What Is Trans?

I've thought a lot about a good way to start this blog off, and I've come to the conclusion that the best way to kick it off is to start by defining a lot of things that will be commonly mentioned in this writing. Since a lot of people don't think much about gender at all, it's fairly common to be in the dark when it comes to certain terms and phrases. I'm here to help with that.

Let's start with the basics: Someone who is transgender is someone who doesn't identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. In my case, when I was born, doctors determined based off the appearance of my genitalia that I was female. However, in my brain, I was male. (While it may seem unusual, it's estimated that about 700,000 people in the United States don't agree with their assigned gender, though that number is only an estimate because we obviously can't know how many people are still in the closet, and neither the Center for Disease Control or the U.S. Census Bureau ask about it in national surveys).

On the other side of the spectrum is cisgender, which means someone who agrees and identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth.

A lot of the confusion also stems around the variety of words assumed to be interchangeable. There are two common mistakes that come to me off the top of my head:

Sex vs. Gender
Biological sex is often mistaken for gender identity, so let's clear this one up right away. Biological sex is either of the two sexes (male and female) into which humans are divided based on their reproductive functions (there are, however, instances in which someone is born intersex, with both male and female reproductive parts. Look it up if you want to learn more on that, since I'm not particularly qualified to speak of anyone else's experiences than my own). Gender, on the other hand, is more cultural. It relates to things like boys' and girls' toys, clothing styles, anything viewed as "for women" or "for men". This is where the differences begin to enter the picture, as someone can identify as male, female, neither, both, or with no gender at all (or any mix of the aforementioned categories). Some people's gender even fluctuates between them, an identity called gender-fluid (which I happened to think I may have been, when I was still figuring out what felt right for myself), all while having a different biological sex. Hopefully that makes some degree of sense?

Transgender/Transsexual/Transvestite/Drag Queen
This is where things begin to get a little more complicated, as some of them are very similar while others are not.

Someone who is transgender, as I said before, is someone who doesn't identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Someone who is transsexual, on the other hand, has undergone surgeries or other means of physical change in order to present as the gender with which they identify. Simply put, they're a more specific name for someone under the trans umbrella.

Transvestites and drag queens are not under the trans umbrella, but are commonly tied into it anyway. A drag queen is someone, usually a man, who dresses and passes as the opposite sex for entertainment purposes, usually TV or internet shows of sorts. A transvestite is someone, again, usually a man, who dresses as the opposite sex for emotional and/or sexual gratification. Since it has nothing to do with identity, they aren't trans at all, despite being commonly placed under the umbrella.

Conclusion
This is by no means a complete list of words, phrases, etc. If there's anything else you've heard of that you'd like me to define or explain, I'd be happy to do so. With any luck, this has been helpful for someone who may know a trans person or be questioning their own identity, and please let me know if you think there's anything I've forgotten to touch on.

Welcome!

Hey there, internet!

Chances are you're reading this because you saw my Facebook post about wanting to write a blog or a book, or maybe you wandered here after my AMA on Reddit (which I have yet to do, but will be doing within the next few days). Either way, you're here now and I for one am glad. 

To start off simply: my name is Kyle, and as of August 2015 I'm 17 years old and a senior in high school. I enjoy video games, I'm good at math (and intend to teach it as a career), and I've been openly transgender for almost exactly two years. Obviously one of those things isn't heard very commonly, and I'll give you a hint: it isn't the math one.

So why bother writing this blog? Simple: nearly a year and a half of my two years since coming out as trans were spent absolutely miserable. I was misunderstood, invalidated, and alone. For many years of my life the only images I saw of anyone pushing the lines of gender expression were drag queens, crazy characters on TV shows like CSI, or a punch line to some joke about a man in a dress. I was miserable and hated that I couldn't be comfortable as a girl like everyone seemed to want me to be. 

Life sucked, that's the only way I can explain it, but it got and is still getting better, and I think mine is a story that needs to be told. I don't want anyone else to have to feel how I did, and if writing this helps even one person, I'll consider it a job well done. As a female-to-male transgender teen, I had no reassurance that my experience was valid. Even doing research on the subject, the pattern I saw in the stories of the standard trans experience were all the same; a mother explaining how she always knew her son was really her daughter and how supportive she was all the way. If it wasn't that story, it was something along the lines of "Trans Woman Found Murdered" or "Trans Teen Commits Suicide". But I firmly believe that everyone is unique and every story is varied, and I want to share mine in hopes that someone who connects to this and me on even some level may have reassurance that they aren't a freak and are valid in their understanding of themselves.

That said, while I want to tell my story, I want to educate as well. Chances are if you're reading this, you aren't trans. Maybe you're an ally, maybe you have a loved one who just came out, or maybe you're reading up on the subject for some reason or another and somehow ended up here. If you aren't trans, I want this to be a place where you can ask an actual trans person about being trans (please note, however, that I am not Every Trans Person, and I obviously cannot speak for everyone –– as I said, everyone has a unique story. I will do my best to be inclusive of as many people as possible and provide the most detailed and accurate answers to your questions I can). 

Whether or not you're some form of genderqueer, I am more than willing to do anything I can to help you and others understand, and give advice if requested. Don't worry about offending me! I want this to be a safe place for everyone to learn and avoid promoting fearful ignorance of an issue that's becoming more and more relevant in today's world. 

TL;DR: Hi, I'm Kyle, I'm trans, and this blog is where I'm going to talk and answer questions about gender identity, myself, and anything else you can think to ask! Thanks for reading!