those who understand binary and those who don't.
(for those who don't get the joke, binary is a computer code made up entirely of ones and zeros. Ten doesn't exist in binary only 1/0.)
Gender is also a binary equation. There are two possibilities, male and female. While much has been written recently within the trans community about the terms transgender and transsexual, the emotional component of that debate can be summed up easily in the above joke. There are two kinds of people in this world, those that are comfortable with the gender binary and those that aren't.
This can be seen readily in most walks of life. Straight people aren't immune from the gender binary. There are those that fit easily into the correct classification, girly girls or manly men. There are those that don't. Amongst those that don't there are those that are quite comfortable with themselves and those that aren't. I have straight male friends that are very comfortable with their feminine attributes. The majority of straight people however hide or are uncomfortable with any significant gender variance.
Gay people too struggle with the gender binary. There is a long and ongoing debate about gender variance in the gay community. Many gay men argue that they are “just like other men” and that any real or perceived gender variance is a stereotype. Others continue to insist that gay men show a much higher level of gender variance.
Trans people struggle the most openly with our societies binary. It might be easy for an outsider to assume that all trans people fall into the “uncomfortable with the gender binary” group, that we are the ultimate gender outlaws. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I would say that the trans community is just about evenly divided between those that can't understand the gender binary and those that are quite happy with it, with the sole exception of where they have personally been placed in it.
One group, typically associated with the word Transgender, views gender as a spectrum. For them there are 10 (ten) kinds of people. Everyone has a gender that falls somewhere on a scale of one to ten. One is male, 10 is female. Not all women score a perfect ten nor do all men score a one. Instead our gender is somewhere near one side or another and we live with the sex we are born as. Or it doesn't and we are transgender. If a male is a four on the gender scale he may be happy living as a man, but occasionally feel the need to express his feminine side through crossdressing. A born male who scores a 7 might live as a woman but not feel the need for SRS, whereas an nine or ten on the same scale might need to fully transition to be happy.
The other group, typically associated with the word Transsexual, views gender as a binary. For them there are 1/0 kinds of people, male/female. Gender expression may be on a spectrum, but gender is not. A woman might be “butch” and gender non-conforming but she's still a woman. A cross dresser might have a feminine side but this does not make him a woman. You are one or the other. From the perspective of a gender binary, transition is going from one binary to the other. Stopping in between simply doesn't compute.
One of the greatest gifts I got from the LGBT community is the idea that you are who you are. There is no point arguing about it, just deal. This is true if you born gay, straight or Trans. It's also true if you were born comfortable with the binary or not. The Transsexuals need to stop referring to (and preferably stop thinking of) Transgender as freaks because they (the transsexuals) can't comprehend living inbetween genders. The Transgender for their part, need to stop implying that transsexual are not as enlightened because we are happy within the binary. We have enough real world issues in common to work on, we need bury the hatchet on this one.
I am discovering through my transition, that I am more of a binary person than I would have thought. While I support the transgender umbrella, and want us to be a whole community, I identify myself as a woman first and a transsexual second. I support the rights of those who are gender variant, but now that I have transitioned my own behavior doesn't qualify. I am pretty much a normal woman, the only variance is my history.
