Frequently Asked Questions

"You think you're a girl? Are you crazy? Or are you gay?"


"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music." --George Carlin

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain

There's a reason I only come out to the people closest to me.

It seems that in Western culture, it is assumed that no one is transgendered. (For the purposes of this site, a person is "transgendered" if they have a gender identity opposite from their biological sex.) It is assumed that if anyone feels that they are, it's a sign of repressed homosexuality at best and insanity at worst. To some people, you might as well say you think you're a dog.

Thus, if you are perfectly comfortable with being the gender you were assigned, you probably have some questions for me. I will try to answer them the best I can. If, on the other hand, you're like me, and you think you will be asked any of these questions, feel free to use my answer.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Are you gay?

That depends on how you define gay. If you define it purely by orientation, as so many people these days seem to do, then yes, Im a lesbian. I like the woman-to-woman dynamic, and the way women look and are is, for me, how people are supposed to look and be, much like most people feel about people of their own race, culture, religion, etc. However, if you define it by acts, then the answer is no, because I'm celibate.

I'm celibate for many reasons. The one many people reading this can identify with is that I can't stand the thought of having to act out the male role, and even if I could, the sad truth is that transgender people arent all that marketable in the dating game. Straight women, by definition, want someone who is male inside and out. Every woman who has ever been attracted to me has been either openly bisexual or openly lesbian, but lesbians, like straight men, only allow each other to date biological women, so they cant act on this attraction. This is why I dont identify with the lesbian label.

How do you know you're a girl? Aren't you just a sensitive guy?

A sensitive guy still feels male inside. He identifies more with other men than with women, even if he likes women, and he shares the basic male worldview, or at least important parts of it, so he considers himself a foreigner in women's culture. None of those are true of me. If you like, you can look at the page about my experiences.

I guess you could say that I do not understand men in the way that a man does. I understand men from the outside perspective, rather than from my own experience of maleness (which is nonexistent). By contrast, I understand women from my own experience of femaleness. For many years, I thought the female perspective was just the way things are, that it was the way all people of sound mind and judgment thought.

Nothing can be proven one way or the other. But feelings, by their very nature, are impossible to prove. I can't prove to anyone that I love my mom, but that doesn't mean I don't. If someone tells you they're in pain, you believe them. Why do we accept some unprovable things but not others? I think it's because of our ideas about what is and isn't possible. We know it's possible to love a person or be in pain, but many people believe it's impossible to have a gender identity inconsistent with one's biological sex. If you're not sure whether or not to believe me, you're just going to have to take my word for it. If you're not transgendered, but someone you know is, one of the worst things you can do is not believe them. Even if you don't understand, it will mean a lot to them if you try.

So do you really think you're a girl? Are you crazy?

Gender identity and biological sex are separate aspects of gender. I am both female and male, just as Leonard Nimoy, by his own admission, both is not and is Spock. Thus someone who feels female inside, sees the world from the female perspective, etc. is female, even if they have a male body. However, I understand that the world defines me as male because I have a male body. I present as male when I'm out in the world, and only come out to those who are closest to me.

As for the question about whether I'm crazy, people who have any kind of mental illness usually have problems with mental illness in general. According to Comorbidity of gender dysphoria and other major psychiatric diagnoses by C.M. Cole, M. O'Boyle, L.E. Emory, and W.J. Meyer III, of 435 gender dysphoric individuals (318 male, 117 female), 9% had problems with mental illness; this is similar to the general population, supporting the view that being transgendered is usually an isolated diagnosis and not part of any general psychopathological disorder. (Source: Archives of Sexual Behavior, Feb. 1997, Vol. 26, Issue 1, pp. 13-26) Another piece of evidence that being a woman in a man's body is a real phenomenon is that male-to-female transsexuals who have sex reassignment surgery report that sex as a woman is exactly as they used to imagine it before the surgery, and that they have no "phantom limb" phenomenon with the removed organs. Furthermore, female-to-male transsexuals report having had a "phantom male organ" from a very early age (read the article here).

