What is the difference between transgender and cisgender?
A transgender person is someone whose gender is different (“trans”) than the one they were assigned at birth; a cisgender person is someone whose gender matches (“cis”) the one they were assigned at birth.
I am not asking you to consider what it might be like to want to be another gender. Instead, I ask you to imagine waking up one morning in the body of a different gender. I know in every ounce of my being that I am a woman; the fact that I happened to have been assigned female at birth (AFAB) has afforded me countless privileges, most of which I grew up being painfully unaware.
Is being transgender a choice?
My eyes are hazel. But just because I’ve never had blue eyes doesn’t mean I can have an “opinion” that blue eyes don’t exist. You’re not transgender? Nifty for you. Congrats on your cis-ness.
As a parent to a transgender young man, people have asked me if my child “was born a girl and wanted to be a boy.” They do not see the irony of their question. Rather, my child was born a boy, but wanted desperately to be a girl so that he didn’t have to have the added elements and challenges of being transgender. As just one example, can you imagine fighting repeated urinary tract infections simply because you continually avoided using public bathrooms? How many of us design our entire day around when we might need to pee?
People whose gender presentations do not match cis-normative standards of male and female are not only reminded of their “otherness” in bathrooms, but in stores and restaurants, at work and the gym, on television and movie screens, when they need a haircut and want to go to the salon, have an earache and want an antibiotic, have a faith and want a place to worship, and/or have a family and want to be accepted. Further, transgender people statistically experience staggeringly higher levels of poverty, harassment, sexual assault and violence. The life expectancy for a transgender woman of color is 36 years old. Now tell me again why anyone would “choose” to be transgender?
Is it a sin to not be cis?
From a Christian-based perspective, transphobic-ideologies lead with judgment and suggest it’s sinful to alter the body God created (while simultaneously disregarding the philosophy with tattoos, piercings, caffeine, insulin, and/or aspirin). Conversely, affirming-ideologies lead with love and commend the bravery it takes for transgender people to take steps towards having their outer/temporary/vessel, better match their inner/permanent/soul.
What do those really smart people think?
From a medical and mental-health perspective, critics of trans-affirming care are often uneducated and disregard the scientific distinction between gender and sex. However, the support for affirming care, commonly referred to as transitioning, is overwhelming, and includes, but is not limited to:
- AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
- AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION
- AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION
- AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
- AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS
- AMERICAN ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS
- WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
- AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PHYSICIANS ASSISTANTS
- AMERICAN COLLEGE OF NURSE MIDWIVES
- NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS
- AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
- WORLD PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR TRANSGENDER HEALTH
- PEDIATRIC ENDOCRINE SOCIETY
- AMERICAN COLLEGE OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGISTS
- AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NURSING
- NATIONAL COMMISSION ON CORRECTIONAL HEALTH CARE
- ENDOCRINE SOCIETY
- AMERICAN ACADEMY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY
- WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
- AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLASTIC SURGEONS
Loving others can be a lot harder than judging them; using the right pronouns is a great place to start.
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