Transgender is a term for people whose gender and identity do not correspond with gender assigned to them at birth and that have been perpetuated by language, family, and social interactions. Gender is one’s identity which does not have to depend on one’s sex or correspond to it in any way. Rather, it describes the inner experience of one’s identity.
For instance, if a person was assigned female sex at their birth according to their appearance, this fact would be recorded in official documents, for example, in their birth certificate. However, this does not have to mean they identify with this sex. On the contrary, the identity of this individual — their gender — can be different. If they identify as a man, contrary to their birth identification as a woman, they belong to the transgender category. The same applies vice versa; if a person is identified as a man, but their own identity does not correspond with this label. The inconsistency between one’s identity and the one assigned by society is based on the emphasis on the physical aspect of the body, which is an object for the field of medicine. Based on this aspect, society tends to assign too many attributes of life to an individual.
People who feel this way about themselves may subsequently undergo so-called transition. It is important to note, however, that not all trans people want to or can go through transition. Alternatively, they only go through specific parts of this process. It is their individual decision, which is solely up to them.
Transgender people, however, do not have to be only binary, as described above. Their gender can be non-binary or fluid. Non-binary gender is a term covering identity which is not exclusively masculine or feminine; it is a combination of both, or conversely, neither of these aspects. To understand this term, it helps to imagine gender as a scale; on the one end, there is femininity and on the other masculinity. All of us, even cisgender people, relate to this scale in one way or another. Someone may feel more masculine, someone more feminine. Equally, one can be perceived and identified closer to the masculine end, while identifying themselves closer to the opposite end of the scale (transgender people). Someone’s gender might be fluid: their position on the scale variously changes with time (genderfluid). Another person may not be located on the scale at all, because their identity does not relate to gender in any way (agender). However, this scale is only designated for gender and may not necessarily relate to how an individual is perceived.
We can describe transition (also transitioning) as a process in which a transgender person comes to life that is in harmony with their true gender. Transition may include (but not necessarily) for instance: a change in using personal pronouns, a change of name or appearance.
When communicating transgender topics, it is suitable to adhere to sensitive language. This is one of the reasons why it is important to ask all participants about their preferred personal pronouns. Sensitive language is not just about using preferred pronouns. It also means to refrain from using terms that carry a negative connotation, are imprecise or oversimplify the experience of transgender people. These include, for example: “sex change”, “born in a wrong body”, “transsexual”, and more. More suitable terms are, for instance: “transition”, “transgender man/woman”, “trans person”. Apart from signifying function of language, the key to sensitivity lies in the content of speech; to ask transgender or non-binary person about things such as the beginning of a hormonal treatment or surgery is very insensitive, even impolite because then this person is merely reduced to this experience. As said above, these procedures are voluntary and do not determine anyone’s identity. Transition is an open term: a process when a certain individual lives in harmony with their identity, while simultaneously moving away from the one assigned to them and unsuitable for them. The term does not represent the beginning of the official, or other, proceedings unless accepted by the person in question. For each person, transitioning may have a different meaning that can also change over time.
The term transgender (as explained above) also includes non-binary people, precisely because they do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. In some languages (such as Czech), they also encounter other difficulties, for example, the choice of personal pronouns. In English, however, there exist neutral pronouns (for instance they/them, xe/xem, or ze/zir) and using so-called gender-neutral language — i.e. language that does not explicitly use masculine or feminine identification — is much easier. Apart from language and symbolic invisiblizing, non-binary people face many other obstacles originating from the fact that non-binary identities are not distinguished as real possibilities of self-identification deserving respect. In such societal context, this logically leads to a lack of professional specialized care, for instance, the lack of sexologists who respect non-binary identities or accessible therapeutic and psychiatric care.