Rather than saying it takes away from who we are, I would suggest that it tries to "imply" who we are and therefore imposes certain stereotypes upon us. In order to understand transgender, it is necessary to understand gender. I don't believe that there is any dispute over the meaning of trans. The word gender and the word genre have the same Greek root, and it pertains to classification. If you look up the definition of gender, most sources begin by referring to it as a grammatical term. It is a sub-category of a broader category such as a pronoun or a noun. A listing of the basis for describing the sub-category (gender or genre) is usually included and includes such things as shape, size, etc. and only lastly, sex.Originally Posted by ReineD
The secondary usage of the word gender is usually a description of how the word has evolved into its relationship to the word "sexual identity" through common usage.
The World Health Organization definition of gender is: "Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women." This was expanded in a technical paper with the following: "Gender is related to how we are perceived and expected to think and act as women and men because of the way society is organized, not because of our biological differences." In other words gender is a social concept and involves social expectations and perceptions, not something that we possess internally.
Health Canada offers this description: "Gender refers to the array of socially constructed roles and relationships, personality traits, attitudes, behaviours, values, relative power and influence that society ascribes to the two sexes on a differential basis. Gender is relational - gender roles and characteristics do not exist in isolation, but are defined in relation to one another and through the relationships between women and men, girls and boys." i.e. society ascribes it. The determinant of masculinity and femininity can differ from society to society and era to era. It has nothing to do with "who we are" but is all about how society arbitrarily categorizes human qualities, and determines gender roles.
Next we must analyze gender identity. The definition you provide is good: "A person’s intrinsic sense of being male (a boy or a man), female (a girl or woman), or an alternative gender (e.g., boygirl, girlboy, transgender, genderqueer, eunuch)." The important words here are "intrinsic sense" which means the essential nature of a thing person etc.
If, for example, my intrinsic sense is that I am a man, then that does not change because I sometimes might wear clothing that society deems to be feminine, because femininity is simply a social construct. What I am doing is crossdressing which your definitions state is: "Crossdressing (transvestism): Wearing clothing and adopting a gender role presentation that, in a given culture, is more typical of the other sex." i.e. we are talking about presentation, and typical as determined by society, not the individual. The perception, by society, is not necessarily the reality.
Lastly, the definition you provided of transgender contradicts much of the foregoing thoughts:"Transgender: Adjective to describe a diverse group of individuals who cross or transcend culturally defined categories of gender. The gender identity of transgender people differs to varying degrees from the sex they were assigned at birth." In other words the adjective is being applied to the individuals, albeit a diverse group, when the reference is to the culturally ascribed norms that are being broken, and not the basic nature of the individual. Thus a man can show emotion and cry at a funeral, for example, which is generally considered a feminine trait, without it impacting his identity as a man. Similarly he can be a stay at home dad and raise the kids, a socially ascribed feminine role, without impacting his identity as a man. Why, then can he not dress and adopt most of the characteristics of appearance that society ascribes to women without it having an impact on his identity as a man?
If it impacts upon his identity of himself, then perhaps he is transgendered, but if not (and nothing says it must) he is not transgendered.
I fail to see why this issue is the subject of such harsh criticism as we find on this and other forums. Rather than disputing the logic, we are psychoanalized and diagnosed as possessing phobias of various sorts, or being unwilling to "accept" what to us is simply not true. We are not disputing that what the majority on these forums say is applicable to many cases, but simply making the point that in our own experience these claims are not universal. We are not all transgendered. Perhaps it is the transgendered who are battling some sort of phobia.
Veronica
