Schools, sports teams, and corporations all have mascots to represent them. While we have the transgender symbol (shown above), I think we should have some mascots of our own.
In Peter Jackson's film The Two Towers, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book of the same name, Gimli and Éowyn have a conversation on their way to Helm's Deep. Gimli says, "It's true you don't see many dwarf women. And in fact, they're so alike us in voice and appearance that they're often mistaken for dwarf men. Even the dwarves have trouble telling them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that dwarves spring out of holes in the ground!... which is of course ridiculous." (In The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis, who was a friend of Tolkien, described his dwarves as growing out of stone; all of them are male, but they can reproduce with human women.)
So, in any fantasy world that has male and female dwarves, any dwarf woman is going to be mistaken for a man by humans, no matter how much she may try to convince them otherwise. They're going to decide for her that she's a man, and they will treat her exactly the same as they treat any man. Anyone who's transgendered can identify with that.
It wouldn't surprise me if some of the Seven Dwarves (of Snow White fame) turned out to be women.
Sheik is a character in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. "He" is actually Princess Zelda in disguise. Sheik plays the harp and teaches Link (the hero of the game) new songs to help him on his quest. When Link arrives at the Temple of Time near the end of the game, Sheik uses the Triforce of Wisdom and reverts back to being Zelda.
The reason Zelda is presenting as a man is because Ganon (the villain of the game) is after her. She has managed to hide out disguised as a man for seven years. The reason I mentioned this character here is because this is what it's like for women in men's bodies; many of us present as male because it is dangerous to do otherwise.
From the Japanese anime Ranma 1/2. Ranma is a boy, but when he gets splashed with cold water, he turns into a girl; hot water turns him back into a boy. While in female form, he is a boy in a girl's body; the Japanese version makes this clear by having him use male speech markers when he talks. (Japanese has male and female speech markers.) Any men in women's bodies reading this can probably identify with Ranma very well and probably envy his ability to change back. Me, I can't get over how much he hates being in female form; if I were him, I would avoid hot water to avoid having to return to male form! Seriously, the first time I saw the show, I wished I could find the cursed Jusenkyou springs. I'd ask the Chinese guy who speaks bad Japanese (I haven't actually seen that episode in English) which spring Ranma fell into so I could dive in!
This is a scene from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The Beast has been transformed from a human prince into what you see in the picture above by a spell. He's basically a human in a beast body. For those of you who don't know what body dysphoria is like, imagine yourself turning into the Beast. Thanks to the magic of Disney movies, Belle falls in love with him and thus breaks the spell, making him and everyone else in the castle human again. He's spent 10 years as a human in a beast body, and he's been alone in that castle all that time (except for the other people, who have been turned into things)--at least until Belle showed up. At least he gets his spell broken...
The struggle of transgendered people is quite a bit like Ariel's struggle in Disney's The Little Mermaid. It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I still love it. It was considered the quintessential little girls' movie. Even now, boys are made fun of if they like it. Such a shame. It's a great movie. If you haven't seen it (you can skip the rest of the paragraph if you know the story), this is the movie in a nutshell: Ariel, the princess of the merpeople, loves the human world and goes off on adventures to collect human artifacts that have fallen off sunken ships. She longs to be part of the human world. Early in the movie, she falls in love with Prince Eric, a human. However, her father, King Triton, hates humans. One day, he destroys her collection of human artifacts. Needless to say, she is distraught. Ursula, the Sea Witch, sends her two eel minions to tell Ariel about how Ursula helps those in need. So Ariel goes to Ursula, who gives her the sales pitch. "The only way to get what you want is to become a human yourself," says Ursula. Ariel, being young and inexperienced (she's only 16), falls for it; she agrees to a deal in which she becomes human for three days, and if Prince Eric kisses her in that time, she will remain human permanently, but if not, she will become Ursula's prisoner. (WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD!) They come close to kissing on the third day (it's a Disney movie, after all), and it looks like Ursula's going to win, but thanks to Prince Eric and the fact that this is a Disney movie, everything works out in the end: Ariel gets to live on land with her newfound true love. It's a great movie. Very cute. A symbol of the innocence we all used to have before our first relationship went sour...
This is Ariel with one of her human artifacts--a fork.
Unfortunately, we don't live in a Disney movie. Not everything works out in the end. Like Ariel, transgendered people are often consumed by the desire to be part of the world they love so much; we all identify with Ariel as she sings "Part of Your World." (The symbolism is uncanny.) Then there are all these people telling us, "The only way to get what you want is to become a woman [or man] yourself." Like Ursula, they give us a sales pitch about how great things will be for us if we just sign, without informing us of the dangers. All the success stories just make it worse. Each of us is Ariel, swimming in a sea of Ursulas.
Ariel: If I become human, I can never be with my father or sisters again.
Ursula: That's right. But you'll have your man!
Here's Ariel signing Ursula's contract, followed by an ecstatic Ariel looking down at her new body (an image we in particular can identify with), and then the "Kiss The Girl" scene with Prince Eric. This is exactly what we are told will happen if we just sign over our lives and become transsexuals. (The pictures came from mylittlemermaid.com, one of my favorite Little Mermaid sites.)
The first transgendered video game character. Read more about her here.
Feel free to suggest any additions to this list.