A transsexual woman, or just another woman?

An earlier post I made upset some transsexuals. It was unintentional. Perhaps a little background to my position may help. When a dear friend announced they were transsexual, I was shocked. Shocked mainly because my views on what gender is questioned the validity of why my friend was transitioning. Many hours of talk and I began to understand. Don’t misunderstand: I supported her, but really did not understand why she felt this compulsion to undergo such a process.

I watched her transition, how her appearance altered. I was surprised that I started thinking of her as a woman. Then she told me, she was not transsexual, but a woman. She rejected the idea of being transsexual - rather explaining that she was merely a woman wrongly assigned at birth.

Looking back, I can identify how she had integrated fully with the women she mixed with. At first, all I could see was a dear friend attempting to adopt a female gender role and that made me sad. Society uses female and male gender roles to oppress women so watching someone I care about reinforcing something I totally reject was somewhat troublesome.

Time has shown that she has fully integrated into life as just another woman, taking some strong positions on women’s issues. In fact, she has debated strongly with me on gender issues. I was surprised by her actual rejection of the socially constructed gender roles. Here is a woman taking a similar view to me, but having taken a different path to get here.

I was in trouble. My previous rejection of transgender people as little more than sexually motivated men was being challenged. Long held beliefs were being challenged. But I was soon to learn that one person is just that: one person...