The history of sexuality undoubtedly predates humans. The history of recognizing sexual identities and orientations begins with people. It is known that people who change gender roles have existed since ancient times.
Some people feel that they belong to the body they were born with, while others do not. This innate feeling does not occur later, it does not change. It cannot be cured because it is not a disease. Let’s take a closer look at what transsexuality is, which was divided into two concepts as transsexuality and transgender until recently, and which was defined precisely with the advancement of medicine and science, and who is called transgender or transgender.
What does transgender mean?
Transgender or transgender in English can mean different things to different people. For example, a person who is assigned a female gender at birth and has a male sense of self may be categorized as transgender. A person who is assigned a male at birth and has a female sense of self can also be classified as a trans person.
‘Sometimes transgender people use the abbreviated term “trans” to convey the idea that their assigned sex at birth does not fully and accurately reflect their core sense of self or inner experience of gender.’
Transgender individuals may describe themselves as male, female, a combination of both, or something else entirely. The word transgender can also be used with other labels to denote the gender or gender that someone knows themselves to be. For example, someone might describe themselves as a transgender man, a transgender woman, or a transgender nonbinary. Nonbinary is a term that describes only those with a gender that cannot be categorized as male or female.
Who is called a transgender?
Historically and medically, the term transgender has been used to denote the difference between a person’s gender identity (internal experiences with sex) and the sex assigned at birth (male, female, or intersex). More specifically, the term is often (though not always) used to convey that a person’s gender experience includes medical changes, such as hormones or surgery, that help change their anatomy and appearance to more closely align with their gender identity.
Similar to the word transsexual, the meaning of the word transgender can vary from person to person, culture to culture, and throughout history. Individuals with physically feminine features but with a masculine gender identity are described as female-to-male transsexuals, that is, trans men. Individuals with physically masculine features but with a feminine gender identity are defined as trans women.
Sounds like transgender and transsexuality the same thing, right? What is the difference between them?
The main difference between the word transgender and the word transsexual has to do with the way it is used and experienced. Many trans people report negative connotations with the word transgender. The word transgender is still used in transgender health practices, but it has to be acknowledged that it is no longer the most inclusive and affirming term to describe someone with a different gender than their assigned gender at birth.
Transgender or transgender are now generally accepted terms used by western societies to describe those who have a different sex from the sex assigned at birth. Transgender tends to be more inclusive and affirming than transgender because it includes the experiences of those who make medical changes to confirm gender as well as those who don’t.
In general, the word transgender recognizes the need to medically change their body, hormonal makeup or appearance for anyone who identifies with a different gender than their assigned sex at birth. The decision to pursue physical and medical changes can vary from trans person to trans person.
So, is transsexuality innate, what are the reasons?
Transsexuality has no specific reason. It’s not a disease, it’s not a choice. It is in one’s DNA. It has nothing to do with the term crossdresser (the term for people who like to wear clothes of the opposite sex) and should not be confused. Just as heterosexual individuals feel that they are heterosexual from birth, so are transgender individuals.
The myth that being trans is some kind of disease comes from a long history of misunderstanding and misclassification. The myth that being transgender is a disease has been difficult to debunk because many trans people have relied on the support of medical professionals for gender confirmation based on a diagnosis of a mental condition or disorder in the past.
This was partly due to doctors’ misclassification, but statistics also showed that trans and gender-diverse people suffered from higher rates of other mental health issues and symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and suicide, which we’ll talk more about below.
The World Health Organization removed the “gender identity disorder” in the mental disorders section of the latest update (11) of the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) and replaced it with the sexual health section. by including “gender incompatibility” under it, it reflects this for transgender people seeking medical approval.
Gender reconciliation operations are not done to correct a disorder or mental illness, but to get the body they feel like. As this update reflects on future research and practice, it is eagerly awaited by transgender people at a time when trans people can be relied upon to access confirmation simply because they want or need to confirm their gender, without the need to seek a diagnosis. In the next content, we will learn what transsexuality is from a trans person, stay tuned.
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