#trans 101

So, in the simplest terms, trans people are folks who are told they are one thing but identify another way.

This is "Intro to Trans 101" so I am VASTLY simplifying, there's a lot more nuance but I'm not going to get into it here.

Terms:

Sex: your physical traits; your body Gender: how you identify; your feelings or mind

Sexes: Male and female Genders: Man and Woman

When people are born, a doctor or a parent looks at the baby's genitals and says "this is a male" or "this is a female". What they also do is assign a gender to the baby: boy or girl.

Most people who are assigned male identify as boys. Most people who are assigned female identify as girls. So, assigning a baby a gender based on their genitals usually works out just fine, and there's no issue.

But! Trans people feel different! Sometimes from a very young age, as young as 4 or 5, a child will be aware that even though people call him a girl, he is not a girl, he is a boy. Sometimes this knowledge doesn't come until later: there are people who realise they are trans who are 30, or 40, or 50 years and older!

In your other Ask, you ask: "So are their brains a different gender or..."

so one of my dad’s long time coworkers has come out as a trans woman. I... don’t want to get into the full details, but my dad is a well meaning person, he’s just also a cis straight white guy who’s been marinating in stupid shit most of his life.

what I’m looking for is some good Trans 101 For Cis Dudes that aren’t confrontational and don’t pass blame, that are easy to read and get through, that I can give to him like “this will help you learn to understand Sarah’s situation” (what he REALLY needs is to go to therapy but we’ve told him that already)

Some more stuff about my dad:

* he is SEVERELY ADHD, which has been one obstacle to teaching him, because he gets rejection sensitive dysphoria REAL bad, so what starts as “you need to examine your biases” his brain reads as “now you fucked up! now you fucked up! you have fucked up now!”

* he also has severe dyslexia, so reading can be hard for him. at the same time, reading is probably the best way to actually get him to sit down and process the information. YouTube videos, TV shows, movies are fine too but he’s VERY UNLIKELY to actually sit down and watch these. So this is more “nothing too overly technical/dense”