The David Reimer case shows that gender identity has an innate component, as do animals with what would be labeled "gender identity disorder" in humans. You might want to look at the articles on the main page, under the heading, "Proof that we're not nuts," for more.

So if I'm crazy, it's not because of my gender issues.

The question comes up because it is believed that being one gender and having the body of the other is itself an insanity. This is just society's judgment; homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness not so long ago.

Isn't gender defined by biological sex?

Not necessarily. Many cultures have a space for transgendered people. Many Native American tribes (at least 120!), as well as many tribal cultures around the world, recognize the existence of more than two genders, such as the Zu�i male-bodied La'mana, the Lakota male-bodied winkte, and the Mohave male-bodied alyhaa and female-bodied hwamee. Such people used to be called "berdache," but now the preferred name is "Two-Spirit." They could live fully in their chosen gender role. In Mexico, the Zapotec culture includes a third gender called the Muxe. For more cultures like this around the world, see Other Words for the Other-gendered.

In Thailand, a feminine boy is raised a girl and grows up to be a male-to-female transsexual. Such people are called kathoey and make no attempt to hide who and what they are, because they are accepted socially as women. (This doesn't mean they're as socially accepted as Americans think.) Similar people exist in Samoa and are called fa'afafine. In Iran, thanks to Ayatollah Khomeini, transgendered people are officially recognized; they are expected to undergo sex reassignment surgery. (However, 80% of those who get the surgery are actually homosexuals who do this to escape persecution, and even among the rest, only a few remain healthy after the surgery because it's so carelessly done. Read all about it here.)

The ancient Greeks recognized the existence of transgendered people. Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend has a Greek myth in which the goddess Venus Castina was assigned the task of responding with sympathy and understanding to the yearning of female souls locked in male bodies.

According to Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein, the Navajo had an interesting way of determining a child's gender:

When the gender of a child was in question in some Navajo tribes, they reached a decision by putting a child inside a tipi with loom and a bow and arrow--female and male implements, respectively. They set fire to the tipi, and whatever the child grabbed as he/she ran out determined the child's gender. It was perfectly natural to these Navajo that the child had some say in determining its own gender.

The Marsh Arabs were the same way.

In ancient Rome, there were boys who had themselves castrated and then lived as girls from then on, and could even marry men; similar people existed in Medina (the burial place of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam; it's interesting to note that while the modern Muslim world is intolerant of transgendered people, they were tolerated by early Muslim scholars). The Hijras in India are a modern example of this. Over 3,000 years ago, Chinese apothecaries distilled female hormones from pregnant mare urine (which is what Premarin is made of) for treating patients, some of whom were transsexuals; this is still done in rural areas. According to the book "Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia" by Jean Bottero, some "men" in ancient Sumer wore women's clothing and took women's names, and "...if we can believe an astonishing oracular text -- playing the part of wives and even mothers." (No country today tolerates transgendered people to that extent, not even Thailand or Samoa.) Even today, in some parts of the Balkan area, if a woman swears in front of 12 witnesses that she will remain a virgin, she can live as a man and be treated as any other men.

According to Effeminacy and the Homosexual: an Encyclopedia of Homosexual Behavior (Ellis, A. and Cory, D. (eds.), New York, Citadel Press, 1966), Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria (not the scientist from UHF), wrote:

Expending every possible care on their outward adornment, they are not ashamed even to employ every device to change artificially their nature as men into women. Some of them craving a complete transformation into women, they have amputated their generative members.

The same source quotes the Roman poet Manilius:

These (persons) will ever be giving thought to their bedazement and becoming appearance; to curl the hair and lay it in waving ripples ...to polish the shaggy limbs. Yea! and to hate the very sight of (themselves as) a man, and long for arms without growth of hair. Womans robes they wear ... (their) steps broken to an effeminate gait.

Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty and She's Not The Man I Married has made a really good analogy. Biological sex is like a bill passed through Congress that needs only the president's signature to become law. Gender identity is whether the president signs this bill into law or vetoes it. To extend the analogy, most modern cultures do their best to override any veto, sometimes going so far as to kill people who are brave enough to openly declare that they have vetoed their birth sex.

