The prominent participants and activists during and after the Stonewall Riots and the onset of Pride Month celebrations were trans people, notably trans women of color. Because of the historical involvement of trans people in LGBTQIA+ movements as well as society's continued violence toward and suppression of trans people and their access to health care and other basic human rights, it is necessary to distinguish transgender issues in this guide.
Transgender people are people whose gender identity and/or gender expression is different from their assigned sex. Transgender is an umbrella term: it includes people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex (trans men and trans women); people who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (i.e. people who are genderqueer, bigender, pangender, genderfluid, or agender); and people who belong to a third gender.
Being transgender is independent of sexual orientation because these individuals may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, etc. They may also choose to not use any labels at all.
Moreover, since transgender is an umbrella term, not every transgender individual will choose to seek out gender affirming care. Gender affirming care is medical treatments that are pursued in order to combat gender dysphoria so that a transgender individual feels greater alignment between their gender identity and gender expression. Gender dysphoria is clinically significant distress caused when a person's assigned birth gender is not the same as the one with which they identify. Gender affirming care includes hormone replacement therapy, sex reassignment surgery, and top surgery.
The term transsexual refers to people whose gender identity is different from their assigned sex, and they seek treatment to transition from one sex to another.
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Sex is assigned at birth, refers to an individual's biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such chromosomes, hormones, and external and internal anatomy.
Gender is socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. Sex and gender are not the same thing, and just like you can change your assigned sex, you can also defy socially constructed gender roles and define your gender for yourself.
Gender identity is a person's personal understanding of their self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither. It is how an individual perceives themselves and what they call themselves. A person's gender identity can be the same or different from their assigned sex at birth.
Gender expression is the external appearance of one's gender identity. It is expressed through behavior, clothing, voice, and/or body characteristics. These things may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine.
Sexual orientation is an ingrained and enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to other people. Examples include, gay, lesbian, bisexual, asexual, pansexual, and demisexual. A person's sexual orientation is independent of their gender identity.
Transgender and gender nonconforming people face many significant issues including workplace discrimination, trouble securing identifying documents, barriers to pursuing gender affirming care and other basic healthcare, sexual harassment, and transphobic violence.
More specifically, every day lawmakers across the country and around the world are proposing an increasing number of bills that target the transgender community. The majority of these bills are attempting to restrict transgender kids' participation in school sports or ban transgender youth from accessing gender affirming healthcare.
Here are just a few articles keeping track of the progress of specific bills currently under debate:
In addition to the numerous bills seeking to restrict the rights of transgender youth, fatal violence toward transgender and gender nonconforming people, especially transgender and gender nonconforming people of color, continues to rise. In the past ten years, more than 250 transgender and nonbinary individuals have been killed in the U.S. 4 out of 5 of transgender and nonbinary victims are trans women of color (Human Rights Campaign).
What leads to violence against transgender and gender nonconforming people?
Due to the continuous assaults to the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming youth, the increasing epidemic of violence toward transgender and gender nonconforming people, and the numerous other barriers and transphobia these individuals face, now is as good a time as any to expand our efforts to support transgender and gender nonconforming people and dismantle a culture of transphobia and violence.
Support for transgender and gender nonconforming people should be shown every day, but Pride month is an opportune time to expand your efforts even further or to figure out where to start.
Here are a list of actions you can take to show your support for transgender and gender nonconforming people:
Here on some resources specifically on how to show your support for transgender and gender nonconforming people:
And below, you'll find a list of organizations that directly provide support for transgender and LGBTQ+ individuals that you can follow and support as well: