What's it like being a transperson?

[Cai]

I was chatting with someone I just met online, and one of the first questions that came up was "What's it like being a transperson?"

My response was this:

What's it like being cisgendered?

I'm not trying to be facetious, but it's a hard question to answer, because I've only ever known either crushing depression or being trans. I guess I could say it's liberating, really - I have a part of my identity that I get to fight for. Not many people have that opportunity. (The eternal optimist - having to fight to be myself is an opportunity. But it is.)

Out of curiosity, what would your response to that question be?

[SirTrey]

I would say that being trans is very odd because when you ARE yourself, you are viewed by others as pretending, but when you are pretending, people see you as being yourself.....and, unlike being cisgendered, you have to choose to be who you are, and usually, at great personal cost....In other words, cisgendered people don't have to take the extra step of convincing people who they really are....they are just accepted, we have that extra hill to climb...and it's usually a pretty arduous one to tackle. **Trey**

[Kate Simmons]

My response would be similar to yours Cai. To be quite honest, it's beyond me how so called "normal" people cope. I cannot imagine being anyone other than who I am as a multidimensional person.

[SirTrey]

My response would be similar to yours Cai. To be quite honest, it's beyond me how so called "normal" people cope. I cannot imagine being anyone other than who I am as a multidimensional person.
I love the person that I am, but cannot honestly say I am glad that I'm transgendered...Honestly, I just wish I were a man biologically, too....Would much rather My inside and outside matched....and I find it incredibly sad that that will never happen....so I make the best of it....but would never choose the misery of this if I had a choice. Not at all. **Trey**

[Cai]

I love the person that I am, but cannot honestly say I am glad that I'm transgendered...Honestly, I just wish I were a man biologically, too....Would much rather My inside and outside matched....and I find it incredibly sad that that will never happen....so I make the best of it....but would never choose the misery of this if I had a choice. Not at all. **Trey**

That's too bad, Trey. I mean, I don't know that I'd choose this, but it gives me such a unique perspective on life.

[John]

ok, I have a rather emo input here.

it's like having you're genitals and repreductive system ripped out, you're face disfigured, you're chest mutilated, you're verry nature raped and then being asked why you're making such a big deal out of it

[CaptLex]

Generally I feel the same way you do, Cai, it gives me a unique perspective - like having a sixth sense. I "see" things most people don't, and that's kinda cool. :coolp:

But, depending on my level of gender dysphoria that day (and that can even vary widely on the same day), sometimes I feel like John described. Sometimes I feel like I'm wearing a costume I can't remove and I hate that people can only see the costume and not me at all. :ph34r:

Trans means your life is sometimes up and sometimes down, but it's never boring. :wacko:

[KrazyKat]

I understand from an outsider's view, as much as I can, what you are all saying. I just wanted to remind us all of the struggle that everyone goes through everyday to find themselves, to feel ok with who they are. Like when you have a parent who tells you that you're stupid all your life, or you are beat for just being present, you know,those kinds of things.

I know it's a different thing, but still a struggle with personal identity, IMHO.

Just my :2c:.

Great sharing of ideas, helps us to understand!!:hugs:

[kerrianna]

Well, I like what my friend Kimberley once wrote:

The cost of being transgendered is self-worth and happiness; The reward of being transgendered is self-worth and happiness.

It is a double edged sword, because I do like having that unique viewpoint and complexity.

BUT...

I have to wonder if that's only because I ever had no choice...I was always a misfit, an oddling, and so early in life I decided for my own self esteem that I was 'special' 'unique' 'gifted' etc.

There is a part of me that does wonder what it would be like to not even think that way... to just carry on feeling a part of the gang and accepted.

I think any 'outsider' feels that way: privelaged to be given insight and sensitivity and a gift, and cursed to feel excluded from the populace.

I do try to remember that everyone is unique too, that the idea of normal is just that - an idea.

[Syr_SwitchyGQ]

Usually, I try to be thankful that I'm trans because it's helped me be a better person (I'm convinced I'd have been a jerk as a GM, and as a girl, I was quite insensitive to males and male issues). It has also given me a movement to throw myself into, which is nice, because I like to fight... can't ever do anything the easy way.