But you have some masculine traits. How can you feel this way?

A few masculine traits don't make a man; plenty of women have a few masculine traits. I don't care if someone points out my masculine traits, but I do care if they use them as an excuse not to believe me.

I think of male and female as directions, like north and south. Let's say the north pole is 100% feminine and the south pole is 100% masculine. Few people live at the poles. By this analogy, I live up north, in one of those places that gets a lot of snow, where you can see the Aurora Borealis and have to look up in order to see the North Star. Whereas the world assumes I live in Antarctica and am seeing the Aurora Australis and the Southern Cross. My ocean has polar bears, not penguins.

Actually, you could think of masculinity/femininity and male/female as separate axes. There are masculine women in men's bodies, and feminine men in women's bodies. Their internal sense of gender is the same as any other masculine women and feminine men. In fact, there are extremely masculine lesbians in men's bodies and extremely feminine gay men in women's bodies.

Are you just doing this because you think it's cool?

I never do anything just because it's "cool." And I've felt this way as long as I can remember--long before I'd ever heard of the concept or had words to express it. Before I had ever heard of the concept of "cool."

By the way, I was made fun of a lot for being this way. When did it become cool?

Is this a new phenomenon?

No. There have been transgendered people throughout history, all over the world. Abbe de Choisy in the 17th century left behind writings that say straight out that he felt like a woman in a man's body. Some say Joan of Arc considered herself a man. See the question, "Isn't gender defined by biological sex?" for more. For more famous individuals, check out this page.

Have you ever thought about trying to become more masculine so you can fit in better?

Yes. That describes my teenage years in a nutshell. It didn't work.

You can be a normal, healthy, functional man through the Lord. Would you like to be saved?

I've already been saved. Please see my page for transgender Catholics.

Are you a cross-dresser?

No. Cross-dressers mostly identify as male, and most of them are straight. Crossdressing is often simply a regular expression of male sexuality, like pornography. Men who are attracted to women can get very excited by seeing part of themselves as female by wearing a bit of women's clothing. Most of the sexual fascination is focused on the knowledge that underneath the feminine clothing, the transvestite is still male. Some of these men start increasing the arousal by wearing more women's clothing, eventually going on to full crossdressing. Men who get into public crossdressing often do so because they enjoy putting on a performance, or just because they like to look pretty. Also, most crossdressers start after puberty, while many transgendered people feel as they do from an early age. The psychiatric community considers it a mental illness, but it's no more a mental illness than unusual sex practices. 30% of men have indulged in crossdressing at some point in their lives, 5% of men are regular crossdressers, and 2% of male emergency room patients arrive in female undergarments.

Some women in men's bodies try crossdressing, but many realize that they're not like other cross-dressers. Some continue anyway, some don't. Most of the clothing cross-dressers prize so much is slowly going out of style anyway; there's a joke about how you can always pick out the transsexual woman in a group because she's the one wearing a dress. Basically, transgendered people are a minority in the crossdressing community--only about 5%. If 5% of men cross-dress regularly, and 2% of the population has strong cross-gender feelings that need to be expressed, then only 1/8 of people with strong cross-gender feelings actually do any regular cross-dressing.

This excerpt from Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Cross-Dressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites With Attitude by Amy Bloom sums up why I don't go for the cross-dressing scene:

[T]heir assertion that crossdressing is their creative expression of both genders is unsettling because it is at such odds with their behavior, their natures, and their marriages. These men are as far from gender warriors and feminists as George W. [Bush] himself. As one wife said to me, "For twenty years he couldn't help with the dishes because he was watching football. Now he can't help with the dishes because he's doing his nails. Is that different?" For these men, the woman within is entirely the Maybelline version, not the Mother Teresa version, not the Liv Ullmann version, and not even the Tracey Ullman version. There is no innate grasp of female friendship, of the female insistence on relatedness, of the female tradition of support and accommodation for one's partner and of giving precedence to the relationship overall. If you believe that these characteristics are more common to women than to men, these men do not embody them; if you don't believe it, they would argue with you. If they were that kind of understanding, that kind of empathy and female bonding, rather than accessories and tapes on how to walk in heels, these guys would be unable to ask their wives to go through this crossdressing life with them, and everyone, husbands and wives, knows it.

