Transgender Essay

Transgender Essay Introduction

In the 21st century, society seems to accept transgender identities more when it is compered to 20th century. In these days, transgender community is more open to embrace their gender despite the fact that their divergence between sex and gender. In other words, during their transition, they experience conflict between their sex, gender and gender categories. After the transition, they experience opposite gender norms which they have not faced before. Since, they grow-up in a different environment, they are not used to them. During and after the transition, they experience new social interactions, and their new identity both differ and relate to cisgender people. More specifically, recent studies have shown that transwomen are experiencing more severe inequalities and discrimination in their social environments. However, transman often rewarded for becoming a man in society. Thus, society provides them more opportunities to get promoted in work environment or gain power in social interactions with others. After all, this paper focuses on transgender people’s experiences of gender in society. They often adapt normative gender settings by doing or redoing or undoing. Thus, their experiences of gender shapes by embracing one of the three categories.

Body Paragraphs

In recent research, Connell (2010) conducted in-depth interviews with 19 participants to show transgender people’s experiences of gender in workplaces. She categorized their experiences in three sections which were doing, redoing and undoing gender norms. Firstly, 5 participants out of 19 stated that they preferred to stealth their transgender identity in workplaces because some of them thought that was none of their business and others feared from discrimination (Connell 9). Whether they stealth their identities or not, they faced with similar experiences with others who prefers to come out. For example, transwoman experienced inequalities between men and women in the workplace. Therefore, transwoman faced with similar experiences with cisgender women in terms of inequal working conditions. However, transman experienced their gender in more welcomed environment, and they start to learn men’s gender norms such as men talks, knowledge.

Moreover, research findings indicated that other participants experienced their new gender by redoing and undoing norms because they feel that some characteristics of gender often are given by society (Connell 13). Thus, they did not want to accept these norms because it did not fit their personality. Since they have wanted to feel authentic with themselves, their gender experience differed from cisgenders. In this direction, they kept their both masculine and feminine characteristics and combine them together at work. Therefore, their experience mainly focused on redoing and undoing gender norms.

These transgender people’s experiences discredit the idea of a socially constructed gender experience because they interpret their both feminine and masculine characteristics together. They are not acting according to the expected gender norms in which helps them embrace the characteristics they want. However, this situation sometimes creates difficulties because they can not reflect their gender in their social interactions with others.

Conclusion

Consequently, this paper focused on transgender people’s experience of gender in society. In the 21st century, it is much easier to come out as a transgender individual. However, their experiences both differs and relate to cisgenders because transwomen face the result of patriarchal environment which is similar to cisgender women’s experiences, and transmen get new opportunities in workplaces that is alike to cisgender men’s experiences. Also, transgender people often experience their new gender by doing, redoing, and undoing gender norms which helps them practice their new identity by embracing one of three strategies.

References

CONNELL, CATHERINE. “DOING, UNDOING, OR REDOING GENDER? Learning from the Workplace Experiences of Transpeople.” Gender and Society, vol. 24, no. 1, 2010, pp. 31–55. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20676845. Accessed 18 Apr. 2021.