LGBT People are NOT Born That Way: A Considered Response

Added to this is the fact that in the pre-internet* world the transgender person was almost totally isolated. It was almost impossible to find other gender non-conforming people. Maybe the odd news report came out about a person undergoing sexual reassignment surgery or the odd transgender person was outed by the media, but this tended to reinforce our sense of isolation and show the need to conform rather than liberate us. Who wanted to have your genitals splashed across the newspaper? The conversations we heard from our societal groups in reference to these events showed that anyone expressing gender non-conformity would be treated as an outcast. We all had too much to lose and we were all made very aware that we would indeed lose. Sadly we therefore (almost) all conformed, or at least tried to. We hid our bras and panties. We purged, we begged our gods to ‘fix’ us (one way or the other) and we tried to make ourselves what we were not. Those of us assigned male at birth played rugby and pursued ‘manly’ careers (mechanics, builders etc). I am sure those assigned female at birth followed similar strategies. We hid, by conforming. We buried our shame, married and had children. In short we did what was expected of us and we made our parents and peers happy whilst making ourselves more miserable. But we feigned happiness because, well that was also expected of us. Sadly many of us took to alcohol and drugs, or committed suicide. All of which pretty much amounts to the same thing. Let me be clear I am not blaming society for being transphobic, or for somehow making us unhappy. Our happiness is no one’s responsibility but our own. But I am saying that ignorance from the cisgender world has caused behaviours in us that not many (including ourselves) entirely recognise, let alone understand.

If you're like me, you KNOW that years and years of dysphoria, dating back as far as you can remember and resulting in depression, frustration, etc., is not something that is psychological but, rather, is something you were born with.  How do you feel about a group of mostly cis-gendered male scientists and doctors telling you otherwise?  


This is a relatively long post, but its so well written by Daniella.  Just read the paragraph above, then read it again.  Then go to, LGBT People are NOT Born That Way: A Considered Response, and take the time to read this entire post.