In other words, I'm as different from them as I am from any other men. If I went to a crossdressing convention, I'd wind up mostly talking to the wives who are along for the ride.

If you're into that, though, you may want to check out Miss Vera's Finishing School For Boys Who Want To Be Girls. If you're seeking to understand crossdressing, try this site.

I'm not a metrosexual either. (If you've never heard of the word, it means "a straight man who uses cosmetics.") A metrosexual still identifies as male, just as much as any other.
(Interesting etymological fact: the words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" derive from the Greek roots "homo-" (same) and "hetero-" (different). However, the root "metro-" means "mother." So anyone who knows their Greek roots probably finds the term "metrosexual" quite amusing.)

Do you identify with other transgendered people?

Not as much as you would think. There are a lot of experiences we have in common, and it helps to talk to other people who have had similar experiences to mine. But a lot of people who participate in the transgender community are the ones who change their bodies--at least, this is what I've observed--and that alone creates a large difference between us. Many of them are sympathetic anyway, but some of them participate in "transgender elitism." To these people, only those who have had the surgery are "real women" (or "real men"), while those who only take hormones are fake somehow, and those who don't change their bodies at all aren't even transgendered; in this respect, they are no better than non-transgendered people who tell me I'm just a sensitive guy.

I actually identify more closely with women than with transgendered people. I think of myself as "a girl" before I think of myself as "transgendered." After all, I have more in common with non-transgendered women than with men in women's bodies. To me, the transgender community is as foreign as any other culture I didn't grow up in. But because I'm a girl with a male body, I understand them, despite our differences.

So, are you going to try to become a woman?

No. That's impossible. The whole point of this site is to show that anyone who feels like a woman in a man's body can't become a woman because she already is, in a lot of important ways--and in many other important ways, can never be a woman.

You probably mean, "Are you going to get surgery, take hormones, etc., so that your body will look female?" The answer to that is also no. I would need to get lots of plastic surgery, and even then, I wouldn't pass as a genetic woman. I just don't have the body for it. Besides, from what I've read, it costs a lot, it's dangerous, and it requires a lot of street smarts to transition successfully. I'm more on the "street stupid" side. I don't think I'd gain much from it.

And I'm not in the minority in this. It is estimated that between 75% and 80% of people with strong cross-gender feelings never change their bodies. Of those who do change their bodies, only 40% ever get sex reassignment surgery.

Still, if there were a way to magically make my body 100% female in an instant, I'd do it without a moment's hesitation.

Why would you want to be a woman?

Ask any genetic woman whether she would want to be magically changed into a man. If she says no, ask her why. You might want to ask a few women, because you'll get different answers.

Women are allowed more freedom of emotional self-expression in our society. It's easier for women to be accepted into social circles of women (it's not impossible for a man, just more difficult); I prefer to socialize with women, and don't really enjoy socializing with men all that much. My personality is more suited to the female gender role; I would love to spend my life in the "wife and mother" role.

Someone on Yahoo! Answers started a poll asking women what they like about being female. Answers that came up:

  • Being able to express emotion without being ridiculed
  • Being pursued by men; not having to do the pursuing
  • Being able to have babies
  • Being protected by men
  • Looking pretty, flirting, and being seen as attractive by men
  • A wide variety of choices in clothing
  • Being allowed to cover the flaws on one's face
  • The ability to act in the manner of the opposite gender without repercussions
  • Never going bald
  • Less pressure to go out and have sex with someone ("get laid" in the original vernacular)

All these are among the many reasons I wish I could have been born with a female body.

In short, if you're a man, the male role may be better for you, but it isn't better for me.

What should I call you?

I don't like all those big words that describe every combination of this or that aspect of gender. It just makes us all sound like freaks. Transgender, transsexual, genderqueer,... some people elevate it with the phrase "gender gifted," while others are trying to make it a medical condition by calling it "Harry Benjamin's Syndrome."

