It’s been a difficult year for the transgender community, amid an onslaught of discriminatory state legislation and bans on gender-affirming, lifesaving healthcare for minors — not to mention outright misinformation and transphobia.
Given that landscape, if you are cisgender, it’s important to seek out information on your own, from reliable sources, about what it means to be trans and how to be an effective ally. To get you started, here are two experts with knowledge on transgender identity, terms, pronouns, and more.
1. Someone I Know Just Told Me They’re Transgender. What Does That Mean? What Should I Say or Do in Response?
“Transgender people are people whose gender identity is different from the gender they were thought to be at birth,” says Ash Orr, a spokesperson for the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Every trans person’s journey is unique, created by individual experiences, priorities, and expectations when they come out.”
There are endless ways to be transgender, and these introductory resources from the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project can help.
If someone has come out to you as trans, it means they trust you enough to share this with you. It’s important to welcome this vulnerability with acceptance. You can thank them for sharing this with you so you can know them better, tell them you care about them and are there to support them, and congratulate them on coming out.
“During this time, it is important to make space for them and be fully present,” Orr says. “It is natural for you to have questions arise during this time. Ask your questions with kindness and be open to learning.”
What happens after that is unique for each person. “Sometimes people start using different pronouns for themselves, a different name, and they may have some physical changes, too,” says Jess Romeo, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and clinical social worker at Chase Brexton Health Care in Maryland.
What changes a trans person makes, and what changes they’ll ask you to make, “all depends on what will help them feel a sense of congruence between their internal sense of who they are and how they present to the world,” says Romeo.
2. Does Someone Need Surgery to Be Considered Transgender? What Goes Into a Physical Transition?
Surgeries and other forms of physical change as part of a medical transition aren’t what make someone transgender, and transgender people don’t need to take any particular steps to be transgender.
Some transgender people choose to pursue:
- Surgeries on their chest, genitals, or face
- Hormone therapy
- Hair removal treatments
- Other medical treatments to change their physical bodies
Other transgender people may not do any of these things. Some want to get these treatments but can’t because they lack resources like money or health insurance.
“While not everyone needs transition-related medical treatments, there is an overwhelming consensus in the medical community that they are medically necessary for many transgender people and should be covered by private and public insurance,” Orr says. “Every major medical organization in the United States has affirmed that transition-related medical care is safe and effective, and that everyone who needs it should be able to access it.”
That being said, it’s not appropriate to ask invasive questions about a person’s anatomy or what (if any) surgery or treatments they’ve had or plan to have. If that person wants to share that information, they will.
3. When Do People Know They’re Trans? Are Teens Capable of Deciding to Physically Transition?
Everyone has a gender identity — transgender or not — and kids start to have a sense of whether they’re a boy or girl (or neither) early on. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that most children have a stable sense of their gender identity by age 4, and a study of transgender adults published in December 2021 in Sexual Medicine showed that they first felt like a different gender from the one they were told they were at around age 6.
“People can realize that they’re transgender at any age,” Orr says. “Some people may spend years feeling like they don’t fit in without really understanding why, or may try to avoid thinking or talking about their gender out of fear, shame, or confusion. Trying to repress or change one’s gender identity doesn’t work. In fact, it can be very painful and damaging to one’s emotional and mental health.”
When someone does make the decision to transition, it isn't made rashly. “Teens exploring physical transition have often been thinking about this for many years,” Romeo says. “They make this decision in partnership with their providers and with the consent of their guardians” — in states where transgender youth can still access gender-affirming care, anyway.
Studies also show that a large majority of transgender youth who socially or medically transition continue to identify as transgender into adulthood, and that access to gender-affirming healthcare has a positive, sometimes even life-saving impact on their mental and physical health.
4. Why Are Pronouns Important for Trans People? Am I Supposed to Introduce Myself With My Pronouns?
Introducing yourself — to anyone — with your preferred first-person pronouns (he/him, she/her, they/them, among others) can help to create a more comfortable environment for others to share the ones they would like used. Since you can’t tell someone’s pronouns by looking at them, you have to ask, and it’s polite to offer yours first. Orr and Romeo say it’s a simple way to show allyship to the trans community.
“For people who have never thought about their gender pronouns, the practice might not seem that important. This view often comes from a place of privilege, being that no one has ever questioned the pronouns they use,” Orr says.
“However, those who have been referred to by the wrong pronouns know how disrespectful and harmful it can feel. Something as simple as placing your pronouns in your email signature helps signal to others that they should be mindful of people’s pronouns and should share their pronouns with others.”
5. Is It Appropriate for Young Children to Learn About the Transgender Community?
Young kids are already aware of their own gender, and are more and more likely to personally know trans people, so education about what it means to be trans makes sense. Children already read books that teach about or feature people who have disabilities, come from other countries, have other religions, or speak other languages. It’s just as appropriate for them to learn about people who are transgender.
It benefits children to instill them with kindness and the ability to accept people who are different from them, to expose them to representation that may ring true to who they themselves are, and to teach them awareness so they are informed members of society.
6. Is Drag the Same as Trans?
No, being a drag performer and being a transgender person are not the same thing. “Transgender is a term to describe people whose gender identity is different from the gender they were thought to be when they were born. Drag is a type of performance art, and those who perform in drag are typically referred to as drag performers, drag queens, or drag kings,” Orr explains.
Some drag performers are trans and some are not, but being a drag performer does not make someone trans. “Drag is part of the trans and gender-diverse community, in that it celebrates playful and liberating gender expression, but doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as being transgender,” Romeo says.
“An easy way to understand this concept is that drag is much like theater, where performers put on and take off a costume, whereas being trans is part of a person’s identity — their very being — and is not an act,” Orr says.
7. There Are So Many Terms Besides ‘Transgender.’ What Do I Do When Someone Introduces Themself With a Term I Don’t Know?
Nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, demiboy, demigirl … Yes, there are many terms used to refer to different gender identities — dozens, in fact. An online glossary like the one from the advocacy group PFLAG can help.
The word “transgender” itself can be an umbrella term for the many possible gender identities that fall outside the one a person was given at birth.
You don’t need to know every single term to be an ally or friend. Just reflect back the language a person is using for themself, and ask what a term means when you don’t know. Even the same label may mean different things to different people, so ask what it means to the person you’re talking to if you’re close, or look it up later.
“Always refer to a transgender person using the language a transgender person uses for themselves,” Orr says. “You should follow the lead of each trans person, as they will best know the language that is right for them.”
“The most important thing you can do is cultivate a stance of respect and deference to the person, trusting that whatever label they’ve chosen is an authentic representation of how they identify,” Romeo says. Some people will identify just as a certain gender identity label, some as a gender label and also the word transgender, and some just as transgender.
8. I’m Nervous About Saying the Wrong Thing. What Should I Do if I Say Something Offensive?
“It’s completely natural to feel nervous, and the only way to work towards getting it right is to try!” Romeo says. Practice on your own if someone you know starts using a different name or pronouns, so you’re more used to it when you’re around them. And if you do make a mistake, just apologize, correct yourself, and move on.
“The worst thing you can do is prolong the experience with a profuse and long-winded apology — it just makes it harder for the person about whom you made the mistake. As long as you're making an effort and improving over time, that’s the kind of support trans folks need to feel respected and seen,” Romeo says.
Orr says that there is no one way to be a perfect ally: “The trans community is diverse and complex, meaning that different members within our community have different needs, priorities, and expectations. Similarly, there is no one right way to handle every situation or interaction with every trans person.”
Continuing to educate yourself is important. Bring an attitude of kindness, comfort, acceptance, and understanding by practicing the following:
- Introduce yourself with your pronouns.
- Apologize when you make a mistake.
- Read about concepts and terms.
- Respect people’s own self-identifying language.
All of these efforts can help make you a better ally, to people you know and the community at large.
