The Pain Trans-gender and Transsexual People Face Every Day

Imagine staring into the mirror, feeling an empty revulsion towards your physical body, your face, and your very being. Many trans-gendered and transsexual people face this feeling every day, and not just when looking in a mirror, but while at work, while interacting with other people, while shopping, while driving, and even when waking up to a brand new day. Often the sense of disconnection and pain towards your physical body turns to despair and anger for a trans-gendered person, and it can be difficult to make yourself go places where others might see you, and judge you.

Trans-gendered and transsexual people are no different than anyone else, save for the fact that many feel the often overwhelming sense that they were born into the wrong body. Generally, 'Transsexual' refers to someone considering or currently undergoing hormonal treatment and/or surgery to correct their outward gender appearance. However, transsexual is more often used in the former meaning, to indicate a person as pre-transition or within the beginning stages of physical transition towards their desired sex. 'Trans-gender' is a term that typically refers to the state of a person's 'gender identity' (their self-identification as male, female, or otherwise) not matching or correlating the genetic or physical sex they were assigned at birth. Being trans-gender does not imply a specific sexual orientation in any way - a trans-gendered person may identify as straight, gay, bisexual, or any other orientation just as non-trans-gendered folks do.

If you're a Female-to-Male trans-gender (born in a female body but with a male identity), or a Male-to-Female trans-gender (born in a male body but with a female identity), social situations can be breeding grounds for self-doubt and humiliation. For a person in a female body with a male identity, just being whistled at by a random man can be humiliating, or if they're ignored in a conversation just because they appear female. For a person born in a male body with a female identity, being publicly and laughingly 'outed' as 'gay' because of the way you look or dress when you don't identify yourself in that way can rip your self-esteem apart. Even the little comments that people jokingly (or not so jokingly) make daily about women and men may stick in a trans-gendered person's mind for months afterwords, becoming an unfortunate focal point for doubt and anger. You tell yourself that these comments were just jokes, but the thoughts of doubt inevitably sneak back into your consciousness no matter what you do to keep them out.

Loneliness for many trans-gendered people can be best described as constant. You feel disconnected from others most often when surrounded by people, and thoughts of futility can become so intense that you start to feel death would be a better option than living like this. So disconnected from the body you hate, and surrounded by people who could never truly understand what you're feeling - or who would perhaps vilify you if you even tried to describe it. You're often afraid to develop friendships or romantic feelings for others because you think that getting close to anyone is a gamble at best. And when you do reach out to another person and you're turned down in whatever way, the sensation of failure is devastating. Not only do you think you've failed to connect with another person, but you've failed at portraying whom you're supposed to be.

While not all trans-gendered people are uncomfortable with their birth gender, a significantly high percentage are and either do not get any help or feel that they are beyond help. People with any gender variation that deviates from the so-called norm in their appearance or attitude are also common victims for violence, and in some obscure cases, can even endure discrimination from the very people who are supposed to protect and serve the entire general community - law enforcement. Too many trans-gendered people cannot afford to go to a psychiatrist in order to be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (commonly referred to as GID). GID is the psychiatric term for those who strongly identify as a gender other than the one they were born into and feel severe discomfort with their physical body as a result of this condition. A diagnosis of some form of GID is usually needed (at least in the US) for a trans-gendered individual to seek out medical treatment and surgery to obtain their desired gender. Perhaps the best sense of relief available for a transsexual person is achieved at the point where their outward physical appearance starts to significantly correlate to that of their gender identity (through administration of hormonal therapy, typically), and they can freely 'pass' for their identified gender.

It's no wonder the suicide rate among both trans-gender and transsexual youth and adults is extremely high: the majority of any population in the world refuses to recognize trans-gender and any other people who live outside the realm of 'male OR female' as actual members of the human race with real emotions, convictions, and opinions. Trans-gendered people do not have some contagious disease, they are real humans just like anyone else. Fortunately, unlike in centuries past, medical recognition and innovations are available to help trans-gender people make peace with their bodies. However, when facing the bathroom mirror every day, what the trans-gendered truly battle with is making peace with the conflicting images of what they know in their minds and what they see with their eyes.