Personal Experience: Being a Transgender is not Matching the Traditional View of Man and Women

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The way I dress tends to leave people a bit…confused. For example, when I was younger, when I would go to the grocery store, the salespeople would always refer to me as a boy, saying things like, “can you tell that boy to put his items on the counter?” Since I have been able to dress myself, I have been wearing boys clothes because I identify as a cross-dresser. I feel more comfortable and more like myself…but this is not generally accepted in society, especially in Bulgaria. According to the national climate survey on transphobia in Canadian schools, between 2007 and 2009, “74% of trans students reported having been verbally harassed about their gender expression”. And what’s more, “37% of trans students reported being physically harassed or assaulted”. It is time for everyone to realize that there is more than one way to identify ones gender; in fact there are over 30 different ways for a person to identify themselves. For myself, being transgender means not matching the traditional view of male or female including being transsexual or a cross-dresser. Because society only thinks about gender being based on our sexual organs given to us at birth, it is imperative that we explore society’s need to except the transgender lifestyle further. We will do this by first, exploring two problems surrounding the T of the LGBT community. Second, we will explore two of its causes, before finally, providing solutions so that no matter our gender identity we will all be accepted.
It is normal to not udnderstand gender when you’ve never had to think about society’s social norms. But for those that do have to think about it, life can be challenging at times. The problems of not understanding being transgender are two-fold. First, people strug...

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... at gender we can change the way it treats the transgender community. Trans people won’t have to fight for the right to exist as who they are anymore. They won’t have to fight to prove that they are not less than anyone else. I won’t have to live in fear. I won’t be scared I can lose everything I love anymore. I will be free to be who I am.
No matter how we identify ourselves it is important that we all feel accepted. I believe that society is moving slowly in a direction of an acceptance of the transgender lifestyle but there’s so much more that can be done to stop the persecution. I hope that because of this speech, I have changed the way you view gender and how you discuss this topic with the people around you. I’m proud to be a part of the LGBT community and know that the way I look is a reflection on who I am as a person, not what society has chosen for me.

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