Right now though. >.< *curls into a fetal ball* What did I do in my last life to deserve this? :(

[Kieron Andrew]

i honestly cant answer this, cos i dont know what its like NOT to be a transperson cos ive always been this way, because i wasnt really living before i came out, just existing....as Tobias says the more i discover about my transness the more it makes me a better person

[Kate Simmons]

Coming to consensous has never been one of my strong points. I realize some is needed but will never again compromise myself and who I am in the process. The cost can be quite high but I've learned to live with it. Individuality is priceless to me and I've learned (by hard experience sometimes) once you surrender that it can be hard if not impossible to get it back. Sometimes it takes a lot of energy and effort just to be myself but in the end it's worth it because I have to live with the result.:happy:

[GypsyKaren]

What's it like? Like being myself, I suppose, it's the only way I've ever known. I've been happy, I've been sad, just like everyone else in the world, just for different things like everyone else too. It's kinda like asking "what's it like being right handed?
Well, it just feels like how I am, is all, it's just the way I am.

Karen Starlene :star:

[Maggie Kay]

Being a transperson for me is like being on a wild ride at Disneyland. At times it is scary, at other times downright fun and at other times I have a voice in my head saying "I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE!" . The other thing is that it is 24/7 everything I do and every movement I take is referenced to gender. "Am I doing this too masculine?" "Oh gee, that is a fun way to walk, did that person see me?, I hope not" "I just said Toodles to a guy on the phone that I am not out to, will he think I am coming on to him? I hope not" Can't be to swishy even though I want to because it brings too much attention. Then there is the view of the fiddly bits in the mirror, yuk and more yuk. How about the times when I need to talk in my male voice which booms out. I hear every word and wince. Then there are the times when I look in the mirror and see a pretty woman looking back and SMILE! If I had the power to convert all this energy to electricity, I would not have to pay my power bill...

[Mariah]

I akin it to Watching the world through the eyes of another. Like a nature girl watching a pack of wolfs to see what they are doing. *^_^* Get cought is to die!

hopes
keris

[Calliope]

Where did I read this? It's like "someone plugs in the lamp and toast pops up in the other room." Kinda tricky.

[Dania]

Honestly, I couldn't even fathom what having a one dimensional view of gender would be like. As the good captian so eloquenty stated, Trans means your life is sometimes up and sometimes down, but it's never boring.

I feel this way too. I love the way I am, although I feel as if I wish I could know, if just for one day what it feels like to have this conflict washed away, to be on the other side looking in. Perhaps it would help me relate better and explain this to people, and be able to justify my actions with something more then "This is the way I am."

Maybe not.

What is it like? It's the single greatest gift I could ever have received, it's given me a sense of the world that is so uniquely my own. It's also brought self-centered tendencies, extreme depression, an emotional state that ebbs and flows, a boat load of complex feelings that doom one dimensional gendered relationships, and not to mention a whole other set of complexities in life I can't even begin to feel yet.

Today, I love it. Ask me tomorrow. :drink:

Edit: Keris, I love your nature girl and pack of wolves analogy. On second thought, if I was free of this conflict and a natal female, I'd totally be that nature girl watching them anyway! ^_^ Except I wouldn't understand why they do what they do, but I'd look cute doing it.. No dangly earrings though.. Might make too much noise.. Can't get caught.. *sighs and takes the edit button away for her own good*

[Nicki B]

It's kinda like asking "what's it like being right handed?"

It's much more like being left-handed.. :sad:


Unless you're there, you won't, you can't, understand how the world is not made for you?

[Ms. Donna]

What's it like, being transgender, transsexual, trans-anything?


Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?

Neo: You could say that.

Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?

Neo: No.

Morpheus: Why not?

Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Neo: The Matrix.

Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?

Neo: Yes.

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Being trans in a binary-gendered world is not to far off from this - and coming to terms with it is a bit like being 'flushed out of the pod': frightening, dissociating, a flood of feelings...

And once you do come to terms with it - the world around you will never, ever look the same again.

Regards,
Donna

[Ashly]

Sometimes it feels like a disease. ...and some believe it is a disease.

