Learn About Trans Lives

What is Transitioning?

Transitioning is when a transgender person starts to live openly as their gender, rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. This is a very personal decision and a journey that varies widely for each person and their circumstances. This can include the way they dress, the name that they use, the pronouns they answer to, and even medical steps. Transitioning can be a beautiful gender-affirming experience but it can also be filled with challenges, self-doubt, depression, and anxiety. For most transgender people, transition is very difficult and is not something someone begins lightly. It means working to express themself as their true gender but it also means opening themself up to misunderstanding, uncertainty, and hate.

Medical transitioning refers to the medical interventions that can be used in the transitioning process. Not all transgender people include medical interventions. This can be due to health, personal preference, or cost. Transitioning is remarkably expensive even without medical interventions and most medical treatments are not covered by insurance. For youths, medical transitioning normally only involves safe hormone blockers to delay the onset of puberty. These blockers are entirely safe and reversible! This buys them time and helps to enable a much easier transition later in life.

The most common type of medical intervention is hormone replacement therapy, where prescriptions are used to boost hormones associated with the person's gender identity. It may also involve suppressing other hormones. Medical transitioning can also involve other gender-affirming treatments such as breast reduction, breast implants, facial feminization surgery, Adam's apple reduction, and genital surgery. These treatments have existed for a very long time and are also used by Cisgender (non-trans) people even more often than they are used by transgender people!

Transitioning can include

Legal Transitioning: Changing your name and/or sex marker on legal documents such as driver's licenses, bank accounts, etc.
Medical Transitioning: Medical transitioning can include a number of different treatments. These vary based on someone's needs, age, and health. Hormone blockers are typically used to safely delay puberty. For others, hormone replacement therapy and/or gender-affirming surgical procedures may be involved.
Social Transitioning: Coming out to other people, changing one's name and/or pronouns, wearing new clothes, etc.

Quick Facts:

Many insurance plans do not cover gender transition treatments. If they do, they often only cover hormone replacement therapy.
Most aspects of gender transitioning are reversible. This includes hormone blockers used to delay puberty.
Surgical procedures for gender -affirming treatment do NOT occur on youths 13 years or younger. A study found that among youths 13-17 years of age, 97% of the gender-affirming surgeries performed were on Cisgender (non-trans) males; most of which were breast reduction surgeries.

Gender is a Social Construct

As we grow up, our educational system explains things in fairly simple and generalized terms. These concepts are then explained in greater detail and nuance as we get older. Think back to your elementary school education on your country's history. It was surely much simpler than what you learned later in life! Early in life we first learn that there are four states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, and plasma). However, there are actually many more states of matter!

Gender (and the concept of "biological sex") is the same. Our schools teach us the basic concepts of biology and add more details as we get older. Biological sex is often used to refer to a range of different traits including sex chromosomes, sex hormones, external sex characteristics (penis vs vagina), gonads (ovaries vs testes), etc. However, this term is often misapplied by non-scientists to imply that there are two biologically distinct types of people: "women" as a person with XX chromosomes, a vagina, and high estrogen levels; and "men" as a person with XY chromosomes, a penis, and high testosterone levels.

However, most of these elements are changeable and even fluctuate throughout our lives! People with Klinefelter syndrome have XXY chromosomes. So which "biological sex" are they? Some people may be born intersex (as many as 1.7% of all people) with variances in chromosomes, gonads, and sex hormones. Additionally, people's sex hormones change as they grow. People going through menopause often see a dramatic decrease in estrogen (the female-associated hormone). Does that mean that a post-menopause woman is no longer a woman? Of course not! Hormones play a huge role in determining your sexual characteristics and these are absolutely not binary.

Some people have further tried to identify the difference by saying that women are baby-having individuals; as though someone's gender is somehow tied solely to reproduction. However, many women cannot have get pregnant. A social construct is when we, as a society, make up rules or groupings that don't really exist in nature. The idea that there are only two distinct biological sexes is a gross oversimplification created by society.

Common Terms Made Simple

Ally: Someone who is actively supportive of LGBTQIA+ people, standing up for our rights and taking action to promote our rights and well-being.
Cisgender: Someone who isn't transgender. Someone whose gender identity matches the sex identified for them at birth.
Deadname: Using a name that someone has chosen to replace in order to better align with their gender identity. A disrespectful and offensive act.
Gender Binary: The social concept that there are two genders, male and female.
Gender Dysphoria: A feeling of distress or discomfort felt when your gender identity differs from the sex identified for you at birth.
Gender Essentialism: A belief that there are certain qualities and behaviors only associated with specific genders, which can be used to identify one's gender.
Gender Expression: The way that a person demonstrates or shows their gender through their name, pronouns, clothing, and behaviors.
Gender Fluid: A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender, often having different gender identities at different times.
Gender Identity: A person's deeply held knowledge of their gender.
Gender Nonconforming: A term for someone who does not conform with the gender expectations of the society around them.
Genderqueer: Someone who rejects the idea of unchanging categories of gender and/or identifies as neither entirely male or entirely female.
Intersex: People born with a mixture of sex traits and reproductive anatomy including genitalia, chromosomes, sex organs, hormone responses, etc.
Outing: Exposing someone's gender or sexual identity without their permission.
Misgender: Using incorrect gender terms or pronouns for someone. An offensive and disrespectful act.
Neopronouns: Pronouns that fall outside the those typically used to refer to people. Many of these are "new" but many others are historical in origin.
Nonbinary (Enby): A person whose gender identity and/or expression falls outside of the binary gender categories.
Passing: Refers to someone's ability to "look like" and be recognized as their gender identity. Not all transgender and gender non-conforming people seek to be "passing".
Queer: A term used as a catch-all for LGBTQIA+ people. This term used to be a slur and some people still find it offensive.
Questioning: A term for someone who is exploring their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Social Construct: An idea that exists because people in society have agreed to it, rather than it being based on scientific evidence.
Sex at Birth: The sex someone is assigned at birth, typically fitting the gender binary of male and female.
TERF: Acronym for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist; feminists who refuse to identify transgender people's gender identities and wish to prohibit them from accessing women's spaces.
Transition: The process a person undertakes to bring their gender expression and/or body into alignment with their gender identity.
Transmedicalism: The controversial belief that that someone must have gender dysphoria or pursue gender-related medical treatment to be transgender.
Two-Spirit: A term referring to First Nation/Native American people who carry both male and female spirits within them. This concept existed deep into First Nation history and tradition for some indigenous peoples.

Slurs & Other Offensive Terms

These terms are often seen as being insulting and derogatory. Some queer people may use some of these terms but many will find it offensive.

Biologically male/female: This term invalidates a person's gender identity by implying they are not that gender. This term is based in the social construct of gender and not in scientific evidence.
Sex change operation: Transgender people may (or may not) get gender-affirming surgeries; but the operations do not change their sex.
Shemale: An offensive term generally used within the pornographic industry; but still listed in many dictionaries.
Tranny: Short for transgender. Often considered extremely offensive. Absolutely unacceptable for use by non-trans people. Recently used publicly by Nancy Mace during a congressional hearing in 2025.
Transsexual: An older term used before "transgender" was adopted. It was replaced with Transgender around 1965.