Question 1

What are pronouns?

Accepted Answer

Everyone uses pronouns. Pronouns are words that substitute nouns when the person you’re talking or writing to knows who (or what) you’re talking about already. For example, I might say, “I have a dog named Brutus. He is black, white, and brown, and he has a lot of attitude.” The ‘he’ referring to Brutus is a pronoun – if I wanted to not use any pronouns, I would instead say, “I have a dog named Brutus. Brutus is black, white, and brown and Brutus has a lot of attitude.”

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In English, the most common pronouns are I, me, us, you, we, he, she, and they. There is literally no way to exist in the world without using pronouns, so no, you do use them – even if you’re cisgender. That being said, most people associate pronouns with transgender people and specially the use of the pronouns he/him, she/her, and they/them. That’s because transgender and nonbinary people are the most likely to use pronouns that aren’t correlated with the gender assigned to them at birth.

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The pronouns he/him, she/her, and they/them all have a gender typically associated with them – he/him being male, she/her being female, and they/them being gender-neutral. As we go about our day, we make thousands of assumptions about the world and people around us, assuming others’ genders based on how they present themselves or the name they use – but assumptions can be wrong. The act of accidentally or purposely using the wrong pronouns is called misgendering and it’s something you should avoid if you care about trans folks since it’s offensive and upsetting.

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Want to learn more about pronouns? Visit pronouns.org.

Question 2

What is trans? What does cis mean?

Accepted Answer

'Trans' is shorthand for transgender, which refers to anyone who identifies as a gender that is different than what they were originally assigned at birth. It's an umbrella term that includes a variety of identities like trans men, trans women, nonbinary, etc. There's no right or wrong way to be trans just like there's no right or wrong way to be a man or woman. Some of us come out in our youth, while others come out later in life; some trans people may affirm their gender through hormone replacement therapy or surgery, while others may not.-Trans is an adjective, and it's not a separate gender on its own. In other words, trans women are women - they're not a different gender and separate from women just because they're transgender.-Cis is shorthand for cisgender, which refers to anyone who identifies as the gender that was originally assigned to them at birth - it's what most people tend to assume when they think men have penises and XY chromosomes while women have vulvas and XX chromosomes. Both 'trans' and 'cis' come from Latin - cis means "the same" while trans means "opposite." Intersex refers to individuals who do not neatly fall into the male/female sex binary but intersex people are not inherently transgender or cisgender.

Question 3

Why are trans people part of the LGBTQIA+ community?

Accepted Answer

Even though transgender people have a focus on gender rather than sexuality, unlike the rest of the LGB community, we’ve been discriminated similarly for being different – which is why trans people have been alongside queer people throughout LGBTQIA+ history. We face similar challenges and struggles to gay men, lesbians, bisexual people, etc., so our communities have merged back and forth over the decades in our fight for autonomy, agency, and self-determination. The types of people that attack transgender rights are also the same groups that later attack gay and lesbian rights, so standing together makes us stronger.

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Being queer does not mean you’re automatically an ally to transgender people – there’s actually a lot of LGB people that are anti-trans. Separatists movements exist for a variety of reasons, citing that gender is too different than sexuality and we have nothing in common, or that trans people are simply too weird to be lumped with the rest of the LGB community. These claims are always fueled by bigotry and a good dose of ignorance – since the tactics used to demonize transgender people by these groups are the same tactics the general public uses to demonize the rest of the LGB community.

Question 4

Is being trans a new thing?

Accepted Answer

No. Gender-diverse people have been proven to exist just as long as humans have existed on this planet – although the language and terminology for it has varied over the centuries. The word ‘transgender’ only emerged in the 1960s, and it didn’t become popular until years later. Prior to that, gender-diverse people identified as transsexual, transvestites, or even just as drag performers. In other cultures, words like muxe, hijra, and two-spirit are used to refer to what we commonly call trans people.

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People’s ability to identify with terminology depends on their access to that terminology – during the gay liberation movement, most gender diverse people identified as drag performers since that was the safest and most accessible label for the time period. Additionally, transgender people have been largely written out of history – history is subjective and written by those in power, and the stories and lives of LGBTQIA+ people is something that white cishet historians have purposely kept out when retelling the history of the human race. Despite that, there are still fragments that prove that queer and trans people have been here – like the “Tale of Two Brothers” from Ancient Egypt, Emperor Elagabalus from Ancient Rome, Saint Anastasia the Patrician during medieval times, and the massive number of gender-diverse labels from various cultures, like the Bantu inkotshane, Navajo nádleehi, Zapotec muxe, Indian hijra, Thai kathoey, etc.

Question 5

Is being trans a mental illness?

Accepted Answer

No. Society has long believed that anyone different must be sick, which is why being gay was considered a mental illness until it was officially removed from the DSM in 1973. Like the rest of the LGBTQIA+ community, transgender people are more likely to suffer from mental illness due to the lack of support they receive from their friends and family and being more likely to be disowned, assaulted, fired, or harassed for being trans.

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It’s somewhat complicated. Being transgender is no longer considered a mental illness, but one of the main things that makes someone identify as transgender (having gender dysphoria) is classified as a mental illness. There’s a lot to unpack with that. On one hand, mental illness should not be stigmatizing – mental illnesses should just refer to any condition that’s causing you distress or impacting your everyday life. But because mental illness is considered inherently negative, the American Psychiatric Association chose to change the DSM-5 to classify just gender dysphoria as a mental health issue rather than being transgender altogether. The reason the APA chose to not remove gender dysphoria from the DSM-5 entirely is because the mental illness diagnosis is often required for most transgender people in the United States to use health insurance or Medicaid to pay for gender-affirming services like hormone replacement therapy or surgery. While medical transition may not be a part of everyone’s journey, it’s significant – and even required by many states to legally change your gender marker or name.