[Scotty]

The real question is, what's it like NOT being a Transperson?

[Kieron Andrew]

The real question is, what's it like NOT being a Transperson?

wouldnt have a clue

[Scotty]

It's much more like being left-handed.. :sad:


Unless you're there, you won't, you can't, understand how the world is not made for you?

I'm ambidextrious :D :D

[Valeria]

I guess I just have a pedestrian view of the world.

Let me add a different perspective...


I feel this way too. I love the way I am, although I feel as if I wish I could know, if just for one day what it feels like to have this conflict washed away, to be on the other side looking in. Perhaps it would help me relate better and explain this to people, and be able to justify my actions with something more then "This is the way I am."

Maybe not.
Probably not. :happy:

Between hormones, and surgery, and just plain living as a woman and interacting with people that only know and perceive me as a woman, my actual feelings of gender dysphoria have gone away. The internal congnitive dissonance about my gender - all gone.

I'm not unique in reporting this phenomenom. In fact, some people view it as the goal of transition - to restructure your life and your body so that your internal gender and the external world are in balance.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's easier for me to explain transsexuality to someone else. You see, at this point I don't exactly feel my gender much at all. I think that gender is something that you notice most when it is out of balance with your world. Once everything is in balance, gender doesn't seem like it's such a big deal.

You'll sometimes see people who are transitioning become confused by this effect. I've known women who started hormones, began living as a woman full time, and then questioned "Why am I doing this? Was my old life really that bad? I had a nice life!". In a few cases, they've actually gone so far as to stop hormones and try going back to living as they did before (and the answer has inevitably been "Yes! My old life was painful!! I just couldn't remember the unbearable grind of gender dysphoria very clearly once it was alleviated!").

Me? While I don't really clearly remember how bad it used to be, I certainly know that I'm happier and less stressed now. For me, it's like the world is suddenly in color.


What is it like? It's the single greatest gift I could ever have received, it's given me a sense of the world that is so uniquely my own. It's also brought self-centered tendencies, extreme depression, an emotional state that ebbs and flows, a boat load of complex feelings that doom one dimensional gendered relationships, and not to mention a whole other set of complexities in life I can't even begin to feel yet.
Obviously, YMMV. :p

While I'm a feminist, and I like to challange a lot of preconceptions about gender, and I love reading books and essays on various aspects of gender and queer theory, the reality is that my gender isn't all that complex (compared to other people).

I mean, I understand that gender is a composite of many components, and identity is an even more complex composite containing other elements (such as sexuality). But as it happens, I don't think that my personal gender is all that radical or unorthodox, and my gender identity isn't particularly fluid (my desires for gender expression are somewhat fluid, but I don't think that's all that unusual for women - I know lots of queer women that like playing with their gender performance).

Put another way, I'm a queer femme, and so is my life partner. I had to transition, and she didn't. My appeciation for a few of the nuances of gender may be a bit higher than hers, but ultimately, my viewpoint really isn't all that different than hers.

As I said, YMMV...

[Lisa Golightly]

It's alright.

[Siobhan Marie]

The real question is, what's it like NOT being a Transperson?

I couldn't have put it better myself. I don't know and I will never know.

I'm me and I have this birth defect that I need to correct. That's all I know.

:hugs: Siobhán x

[ZenFrost]

My response would be (lets just say for sake of ease that I'm talking to a guy):

Imagine waking up one morning and you had mounds of flesh hanging off your chest, your genitals had been removed/turned inside out, your voice was high, and your entire body was out of whack. Now image waking up to that every morning. And on top of that, going through agonizing pain, cramps, headaches, fatigue, uncontrollable emotional swings, and bleeding from a place you're not supposed to have for over a week at a time on irregular intervals a couple weeks apart.

And the only way to make your body even remotely what it's supposed to be is to spend the rest of your life having to take shots every week, going through a dozen very expensive and painful operations, and having to live with extensive scarring and a body that will never be what it's supposed to.

At least, that's my explanation in a nutshell.

