Let's talk about Gender

It is factual truth that regardless of the body you inhabit, you have a gender identity and a sexual orientation. It is also a fact that these things begin forming while you are still in the womb.

Gender identity and sexual orientation are NOT the same. Both can easily take pages and books of discussion, so today I am going to mainly talk about gender. I fully realize that some of you know this stuff so you may be excused to return to your Fortnite marathon or Netflix & Disney+ bingeing.

Gender is how your mind/soul/spirit identifies. Many of you give no thought to gender identity. People are male or female. You are one or the other and have been perfectly happy with that situation for as long as you could breath. You might not have ever considered there to be any other self-identity than male or female, and that has been okay because for the longest time society has existed this way. It's referred to as the gender binary. In the past, society has not allowed for recognition of any other way to be. People were expected to exist within one box or the other. However, today we recognize that gender identification is more of a spectrum. Most people identify at one end or the other, male or female. Yet there are many who fall somewhere in between. Maybe not so strongly male, or strongly female. Maybe a bit of both male or female. Maybe directly in the middle of the spectrum, identifying as both male and female, or neither (non-binary or gender questioning). Humanity is rich this way. Please believe that there are as many people in this world that do not identify as distinctly male or female, as those who do. Me? I have always considered myself to be distinctly female, thank you very much.

(If those in the know are still around, please add any relevant comments that might better enhance or explain this discussion.)

There also exists this thing called transgender. Simply, when one is born into this world, the gender that the mind/soul/spirit identifies as does NOT match the physical body that one was born with. By the way, this is me. The truth is that existing this way can be very difficult. Most transgender people fear having this truth become known. They are afraid of being seen as a freak and/or shunned. Too often a trans person is rejected by friends or family, or loses their job or financial stability (if it even first existed). It's true that there are still far too many instances of discrimination, hate, homelessness, and abuse of all kinds towards anyone who is transgender. There are still far too many places where transgender people are not safe. I dearly hope that we might be getting to a tipping point where all that negativity begins to wane. Also, living with this kind of physical body/gender identity mismatch can and is a mental minefield. Society does seem to be reaching a point where many more transgender people are feeling free enough to accept who they are and share their authenticity publicly, and there are more resources available for dealing with being transgender. For those who are transgender, living as authentically as possible often does require medical intervention such as cross-hormonal therapy, mental therapy, surgeries and other things that often become very expensive. Insurance companies have begun covering some of this but we still have far to go. Acceptance is often all that we ask for.

Comments or questions are very much welcomed on this post.