What Does It Mean to Be Transgender?
When you think of yourself as male or female, it's called gender identity. Everyone has a gender identity the inborn sense of ourselves as being male or female. Most people's gender identity matches their anatomy. But people who are transgender feel different from their physical appearances. What society expects of us as men, women, boys, and girls also affects what we feel about ourselves. Every culture has "rules" about what is expected for men and what is expected for women. These expectations can include things like hairstyles, clothing, and jobs and how people should act or behave. Society doesn't have to state these "rules." Everyone knows them because we see them all over. So most of us grow up believing men should act a certain way and women should act a certain way without thinking about it much. Transgender people, though, have a very different sense of themselves. Some transgender people know they feel "different" from the ti...