To those who are not transgendered..are you aware of your non-transgender privilege?

wow! i am transsexual and i've never considered most of this from that perspective. what i did see here was an awful lot of truth!

i have been asked what the difference is between presenting male and presenting female in daily life. i think i stammered around a bit about spacial relationships. how as a male i need not be particular about the space i took up in a room or an elevator or the like. as a female it seems i am required to give up space...thus, "i keep bumping into people."

but your "list" is illuminating in a way i could never have expressed. personally, and very sincerely i thank you for this. we've already seen answers <comments> in here that have shown what a powerful statement you have made.

much love and hope. pj

I happen to also think that the word "transgender" should be retired. All it does is foster confusion and bad feelings. I agree with Brittney, I think a crossdresser should be a crossdresser, a drag queen should be a drag queen and a transsexual should be a transsexual. There is one point I'd like to make that I don't think has been made here. Crossdressers still identify as their birth sex.....a transsexual's body and mind don't match sexes. The two are not even remotely the same and while some transsexuals once identified as crossdressers, they realized that the act of crossdressing was not enough and they realized they were, in fact, the wrong sex, their mind was incongruent with their body.. Yes, there are factions of transpeople constantly in a kind of silent war against each other. The young ones don't like the older ones because the older ones are more stable and often have access to more fundage. often the older ones don't like the young ones because they slip into the mainstream of society so easily. Crossdressers don't like transsexuals, on and on and on. I remember my first support group meeting. I was scared out of my mind and just looking for help and trying to network ASAP. There was a crossdresser there and she was a member of a well known crossdressing organization. She talked about how great the people were and I asked if I could come to the next meeting. She looked at me with contempt and said "Sorry. Transsexuals aren't welcome." I thought "Geez, what did I do? Kill your cat or something?" That was my first received salvo from the great trans-CD war. After being in transition for four years and passing very well now I don't want to be around CDs. I'd rather not get "read" by association. BTW, I disagree with the poster who talked about non-ops not being transsexual. I plan to have SRS myself, but I think transition is a journey. You take your own path and decide for yourself when you are finished. If you identify as female, who am I to say you aren't?

I'm cisgendered, and I guess I usually don't think about it *that* much in everyday life, seeing as I don't have to face any prejudice based on my gender expression.

I do, however, know that I am privileged.

I just so happen to know some transsexuals, and while I don't have any firsthand experience of what they are going through, I realize approximately what it's all about, and I understand that it must be really difficult for most of them.

..Thus I think it is admirable that they still manage to stay true to themselves, and that they don't give up fighting for the right to be who they are. Kudos to you, and to every other transsexual out there as well, who manages to face such a huge amount of ugly coming from a never-ending parade of stupid.

Hopefully someday in the future there will be more acceptance..

I can dream.

The cisgender people that I've talked to have been as selfish as children when it came to me being trans. They didn't try to see anything from my point of view at all. I was talking to one woman I go to school with, and explaining to her about being trans, and the surgery options. I explained to her the bleak options for lower surgery, and that growth is limited to up to 4 inches if you are totally lucky. All she got out of that was "Oh, so you're gonna be a guy with a small penis, I don't date guys with small penises." It didn't even occur to her that it might hurt me that even if I do spend thousands on surgery, and if I'm totally lucky I'll have a 4 inch dick. All that mattered to her was her point of view of not wanting to date guys with small *****, an she felt the need to tell me. Cispeople, they totally see things from just their view. They won't hire someone because they don't feel "comfortable". They keep someone from their right to make a living for themselves because they are uncomfortable? Yeah there are cispeople who do take the time to try to comprehend how it is from our angle. But all the ones I've met so far just think about me me me, "how does it effect me?". As if it mattered. It's sort of mind boggling to me how they don't even consider that my end of it may be horrendous.

I've seen this list before, but it's still as awesome as ever.

I struggle with my privilege (of being cisgender, white, upper-middle class, etc.) all the time, and to be honest, sometimes it does get hard when somebody questions you and you're forced to re-evaluate yourself (which is always uncomfortable, when you have to face things about yourself that you'd rather not believe).

Thanks for this cool question!

i belive no one understands untill they have truly walked in your shoes society is all too quick to place judgement on a fellow person the eyes are the windows if the sole and thats where id like to begin

You're delusional, asker.

that makes my mind open quite a bit, and it is true, there's no way we can relate because we never went through it and its true for most cases.

but even though I don't know you I have a lot of respect for you :)

I love this list!

I was not aware - so thank you for reminding me, in all seriousness. It was very... fascinating/enlightening... I can't think of the proper word~