[Sally24]

I bounce back and forth between feeling "very special or gifted" and feeling just "weird" depending on what kind of week I'm having. This week was a very good one. I just got back from a birthday party for a T-girl friend and spent the whole day and into the wee hours en femme. I felt perfectly at home in my skin and felt very attractive all day. Was shopping at a mall in the afternoon in jeans and then in the evening was in a very Christmasy dress and heels. Sometimes I feel I'm putting a character on but this day and night I was just me and it was exhilerating! Wish every day could be this good!

[Felix]

I can only answer this by saying I am me what ever and who ever that is. All I know is by trying to label myself I lost the person who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with :sad: So now I have done away with labels people see what they want to see. I know who I am at the end of the day. Some days I feel crap about everything and some days I don't. I try and look at all the good things in my life and the things I have achieved that I can hold on to. One day I may move past the place I am in now but who knows cos I don't xx Felix :hugs:

[Stephenie S]

I guess I just have a pedestrian view of the world.

Let me add a different perspective...


Probably not. :happy:

Between hormones, and surgery, and just plain living as a woman and interacting with people that only know and perceive me as a woman, my actual feelings of gender dysphoria have gone away. The internal congnitive dissonance about my gender - all gone.

I'm not unique in reporting this phenomenom. In fact, some people view it as the goal of transition - to restructure your life and your body so that your internal gender and the external world are in balance.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's easier for me to explain transsexuality to someone else. You see, at this point I don't exactly feel my gender much at all. I think that gender is something that you notice most when it is out of balance with your world. Once everything is in balance, gender doesn't seem like it's such a big deal.

You'll sometimes see people who are transitioning become confused by this effect. I've known women who started hormones, began living as a woman full time, and then questioned "Why am I doing this? Was my old life really that bad? I had a nice life!". In a few cases, they've actually gone so far as to stop hormones and try going back to living as they did before (and the answer has inevitably been "Yes! My old life was painful!! I just couldn't remember the unbearable grind of gender dysphoria very clearly once it was alleviated!").

Me? While I don't really clearly remember how bad it used to be, I certainly know that I'm happier and less stressed now. For me, it's like the world is suddenly in color.


Obviously, YMMV. :p

While I'm a feminist, and I like to challange a lot of preconceptions about gender, and I love reading books and essays on various aspects of gender and queer theory, the reality is that my gender isn't all that complex (compared to other people).

I mean, I understand that gender is a composite of many components, and identity is an even more complex composite containing other elements (such as sexuality). But as it happens, I don't think that my personal gender is all that radical or unorthodox, and my gender identity isn't particularly fluid (my desires for gender expression are somewhat fluid, but I don't think that's all that unusual for women - I know lots of queer women that like playing with their gender performance).

Put another way, I'm a queer femme, and so is my life partner. I had to transition, and she didn't. My appeciation for a few of the nuances of gender may be a bit higher than hers, but ultimately, my viewpoint really isn't all that different than hers.

As I said, YMMV...

Well, I was going to try and answer this question, but I don't think I could say it any better than Kehleyr did.

And then along came Jane.

Jane dear, how are you doing? Better, I am sure.

Lovies,
Stephenie

[Lanore]

To be a 'transperson', quiet honest. It's great. I think of myself as female and since I never knew what labels meant when I was young, don't give them a thought now. However, this world has a way of putting labels on anyone different. Wouldn't it be nice if we were just looked upon as who we are? We are all different and that is what makes all of us unique. To me, we are all very beautifull people. Notice I said people. I think of a computer. Look how it has changed over the years and knowone gives it a different name. It's still a computer. I am who I am. I have changed over the years, but it's still me.

Lanore

[melissaK]

LOL. "What's it like?" What a question. I have a SO, some good friends and some past SO's that have asked me this. I wish I could explain it better.

To answer in as few notes as possible - "You don't fit in."

For me, a MTF, my desire - to look, act and be as a girl, then later as a woman, were placed off limits to me by social rules. For me it began in 3rd grade - I was ordered to stop jumping rope with the girls and to go play football with the boys. You aren't terribly aware of the impact this will have on you when you are only 8 yrs old. At age 8 you accept a lot of social rules that you don't like - taking a bath every day, cleaning your room, eating peas. At age 8 you don't understand that there are some rules that despite being imposed on you, will not change your nature. But in hind sight I can see that began years of trying to be someone else, to be what others wanted me to be. Eventually who I am became lost in the world of who I was told I should be.