Sorry, folks, but I'm not any more gifted or crazy than your average girl in a female body.

You may hear words like "sissy" and "tranny" being used by women in men's bodies or by cross-dressers. The rules for such words are exactly the same as for "nigger." We can call ourselves or each other such names if we want (not that I would ever want toI dont even get black people who say nigger), but other people may not call us anything like that.

Actually, I'm not even a sissy. I'm a girl. It's different.

What causes your condition?

There are many theories as to why some people are this way. Some people say it's brain structure, and they have evidence to back this position up. An article shows that those who feel like women in men's bodies have a neuron count similar to women in a certain part of the brain, while men without this difference do not. (I have not found similar data on men in women's bodies, but I'm sure it's out there.) But I wonder whether a different brain changes one's gender identity or a different gender identity changes one's brain. Others say it's hormones, but the evidence for that has the same problem: does estrogen cause soft emotions or do soft emotions cause the release of estrogen? The case of David Reimer suggests that gender identity is at least partially innate.

I used to explain it by the fact that I was raised by a single mother and played mostly with girls when I was a kid, using as an analogy a friend of a friend, who was white and had been adopted by black parents. But I'm becoming more and more convinced that gender identity is something you're born with, the way you're born with a biological sex. There's an article on this site describing a gene linked to a female gender identity in biological males. It seems to be a form of partial androgen insensitivity syndrome--that is, the body receives the testosterone and develops in the male way, but the brain doesn't have the necessary receptors.

No one is to blame when someone is transgendered, and in the end, it doesn't matter what causes it. The important thing to know is that there is no cure, just like homosexuality has no cure. It's a difference, not a disease.

What's that like for you?

Imagine being magically changed into a person of the opposite sex, but still being who you are inside. You now live under a whole new set of privileges, restrictions, and expectations. You're walking around in a stranger's body and can't really get comfortable with it. No one knows who you really are, and even if you explain what happened, they don't believe you. You are forced to live the rest of your life in the new role. If you have a problem with that, no one understands why. If you tell them, they just think you're gay or crazy. (If this change would make you happy, you may be transgendered.) For a humorous example of what this might be like, watch the movie The Hot Chick, starring Rob Schneider.

That's what my life has been like.

Or imagine any genetic woman you know suddenly stuck in a male body. How well do you think she would adapt? For a real-life example, I recommend Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. It's her story of how she spent a year and a half disguised as a man because she believed it was easier to be a man. Though she was relatively masculine, she had difficulty adapting to the culture, and ultimately had a nervous breakdown.

Another analogy I use is the racial analogy; it's like having lived my whole life in a culture where everyone looks a certain way except me. You may be interested in my blog entry Life Is Like An Analogy.

How many people like you are there?

Though the medical community quotes the ridiculously low figure of 1 in 30,000, modern research puts the lower bound at 1 in 200, or 0.5%. Even this is just those who are diagnosed. Transgender activist groups estimate that between 1% and 2% of the population has strong cross-gender feelings that need an outlet for expression. Some even say it's 3%. If that's true, then there are as many transgendered Americans as there are Jewish Americans.

For more information, click here.

Keep in mind that some of these people aren't necessarily trapped in the wrong body, but may consider themselves a third gender, genderless, a blend of male and female, or something else altogether. These people call themselves "ambigender" or "pangender," or just the generic "genderqueer" (which covers all gender variance), but many fit in well enough to go their whole lives without ever thinking of themselves as being in such a category. They're not like me; I have a gender identity, it's just not the same as my biological sex. The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates the figure of how many people are actually transgendered to be between 1/4% and 1%.

So, let's pick a figure in the middle and say it's 1%. This means that among 70 people, there is a 50% chance that at least one of them is transgendered. (Why 70, you ask? The answer is complicated and involves logarithms.) It's a lot more common than you think.

I identify with some of your experiences. Does this mean I'm transgendered?

I can't diagnose you over the Web. No test can tell you for sure, but if you answer yes to the following questions, you may be transgendered.

