Thanks for not labeling me a bigot simply because I do not understand. I know this can be a very touchy subject for some and I mean no harm.
People are just under-informed about gender issues. All we can do is educate. I know it's confusing to cisgendered people for whom it just doesn't cross the radar. Many people, for example, confuse transgendered people with cross-dressers or drag queens. But they are all different distinct categories.
Some people think transgendered people are "gay." But a MtoF person may be gay or straight. If she is interested in women, she is gay. If she is interested in men, she is straight.
Whether she has started hormones or had surgery or not, if she IDs as a female in her brain (soul), she is female. Her "penis" is just an annoyance and seems alien to her. This condition is usually quite apparent at an amazingly young age, generally when the child first becomes verbal around age 2 or 3.
I guess I always viewed gender as a term for biological sex. I do get the transgender issue of a person being born one way but identifying as the opposite gender.
Gender is between the ears, sex is between the legs.
What you've got on your body can seem so WRONG to a transperson. People that insist a penis at birth means male, and a vulva means female, forever and ever, are just misinformed. (And I always feel that the assholes who are the most adamant about this, probably have buried gender questions of their own.)
I guess I don't get the in-betweens. That is what seems complicated to me. But now I'm understanding a little more that gender no longer has to do with biological sex, but more about internal identity and attitude toward accepted gender roles.
I identify as gender-queer. That is, I flow between having male and female urges and characteristics, even though I've got breasts and female genitalia. I've felt this way ever since I can remember. When I was a child playing pretend games with my friends, I would often take a male role. Which was handy when I was playing with my girl friends and we needed a Prince or Peter Pan or something!
Sometimes I cross dress. In college when I was young and skinny, sometimes gay men would hit on me.
My gf says I have a cock. I guess in spiritual terms, you could call it an astral cock. When I Top someone, I can feel male, even if the sub is calling me Mama at the time, lol. I think it has only gotten stronger as I age, since I am no longer cycling hormonally. My testosterone has come to the fore since estrogen production is now so low. I often feel more like a teenage boy than a woman.
On top of all that I am somewhat "anti-label" (and yes, the irony of labeling myself anti-label is not lost on me) and it feels odd to me to be labeled cisgendered simply because I am the gender I was born. To me I'm just a guy.
That is cis-privilege. Thanks for acknowledging that. If you hung out with transfolk more, you'd soon learn to let go of that. Transmen are "just guys" too, for that matter. My gf works at a summer camp for trans youth, and the boys are just boys, the girls are just girls. If you visited there, you'd never know they were born with the wrong bodies for their brains.
). I do think it's complicated, especially to cisgender individuals like myself who have the privilege of not needing to worry (or worrying less, as I'm female) about how my gender identity may or may not fit with societal expectation and what consequences I may receive for stepping outside those roles.