I have told others this can happen to anyone - you take up a profession to please parents or a spouse, but its not what you always wanted to do, and you become miserable within the life you've created for yourself to please others.

I have told others that society has often dictated roles to people beyond reason. I ask them to think about the story of Hermie the Elf who wanted to be a dentist in the Rankin & Bass Christmas animated classic "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer". I ask them to take that fictional problem the Elf had and look at real world customs that were harmful - I ask them to think about "Fiddler on the Roof" and Tevye's lament over his three daughters who don't want to follow the social custom of an arranged marriage.

I explain that for me, asking me to be a "man" is at best like being in an "arranged marriage."

Invariably, they ask "why." They can understand being one of Tevye's daughters and the loss of free will, but they dont' get "why" I would want to be a woman. I tell them what I know - "there's presently no explanation. No medical explanation, no indisputable genetic proof, no confirmed psycological theory. But it stilll is." A hundred years ago - before we knew a cold was caused by a living replicating virus transmitted by ways we could not see, we still had colds.

I look in a mirror and see its a "guy" but it doesn't match my mind which says it should be a "gal." Ms. Donna's "The Matrix" analogy given above is pretty good explanation of how hard it can be to learn what is wrong with the image in the mirror after a lifetime of counter-programming from social rules. And the splinter in my mind festered and became evermore raw with time. The splinter hurts - an emotional pain, a wounded psyche.

Kehleyr explains the effect E therapy had on me. For the first time ever the pain went away. Like her friends, I try going back to the world I had built where I was who everyone thought I should be - but with the knowlede it's a role I play, and that I am someone else. Endlessly role playing is tiresome with understandable limitations. Very few know "me."

And is E the right choice? There were people like me long before modern pharmacies developed E. Can't I just be me like they had to be themselves? Or am I more like a diabetic who's pancreas isn't working and must take some insulin to live. Still difficult choices to think over.

So, that's "what it's like" to me. At least that's some of it.

hugs,
'lissa

[MJ]

I would say that being trans is very odd because when you ARE yourself, you are viewed by others as pretending, but when you are pretending, people see you as being yourself.....and, unlike being cisgendered, you have to choose to be who you are, and usually, at great personal cost....In other words, cisgendered people don't have to take the extra step of convincing people who they really are....they are just accepted, we have that extra hill to climb...and it's usually a pretty arduous one to tackle. **Trey**

Thank you Trey i could not have said it any better


Generally I feel the same way you do, Cai, it gives me a unique perspective - like having a sixth sense. I "see" things most people don't, and that's kinda cool. :coolp:


But, depending on my level of gender dysphoria that day (and that can even vary widely on the same day), sometimes I feel like John described. Sometimes I feel like I'm wearing a costume I can't remove and I hate that people can only see the costume and not me at all. :ph34r:

Trans means your life is sometimes up and sometimes down, but it's never boring. :wacko:

i feel the same way capt there are day i am so happy and then there are days i just want to cry



Being a transperson for me is like being on a wild ride at Disneyland. At times it is scary, at other times downright fun and at other times I have a voice in my head saying "I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE!" . The other thing is that it is 24/7 everything I do and every movement I take is referenced to gender. "Am I doing this too masculine?" "Oh gee, that is a fun way to walk, did that person see me?, I hope not" "I just said Toodles to a guy on the phone that I am not out to, will he think I am coming on to him? I hope not" Can't be to swishy even though I want to because it brings too much attention. Then there is the view of the fiddly bits in the mirror, yuk and more yuk. How about the times when I need to talk in my male voice which booms out. I hear every word and wince. Then there are the times when I look in the mirror and see a pretty woman looking back and SMILE! If I had the power to convert all this energy to electricity, I would not have to pay my power bill...

Maggie hit it right on the head welcome to my world sister


I guess I just have a pedestrian view of the world.

Let me add a different perspective...