1) Do you feel like a woman in a man's body, or vice versa?
2) Do you prefer activities associated with the sex that is not your birth sex over activities associated with your birth sex?
3) Do you often think about what it's like to be the sex you were not born as?
4) Do you identify strongly with the experiences of transgendered people?

One yes answer does not a transgendered person make. If you answer yes to two or three, it's a definite maybe. If you answer yes to all four, as I did, I'd be surprised if you weren't.

Also, can you picture yourself living as the opposite sex, with a new set of gender stereotypes you have to live with?

Here are the criteria for diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (I hate that they call it that) from the DSM-IV:

A. A strong and persistent cross-gender identification (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages of being the other sex).

In children the disturbance is manifested by four (or more) of the following:

  • Repeatedly stated desire to be, or insistence that he/she is, the other sex;
  • In boys, preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; in girls, insistence on only wearing stereotypical masculine clothing;
  • Strong and persistent preferences for cross-sex roles in make-believe play or persistent fantasies of being the other sex;
  • Intense desire to participate in the stereo-typical games and pastimes of the other sex;
  • Strong preference for playmates of the other sex

In adolescents and adults, the disturbance is manifested by symptoms such as:

  • stated desire to be the other sex;
  • frequent passing as the other sex;
  • desire to live and be treated as the other sex;
  • conviction that he/she has the typical feelings and reactions of the other sex

B. Persistent discomfort with his/her sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex.

In children, the disturbance is manifested by any of the following: in boys: the assertion that their penis and testes are disgusting or will disappear, or assertion that it would be better not to have a penis, or aversion towards rough-and-tumble play and rejection of male stereotypical toys, games and activities; in girls, the rejection of urinating in a sitting position, assertion that they have or will grow a penis, or assertion that they do not want to grow breasts or menstruate, or marked aversion towards normative female clothing.

In adolescents and adults, the disturbance is manifested by symptoms such as preoccupation with getting rid of primary and secondary sex characteristics (e.g. request for hormones, surgery or other procedures to physically alter sexual characteristics or to simulate the other sex) or belief that they were born the wrong sex.

C. The disturbance is not concurrent with a physical intersex condition.

D. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

Only you can know for sure if you're transgendered.

Are transgendered people smarter than other people?

I don't think so. Some people have noticed that transgendered people tend to be smart, but I think this is just the ones who are self-aware enough to know that they're transgendered.

You've been treated as male all your life, so isn't it a bit arrogant to claim the right to call yourself a girl?

Society seems a bit arrogant sometimes when it claims to know more about me and people like me than we know about ourselves. Especially since I get treated as female more than I get treated as male in spite of my physical appearance. People often mistake me for a biological woman, even though I have short hair and wear T-shirts. Straight women dont have any sexual interest in me, but lesbians do.

It is assumed that someone is male if and only if they have a penis, and that someone is female if and only if they have a vagina. (This creates some problems when a baby is born with both.) A person's gender identity is not taken into account at all, because it is assumed that anyone who claims to have a gender identity different from their biological sex must be mistaken somehow.

I don't think it's arrogant to have a gender identity that isn't the same as my biological sex, because I'm not claiming any kind of right. If I insisted that you accept me as a girl, that would be arrogant, because I would be claiming a right that does not exist. Some male-to-female transsexuals expect everyone to accept them as women. This, I think, is their male privilege that they still have to unlearn before they can be accepted as women. I don't expect anything; you can accept all this or not.

I'm not going to deny that male privilege exists, the way some do. The thing about having privilege is that you have the privilege of not knowing you have it. I read somewhere that 95% of men see no advantage to being a woman, while most women clearly see the advantages of being male. If that's not privilege, I don't know what is.

Still, I would argue that male privilege mostly goes to men who feel like men inside and wholeheartedly accept the male gender role with all its privileges and constraints, and that male privilege is not an all-or-nothing proposition; instead, there are varying degrees of male privilege, with more privilege going to more masculine men. For example, feminine men are looked down upon by more masculine men--and even bullied.

