So What's the Difference Between Transgender and Transsexual?
Let's start from the beginning. Are transgender and transsexual the same thing? Correct but boring answer. No. Transsexuals are people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery. Each of us is born with male or female sex characteristics (except for intersex people of both sexes); it comes complete with specific chromosomes, anatomy, and hormonal balance. Genetics cannot be changed, but hormonal balance and external sexual characteristics can be changed. A transsexual born with the sex characteristics of a man or woman, with hormones and (or) surgery, reverses the signs. These transitions are called FTM (female-to-male) and MTF (male-to-female). Transgender refers to all people whose self-awareness and behavior do not coincide with their actual gender (transsexuals are also transgender). It is believed that gender is about the body, and gender is about consciousness. Gender, as opposed to gender, is the result of cultural or social influence. And now, in your own words.
What is Transgender?
Transgender people have a different view of their gender and gender than society and nature: a man can consider himself a woman (and a woman - a man), something average, or either a man or a woman. A transsexual is a transgender, but not every transgender is a transsexual.
What is a Transexual?
Transsexuals undergo an operation: male sex characteristics change to female, and female to male.
What About Transgender People? Is He? She?
This is a very difficult question, and there are no uniform rules - from the point of view of language practice. There are several practices of using gender-neutral pronouns in the English-speaking environment, but it cannot be said that anyone's name is the only correct one. So, in the USA, concerning a stranger, you can find the expression "he" or "she" or the use of the pronoun "they" in the singular sense. There are also more exotic options - ne, ve, ze, and many others. All this concerns the cases when you are talking about a transgender person whose self-identification for some reason is unknown to you or is shaky (like, for example, among beginners). This problem has not been solved, so do this: until it becomes clear to you what the person calls himself, avoid the pronouns "he" and "she."
What Kind of WC Should Transgender People Use? Male? Female?
This situation has not yet been resolved in many countries: many transgender people would like to go to the toilet following their gender identity and not biological sex characteristics, but society and legislation are not always ready. Sometimes it comes to court. In the United States, a 16-year-old American schoolboy demanded that the school stop violating his rights and allow him to use the men's toilet, despite the formal female gender - the court initially refused to consider this case student filed an appeal. The Barack Obama administration has officially backed him. Leave transgender people the right to choose their toilet, and do not be surprised if you see a man who looks like a woman in the line at "M" and vice versa.
What Does it Mean to Be Transexual?
There are various problems with the perception of one's own body. Not all of them are related to gender. It can be dissatisfaction with oneself and depressive states due to inconsistency with the existing canons of beauty, and there can also be eating disorders - orthorexia, anorexia, or bulimia. The concept of body issues denotes the whole range of complex or traumatic relationships with your body in English - a huge number of separate studies are devoted to it. Sometimes problems with the body are solved by choosing clothes, sometimes by plastic surgery or sex reassignment surgery, sometimes by separating your perception from the public, but in any case, a psychologist will help you figure out what exactly is happening to you. Any person can have problems with their own body, even to the point of complete rejection, but this is not necessarily transgender.
Anatomy of Transgenders
However, not all transgender people experience discomfort because of the gender characteristics they were born with. Those who find it painful to be in their bodies can resort to sex reassignment surgery - after passing the commission and medical referral for hormone therapy. Sometimes at this stage, everything ends: a person begins to feel comfortable even without surgery.
If hormone therapy is not enough, a sex reassignment surgery (or several) is performed. The operation may include removal of the ovaries, facial surgery, removal of the mammary glands. The most difficult operation, which not all transsexuals resort to, is the correction of primary sexual characteristics. For the transition from male to female sex, the penis is deployed into the vagina, and the clitoris is made from the head of the penis and the labia from the scrotum. For the transition from female to male, a penis is created from the clitoris (metoidioplasty) or from body tissues (phalloplasty). If the penis is made of the clitoris, it retains erectile function but cannot enlarge much, which sometimes makes vaginal sex difficult. If the penis is made of skin tissue, doctors may lengthen the urethra, but erectile function will be created artificially with an implant. A transgender is not necessarily uncomfortable in his body, and transsexuals do not always change the penis to the vagina and vice versa. Nevertheless, it sometimes happens - and in general, the "new" genitals are working with some restrictions.