Probably not. :happy:

Between hormones, and surgery, and just plain living as a woman and interacting with people that only know and perceive me as a woman, my actual feelings of gender dysphoria have gone away. The internal congnitive dissonance about my gender - all gone.

many long to be were your at i envy you

I'm not unique in reporting this phenomenom. In fact, some people view it as the goal of transition - to restructure your life and your body so that your internal gender and the external world are in balance.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's easier for me to explain transsexuality to someone else. You see, at this point I don't exactly feel my gender much at all. I think that gender is something that you notice most when it is out of balance with your world. Once everything is in balance, gender doesn't seem like it's such a big deal.

You'll sometimes see people who are transitioning become confused by this effect.
I've known women who started hormones, began living as a woman full time, and then questioned "Why am I doing this? Was my old life really that bad? I had a nice life!". In a few cases, they've actually gone so far as to stop hormones and try going back to living as they did before (and the answer has inevitably been "Yes! My old life was painful!! I just couldn't remember the unbearable grind of gender dysphoria very clearly once it was alleviated!").

as god is my judge i feel this way right now i am trying to deal with it .. you have no idea

Me? While I don't really clearly remember how bad it used to be, I certainly know that I'm happier and less stressed now. For me, it's like the world is suddenly in color.


Obviously, YMMV. :p

While I'm a feminist, and I like to challange a lot of preconceptions about gender, and I love reading books and essays on various aspects of gender and queer theory, the reality is that my gender isn't all that complex (compared to other people).

I mean, I understand that gender is a composite of many components, and identity is an even more complex composite containing other elements (such as sexuality). But as it happens, I don't think that my personal gender is all that radical or unorthodox, and my gender identity isn't particularly fluid (my desires for gender expression are somewhat fluid, but I don't think that's all that unusual for women - I know lots of queer women that like playing with their gender performance).

Put another way, I'm a queer femme, and so is my life partner. I had to transition, and she didn't. My appeciation for a few of the nuances of gender may be a bit higher than hers, but ultimately, my viewpoint really isn't all that different than hers.

As I said, YMMV...

many have said it better than i could . for me to be honest i hate going through this .. but in the end i am dammed if i do and dammed if i don't hell of a life ant it

[sybercom11]

For me it has always been a struggle. I have never understood the intolerance thrust upon us because we are peaceful, gentle people just trying to be ourselves and living our lives.

[Maggie Kay]

It was in my lifetime that having Cancer or TB was still considered to be shameful. We live in a puritan valued society that discourages many to shun science and logic in favor of religious dogma and fear. I once was told by a minister that gays were males possessed by female demons. So with this mentality, anything can happen.

[Stephenie S]

It was in my lifetime that having Cancer or TB was still considered to be shameful. We live in a puritan valued society that discourages many to shun science and logic in favor of religious dogma and fear. I once was told by a minister that gays were males possessed by female demons. So with this mentality, anything can happen.

OMG Maggie, what a horrible thing to say to you. This must have been a VERY fearful and unhappy person. It's so sad that people like this can be in positions of leadership.

Stephie

[Maggie Kay]

Yes, I was a deacon/elder in my church and he was very respected. The church was sending representatives halfway across the country for a national meeting of the church to fight the acceptance of gays as an acceptable alternative lifestyle.
I was in the inner circle of the church leadership in that small eastern PA town and was giving lay sermons, leading prayer meetings, singing in the choir and laying on of hands to heal the sick.
When I got divorced and the church refused to let me inside the church again.
The point is that many people are still like this in the heartland of the US and believe strongly that gender non normative people are evil and that we have an agenda to destroy the family. Very scary.

[kerrianna]

There were times, not that long ago, that transpeople were thought to be possessed and were executed for it.

They didn't even try to 'save' the person.

They figured the demon had them and that they were next so best to kill the person and the demon at the same time.

Pretty scary and depressing, but so much of history is like that. To this day people around the world are still harmed or killed for because of their skin colour, religion, sexual orientation, clan or tribe affiliation, etc.

I have an online friend from Egypt who is a MTF trans and NOBODY in her RL will ever know it, because not only is it against the law, it can also get you dead in a hurry and no one will care.

And to think some cultures revered trans people.

Seems to me the demons aren't in us.....:raisedeyebrow: