"Gender is bewteen you ears, NOT your legs."

“Gender is Between Your Ears, Not Your Legs”
A Look at the Social and Financial aspects of Transgender
Healthcare in America and How the Trans Community is Portrayed on Screen

Back in 2003, two of my closest buddies revealed themselves to be gay to our group of friends. They are both male, aged 15 at the time. The LGB community in Staten Island is a large community but a close knit one; if you know one, then by association, you know them all. I met my first openly Transgender person in 2005, at my high school graduation party. My friend Mark’s boyfriend at the time brought his sister Angelina**. A lovely girl indeed, Angelina was 25 at the time and had the prettiest brown eyes I have ever made contact with and long wavy hair that flowed past her shoulders. Angelina possessed a delicate demeanor that seemed clashing to her deep vocal tone, and her peep-toe black pumps added four inches to her already six foot frame. What I noticed most about her was her indifference to her difference. She was truly a beautiful enigma, and we became fast friends.

It was obvious to see what Angelina was upon first meeting her; but it was the nonchalance to her presence which was most perplexing. Does she choose to ignore the faint stubble across her cheeks? I am sure she either forgot or didn’t have the time to correct that that particular morning. Questions such as these plagued me upon meeting her; you certainly did not see someone like Angelina often in Staten Island, especially one with as much confidence and charisma as she had. Angelina, Mark and his boyfriend Alejandro would introduce to some of the most interesting characters I would ever come across. I would come to learn a lot from this community; they were older by a couple of years and therefore more experienced in love, life and hardship, all with diverse perspectives. I was granted a glimpse into another world where I would say having met such wonderful people in the queer population of S.I. was definitely the pre cursor to my increased interest in the greater LGBT community, and the basis for this paper.

Having met people like my friend Angelina who was Transgender, I wondered, how would someone else like her go about completing the journey into the other sex? I could imagine the cosmetic bills alone as being astronomical (Angelina herself paid a whopping $3,500 for a pair of breasts, but they are the best I’ve ever seen!). I wondered besides the aesthetic expenses, what about the rest of their upkeep; what kind of internal health issues would be addressed differently between a naturally born male/female and a transgender? Is there a difference? I imagine for people like Angelina, Hispanic, living transsexual, that her concerns not easily seen on the surface; I assume her problems would be dissimilar to problems of mine, a heterosexual female; therefore her ailments are unique to diagnose and require sensitivity to treat. How does the American Healthcare system aids in such matters when the institutionalized “binary system” works to exclude the Transgender community? I wonder, in regards to healthcare, what it would be like to live and be treated as a Transgender…

The background on the term Transgender is one in perpetual flux; it is an “umbrella term” that’s constantly expanding to fit a more diverse group of people. A transgender individual is a person with a gender identity which is inconsistent with his or her biological anatomy. Researcher Susan Stryker writes on Transgender, that it “refers to all identities and practices that cut across, move between, or otherwise queer socially constructed sex gender boundaries.” (Transgender Rights pg.4) This quotes means that this term includes incredible variation; the Transgender category embraces a number of sub-groups, including transsexual, transvestite, cross-dressing and androgynous. Originally, the term transgender was coined in the 1970s by Virginia Prince; Cisgender (not coined by Prince) is its antonym, meaning a complete connection and satisfaction with one’s own gender. Prince was the first to use the term transgender, which she used to describe a person who lives full time in a gender other than the one assigned at birth but without body or anatomy modification. Prince was infamous for her disbelief that SRS (sex reassignment surgery) was a suitable approach for Gender Identity disorder (GID), a disorder commonly associated with transgender discussion (Transgender Rights pg. 4).

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Full Paper
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24106680/Trans-Paper-Finished-With-Images

PowerPoint
http://www.scribd.com/full/24106689?access_key=key-v3qrmdxi6dwldg9pa95