Oftentimes when talking to someone about transgender topics you will get guarded responses. They will seem uncomfortable and say things like, “It’s just wrong.” They won’t understand and won’t want to talk about it. This kind of avoidance reaction is typical when dealing with things that “give us the creeps.” We find things creepy for one of two reasons.
The first reason is when something seems unnatural and causes us discomfort. But really, there should be no reason to see being trans as unnatural. Being trans is often, if not always, caused by our biology and what could be more natural than that? The root cause is sometimes even in our chromosomes, specifically our sex chromosomes, although this is not always the case. Everyone knows that girls are XX and boys are XY; or are they? Numeric abnormalities can leave a person with the wrong number of sex chromosomes. For example, a girl can be simply X, or a boy can be XXY or even XXXY! Structural defects of the sex chromosomes can leave you with a non-functioning or malfunctioning chromosome. For example, a baby may be XY but the Y chromosome is defective and doesn’t work. Either scenario can have an overwhelming impact on hormone production and development of the person. Sometimes the person will turn out “normal” and fit well in the binary male/female society that we’ve created, but oftentimes they will be transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, or hermaphroditic. This is actually more common than you would think as well. In fact, at least 1 in 448 babies will have a sex chromosome abnormality. Really, if it’s not hurting us or anyone else, why treat it as a bad thing?
Which brings me to my next point; the other way something can be creepy is by causing you fear when you can’t identify the threat. The reason you can’t identify the threat of a trans person is because we are not threatening! We aren’t crazy, we are just different. We don’t want to “turn your children,” in fact we would not wish our struggles on our worst enemies. We don’t have deviant sexualities! We are only as sexual as the rest of the population, and we want loving partners and happy families just like everyone else. There is no reason to be afraid of us.
If there is no reason to think being trans is unnatural or scary then there is no reason to be creeped out by trans people. The more you learn about us or get to know us the more you will find that we are actually pretty normal. So go find something else to spook yourself about!
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