What It Means to Be Trans

For months now,
an amazing coalition of LGBT organizations has worked
tirelessly toward passage of the first transgender-inclusive
Employment Non-Discrimination Act bill in Congress.
Yet in a weak moment at the very end of September, key
legislators got cold feet and threw us out. Reaction
was immediate and overwhelming. Almost all of the
country’s LGBT organizations -- the list continues to grow -- spoke out loud
and clear in opposition to this ejection. Legislators
had no choice but to give a trans-inclusive ENDA
another chance.

If the
developments of the last few days have you wanting to know
more about what “transgender” really
means, you’ve come to the right place. In the
next 800 words I’ll cover the key things you need to
know. You may not be aware that I’ve actually
written 20 Advocate.com columns over the past two
years on transgender awareness -- you can find links to all
of them on my own Web site. But no matter; I’ll
include links below where my back columns provide more
information on particular topics.

Let’s
start with terminology. The trans-inclusive ENDA covers
employment discrimination based on sexual orientation
(who you love), gender identity (who you are), and
gender expression (how you look and act). The last two
are a bit of a mouthful, so they often get referred to as
the “transgender-inclusive” parts for
expediency.

Unfortunately,
because of the stigma associated with any adjective
beginning with “trans,” many people affected
by issues related to their gender identity or
expression also deny being transgender and could be
missing the fact that this bill is for them too. These
people include the man or woman who occasionally
dresses in drag, the intersex person born with any one
of a number of conditions that make their sex inconsistent
or ambiguous, the swishy man whose feminine
behavior provokes catcalls, and the masculine
woman who gets harassed when she uses the ladies’
room.