Also, the women who rise above the glass ceiling are usually the ones who can assimilate into male culture, taking on masculine values and becoming "one of the guys." The powerful women we cite as examples of how women's rights are improving tend to be more masculine in demeanor than most, just as the powerful nonwhite people in the United States tend to be the ones who were either born into white culture or have assimilated into it. I would imagine that someone with a male gender identity and a female body can accomplish this more easily than someone who is the reverse. This leads me to consider the possibility that male gender identity privilege, or perhaps masculinity privilege, is just as important as the usual form of male privilege.

Leslie Feinberg, author of Transgender Warriors: Making History From Joan of Arc to RuPaul, makes an interesting point:

Those who are feminine--male and female--don't fare any better [than gay men] when it comes to assumptions about their gender expression. Feminine girls and women endure an extremely high level of sexual harassment and violence simply because of their gender expression. A great deal of woman-hating resides in attitudes toward femininity. And a great many bigoted generalizations are made about femme expression like: "The higher the heels, the lower the IQ; the higher the skirt the lower the morals." So femme women are not assumed to have a very high consciousness about fighting women's oppression.

And what about males considered "effeminate?" Feminists have justifiably pointed out that the label is inherently anti-woman. But it is also anti-trans[gender], gender-phobic, and anti-feminine...

Just as girls experience different messages based on whether they are feminine, masculine, or androgynous, boys do too. It's absurd to think that messages of woman-hating and male privilege will produce the same consciousness in a male youth who grows up believing he will be part of the "good-ole boys club" and one who grows up fearing humiliation and violence at the hands of men.

Basically, women are criticized for being feminine and for being masculine. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Masculine men get the most privilege, while everyone else gets less; how much less depends on many factors. As an analogy, white privilege is just as present in Latin America as it is in the United States, if not more so. But because there's been so much mixing between the races over the centuries, race is not an all-or-nothing concept the way it is here; the whiter you are, the more privilege you have. I think male privilege is similar; the more male you are, the more privilege you have.

Do you think the idea that your condition is genetic and not a lifestyle choice can help people like you?

No. Everyone knows that skin color is genetic, but this fact hasn't done anything to stop racial discrimination; racial discrimination has diminished because of heightened social awareness. So it will take another increase in social awareness before people like me can be accepted.

What's the problem? You're not cursed, you're gender-gifted!

OK, I'd like to refute this myth right here, right now. If I were gifted, I would understand both men and women very well. Whereas in reality, I see things from the female perspective, and I am just as blind to the male perspective as the majority of genetic women.

Many Native American tribes have the same beliefs about transgendered people as you do. They call us "Two-Spirits" because they believe that each of us has a man's spirit and a woman's spirit. But I don't feel I have a man's spirit anywhere within me, any more than most women do. It would help if I did. He could help me understand men a bit better.

Sorry, folks. I hate to disappoint you, but I'm just a girl who happens to have a male body. And my understanding of men falls short even when compared to genetic girls (read my blog entry "Like A Spanish Cow" for more).

But gender roles are a social construct! How can you feel this way?

First, its not all a social construct. Some of it is. But the very existence of transgender people proves that biological factors existI was socialized as male, but I still identify very strongly as female.

But lets talk about the cultural aspects. Men and women have different cultures, like Americans and Japanese, or Brazilians and Kenyans. Women are taught to value their relationships, while men are taught to value their careers. Women are taught to express emotion freely; men are taught that expressing emotion is improper and unmasculine. Power, dominance, and hierarchy are important in male culture, but not so much in female culture.

According to an essay about the different communication styles of men and women, here are some of the differences in conversation:

Men's style:

  • Intimacy is formed through doing things together
  • set at angles to each other, looking elsewhere in the room-periodically glance at each other, but often mirror each other's movements
  • talk about several different topics - one conversation might have many topics, none lasting more than a few exchanges.
  • dismisses friends problems because they aren't so bad
  • often do not make any listener noise at all
  • consider finishing sentences and anticipation to be intrusion, lack of attention and/or interruption
  • see conversational duty as pointing out the other side of an argument
  • use agonistic, warlike, oppositonal formats that turns discussions into "debates" and conversation into a competitive sport

Women's style:

