While for many, the concept of gender variance may be relatively new, transgender people have always been a deep-rooted part of our society. In more recent times, our understanding has increased, thanks to high-profile personalities such as Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, and the development of the language to enable people to verbalise their experience. We’ve called on Dr Helen Webberley, who runs the online gender clinic www.gendergp.co.uk, to break down everything you need to know about gender transitioning, sorting the myths from the facts.
“At GenderGP, we help hundreds of people every year, of all ages, to get the support and treatment they need, either directly through our service, through the NHS or via a combination of the two,” she said.
Here’s everything you need to know…
Myths and facts
1. You don’t have to have surgery to be trans
Contrary to popular belief, being transgender is not dependant on undergoing gender-affirming surgery. While some people will choose to have surgery, others will not. This does not make them more or less legitimate in their personal gender identity.
2. It is not all about clothes and makeup
Many gender variant people are husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons. Many have full-time jobs and a place in society that they fear losing, should they fully socially transition. As such, they may opt to keep their gender identity hidden from view.
3. For a trans person, being trans may be the least interesting thing about them
While the focus tends to naturally gravitate towards their gender, trans people are just as ordinary as their cisgender peers (someone who feels comfortable with the gender they are assigned at birth), with the same day-to-day highs and lows.
4. Gender variance is more common than you think
Just as homosexuality was once kept hidden from view but is now recognised as a natural part of human variation, the same is true of gender variance. The more we understand gender and the spectrum that defines it, the more accepted the notion of gender variance will become.
5. Gender is not a choice
It is as innate as an individual’s sexuality, personality or eye colour. In the same way that you cannot opt-in or force yourself to be gay, if you are born one gender but identify differently, then that is there to stay. You can try and hide it, but you cannot change it.
6. Gender is a spectrum
We often think of gender as binary: male or female, but in reality, it is a spectrum. People can sit anywhere on this spectrum. Some people feel very female, some very male. Some part female and part male (non-binary) and some neither female nor male (agender). That may be tricky to understand, but that does not make it less real.
7. Gender expression is different from gender identity
Some cisgender people like to express their gender in a very feminine way and some in a more masculine way. The same goes for trans people. Just because you choose to wear trousers, doesn’t necessarily make you a man.
8. Hormones can make a huge difference
The onset of puberty brings with it the secondary sex characteristics typically associated with the male and female form (think breasts and hips for women, facial hair and an Adam’s apple for men). If a trans person has not had to endure the wrong puberty, switching hormones gives them the same external bodily features as a cisgender person, apart from the genitals, which are more easily hidden.
9. Some trans women do have penises and some trans men do have vaginas.
We have to stop trying to pigeonhole people according to cis ‘norms’.
10. You can’t hurt a child by allowing them to explore their gender
Children should be allowed to explore their world and their bodies with the freedom that perhaps only childhood allows. If your child wants to experiment with clothes, makeup, names, hairstyles, pronouns (he/she/they), this will not force them towards any type of gender identity. Let them explore in a safe environment and their passage through their teenage years will be more comfortable.
11. We still know very little about gender dysphoria
Gender dysphoria, the sense of discomfort that comes when your external body is not aligned with your experienced gender, is seen as a medical issue by some, others see it as a psychological issue and some believe it is social. For those experiencing it, it can be all of the above. People tend to fixate on the physical because that is what we see, but that is only one part of the picture.
