As a transgender woman, active in my church (United Methodist Church), I would like to dispute Trent Grassian’s point of view (“’Transgender’: a limited construct,” Sept. 19, 2008, Volume CXLIV, Number 6). Grassian’s opinion that one cannot change gender is incorrect. Gender is a social construct, which varies significantly from sex, which is a condition assigned at birth. That being said, gender is not a false notion. It is tied to the role in society one takes, which is based on sex. I do agree that this is not a binary system; people are not always at one end or the other of this line, as transgender and intersexed people exemplify. There is research that shows that transgender people have the brains of the sex they identify with. This has been determined by autopsies of brains from people who identified as transgender. (This is based on physical measurements of areas of the brain that differ between men and women and analysis of the number of neurons within the cell, which also varies.) While there is not enough research to state for a fact that this is always the case, so far, 100 percent of the brains autopsied show this to be true.
Transgender refers to a person who starts in one gender role and moves to the other. This is in fact a journey based upon real criteria. Anyone who says that gender roles are false only needs to see the discrimination one faces when they start acting in the other gender role. Some people do refer to their gender as fluid, identifying neither as fully male nor female, just like when someone is born with an intersexed condition that is neither fully male nor female. To deny that fluidity exists is to not fully understand the condition.
As to the idea of cutting off a body part to change gender, Grassian is correct that this does not change gender. It is specifically to allow the afflicted individuals to be more at one with themselves. There are many transgender people that do not seek surgical results because they are able to find peace with their minds and their bodies. I personally did have surgery. It did not change my gender, since once again that is a social construct. I do not pretend I was born a biological woman but I am living as a woman. I am happy in a way I never could have been before my transition. In my case, a surgeon with many years of experience with transgender people told me that he knew I was transgender from my medical record from birth. I was born with a condition that is prevalent in many male to female transgender people. Removing that portion of my body that did not align with my brain allows me to live in peace … something I have not been able to do with over 35 years of trying.
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