  • Intimacy is formed through talk
  • Directly faces their conversation partner, eyes on face
  • tend to talk in length about one topic
  • Expresses agreement and understanding when a friend tells about a problem
  • make a lot of listening noises - yeah, uhh, hmm,
  • often finishes partners sentences and anticipates what will be said next
  • assume a conversationalists job is to express agreement and support
  • prefer other sides of an argument to be presented as inquiries and suggestions, rather than direct statements
  • conversation is a ritual means of establishing support

As with any other two cultures, there are so many differences that any attempt to list them will just scratch the surface. Culture is, by definition, a social construct, but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

I live in the United States. We like to think race doesn't matter. By itself, it doesn't. But socially speaking, it matters. And why? Because of culture. White Americans tend to be part of the same culture; this culture is considered standard, mainstream American culture. Black Americans tend to have a different culture, and Hispanic-Americans a different culture still.

Occasionally, a black family in a community that is mostly black will adopt a white child. The child grows up in black culture and identifies with black people instead of white people. We can empathize with them because we know that race doesn't determine cultural identity. But most people don't know that being biologically male or female doesn't determine gender identity, so if someone feels like a woman in a man's body, or vice versa, people don't understand.

Interestingly, many of the kathoey described in the book Male Bodies, Women's Souls by LeeRay Costa and Andrew Matzner were raised in households that were mostly female and/or had no positive male role models. This supports the idea that being raised in female culture can sometimes cause someone who is biologically male to be a girl in a boy's body--or as Simone De Beauvoir put it, "One is not born a woman; one becomes one."

Of course, because biological factors have been shown to influence gender identity, it's still not that simple.

But everyone knows that gender roles are determined by biology! You have male genes/hormones/whatever! You're a man! How can you be so dense?

This is the other side of the argument. The idea is that something in the genes, or the brain, or the hormones, or whatever, determines gender roles, and anyone different is either crazy or some kind of genetic freak.

No one knows exactly what causes people to be transgender, but the very existence of such people proves that 1) gender roles have an innate component, and 2) this innate component is not always linked to a person's biological sex.

Shouldn't you concentrate on subverting gender roles? Why not help redefine what a man is?

One objection raised against transgendered people is that we support gender roles, on the grounds that we're still conforming to a gender stereotype, just not the one society forces us into. (A lot of the people who say this are feminists, which really hurts because I'm a feminist.) I wouldn't say I entirely conform to either stereotype--few people do. I'm good at math, which is a stereotypically male pursuit; so are lots of genetic women.

Gender roles exist, whether we want them to or not. They're not going to go away anytime soon. As I've said, men and women have different cultures, like Americans and Japanese. I fit into the women's culture far better than I fit into the men's culture, so it makes sense to think of myself as being in a category with women.

Gender identity is not binary. Why do you restrict yourself to two genders? And why can't you just see yourself as human?

Just because gender identities other than male and female exist doesnt mean I cant identify as female.

Some people fit into neither culture, or feel equally at home in both, and that's all right. These people are called "ambigender" or "pangender," or sometimes "intergendered." They're the ones who are gender-gifted, not me. Their problems aren't quite the same as mine, so they fall beyond the scope of this website. Check out this site for more info on what it means to be "intergendered."

OK, so you're a girl. What should I do?

This answer applies to anyone who feels like a woman in a man's body (reverse it for a man in a woman's body):

Just honor and respect that. Don't expect me to "be male." Accept that I'm going to see things from the female perspective. If you see me expressing my femininity in any way, don't get upset. Don't assume I'm doing something for the reason that men tend to do it. Don't seize on one masculine trait and use it to prove that I'm really just like men. But don't overcompensate and make the same negative stereotypes about me that you make about women. That's offensive to all women, including those who have male bodies.

Maybe you know someone who's transgendered and are trying to understand. For example, you might think it's just a phase, that they'll grow out of it once they get into a relationship, or something like that. Would you think the same thing if this person had told you they were gay? Ask yourself this question about anything you don't understand.

You might also want to try The Cisgender Privilege Checklist. My main page has some articles that can help you understand transgendered people better.

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