More Myths About Trans People

4: Trans People Are Confused

Some trans people are confused. Gender is a strong part of who we are and there's tremendous pressure on everyone to conform to gender expectations. Feeling that these somehow don't fit for you can be confusing, though it doesn't mean you're trans. The majority of transgender people are as certain of their gender as anybody else is. 

5: Trans People Are Transitioning To Maintain Gender Roles Or Not Deal With The Fact They're Gay

If you like "girly" things and you're biologically male, that doesn't mean you're gay, "effeminate" or transgender. If you like "blokey" things and you're biologically female, it's the same. A lot of trans people come from the gay community because gay clubs are one of the few places where people can present and behave in gender non-conforming ways and not face stares, threats and violence. Coming out as trans and transitioning is considerably harder than coming out as gay for most people (if you can even compare two things like that) and while some binary trans people are strongly emotionally invested in gender binary ideas, many more are not. 

6: Trans People Only Feel The Way They Do Because Of "Gender," Which Is A Social Construct

Why can't we all be people?

Why can't we? Well, you don't have to believe in a gender binary to find this one a little iffy. And you don't have to look very far to find this "gender essentialist" accusation being thrown by people who turn out on closer analysis to be biological essentialists themselves. The issue boils down to something trans people tend to vocally insist upon. In fact the first time you read the term "lived experience" is likely to be in trans discourse. And it's the point at which trans people insist that others stop theorizing their identities for them: they insist on the primacy of their own lived experience over what others think their lives ought to be like. 

7: I Shouldn't Have To Pay For Trans People To Transition

Trans people's transition costs are expensive, especially for cosmetic procedures. It's a luxury we shouldn't have to pay for.

This one is located in the middle of a broader argument over who should pay for healthcare and how it should be delivered. Pausing only to observe that the developed country with the most privatized healthcare has both the worst outcomes and the highest per-treatment and per-patient healthcare costs, I'd like to step around this one and get into the specifics of trans-related healthcare. The cost of a medical transition is high, in the sense that it's a lot of money. It's between $25,000 and $75,000. Not pocket change, I grant you. But in terms of the costs of medical interventions, it's low: treating heart disease costs an average lifetime $109, 500. 

READ Is Binary Transgender Acceptance Another Trap For Non-Binary Trans People?

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