The Gender Recognition Act in the United Kingdom is currently being revised to make the process of being recognised as your chosen gender more streamlined. The government has encouraged transgender and cisgender citizens of the UK to answer some questions regarding the act, and as a result, my news feeds across social media have become more openly transphobic than before. There\u2019s been newspaper adverts, mass posts online to get people\u2019s attention, and general hateful and ignorant remarks. It\u2019s hard to ignore it and it\u2019s pushed me to write this article on what it means to be transgender and what causes transphobia.<\/p>\n
Being transgender is when you are born with one biological gender but you identify as another. This could mean you\u2019re \u2018born male\u2019, or assigned male at birth but you identify as female, or you\u2019re \u2018born female\u2019, or assigned female at birth but you don\u2019t identify as any gender, and instead prefer to be neutral \u2018they\/them\u2019 pronouns. Gender is complicated and a broad spectrum. It can take a while to figure out how you identify, sometimes you can know from an early age that you don\u2019t identify with the pronouns people call you, sometimes it can be a lot later in life. It really depends on the individual.<\/p>\n
Why are people angry at the idea of streamlining the process? Well, the loudest voice to come through the debate of the reform is that of TERFS, trans exclusive radical feminists. The main argument is that women are worried \u2018men\u2019 are going to start invading their spaces, such as changing rooms and public bathrooms. This argument ignores that transwomen exist and instead jumps straight to this misconception that men dress as women to go into their private spaces to assault women. Transphobia stems from a lack of education, a fear of the unknown, and the common occurrence of sticking to your own group and excluding anyone outside of that group. Transphobia can be anything from not feeling comfortable near a trans person to overtly hating them and wanting to cause them harm.<\/p>\n
Some trans people experience dysphoria, where they feel disgusted by their own body to the point they want to harm themselves, needing to change it to match their identity, and feeling sick when anyone calls them the wrong pronouns. The process to get hormones and surgery and changing their name and gender on medical certificates and records is incredibly long, takes months of therapy, and a lot of having to \u2018come out\u2019 to people. Trans people can experience very serious depression and anxiety and can sometimes struggle to even wash themselves because they don\u2019t want to touch their own body. If you, a transphobe, think it\u2019s bad they have the \u2018wrong\u2019 genitals, think how they feel? They want this changed as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Trans people don\u2019t mean you any harm when they want to use the changing rooms which matches their gender. They want to ease the dysphoria and they want to finally be recognised and feel comfortable in public spaces, something everyone should feel. Everyone has the right to not feel threatened or frightened when they simply want to use the toilet, wash their hands, and leave. The biggest threat when it comes to trans people is the threat of transphobes causing them harm.<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s been a larger exposure of trans people in the media, with Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner now being household names, there\u2019s still a great deal of attitudes which need to be changed for everyone to live in a more peaceful, less terrifying world. If you feel threatened by trans people using your bathrooms or changing rooms, the problem isn\u2019t them, it\u2019s you. You need to become educated on what it means to be transgender, and you need to accept trans people as they are. Trans people have existed throughout history, and they\u2019re not going to stop existing, they\u2019re going to keep coexisting with you.<\/p>\n
The Gender Recognition Act in the United Kingdom is currently being revised to make the process of being recognised as your chosen gender more streamlined. The government has encouraged transgender and cisgender citizens of the UK to answer some questions regarding the act, and as a result, my news feeds across social media have become…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24766,"featured_media":137274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[1801],"tags":[10813,11440,15757,9881],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-137272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-real-world","tag-lgbt","tag-lifestyle","tag-tansphobia","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n