is called gender identity.

Isn't Gender Identity the same thing as sex?
No, gender identity is not the same as sex - they are independent. One's "sex" is defined by if they have a penis or a vagina whereas one's "gender" is a sense of self. If you assert that they are the same, then anyone who is sexually attracted to women must be a man.

Are transgendered people gay?
Some people who are transgendered are gay and some are not - and in proporations pretty much the same as the population as a whole (although no one has any definitive proof about how many people are gay, transgendered or otherwise). Just because a person sees themselves as a female does not mean that they necessarily are attracted to men. Some women are attracted to other women, some men to other men, some women to men, and some men to women...

Aren't transgendered people just sexual freaks and perverts?
No. Just because a person thinks of themselves as being a female does not mean that the person is a sexual deviant or is perverted. Although some people may dress in women's clothes for fetishistic reasons, a great many more do not. Sex and gender are often confused and it is often difficult to distinguish between fetishism that happens to have female clothing as an object and transgender behavior that includes sexual play.

Why don't you just stop doing this?
The short answer is, we can't and don't want to. It is who we are. It is how we feel. Research and a great deal of anecdotal evidence suggest that as few as 3% of transgendered people who try to "give it up permanently" actually succeed. These statistics are not much different that the percentage of obese people who are able to lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off permanently.

Were you born transgendered?
Most transfolk look back and realize that they knew they where different as very young children. The other realize things as they get older when they grew enough intellectually and emotional to understand that they are different and how. Many of us knew that something was not quite right but didn't have a vocabulary to talk about it. Many of us confused their feelings about gender with their sexual urges and dismissed any gender issues as being some sort of sexual fetishism that they didn't talk to anyone about. There has been quite a bit of medical research done in recent years that strong suggest that one's perceived gender is greatly influenced by certain structures in the brain.

What is the difference between someone who is transgendered and a transvestite? What about a transsexual or drag queen?
A "transvestite" (TV) is a term that the medical community came up with decades ago when it was thought that you must be mentally ill if you felt that your gender was not in line with your genitals. Since that term has been around for such a long time, it is still used although the preferred term used today is typically "crossdresser." A crossdresser (CD) is a person who wears the cloths of someone of the opposite sex. Some crossdressers dress because of a fetish although many do not. Most crossdressers dress only occassionaly.

A "Drag Queen" is typically someone who dresses for fashion/presentation reasons - typically exaggerated for performing on stage. Some people describe drag queens only as gay men who dressed as women to attract other men, but that is not a fair description in many cases. It is the "look at me" attitude that more readily describes a drag queen, not their sexuality. By the way, a "Drag King" is the woman's equivalent to a "Drag Queen."

A transsexual (TS) is a transgendered person who physically changes themselves to that their bodies are more closely aligned with the gender that they feel they are. This usually involves taking hormones and having surgeries on their genitals. Most transsexuals end up living fulltime in their preferred gender. If they have had some surgeries or take hormones but have not had sexual reassignment surgery (SRS), it is said that they are a "pre-op" transsexual. If they have had SRS, it is said that they are "post-op." Some TSs, for various reasons, decided not to have SRS and are often called "Non-Op."

The term "shemale" if often used for either a pre-op or non-op individual. In America, "shemale" is more associated with the porn industry or with sex workers whereas in Europe, the term is more widely accepted without as much association with the porn or prostitution.

The term "transgendered" usually refers to the entire spectrum of people who are CD, TV, TS, Drag Queens, intersexed (often called "hermaphrodites," but the exact definition is another whole discussion), asexual people, androgynous folk, etc.