This is going to be a short post.  This is intentional, because I don’t want to say much.  I’m reposting the “Transgender Basics” video again, because I think it’s worth watching again.  However, this time I want to focus on — and ask my readers to focus on — the segment titled “Gender complexity.”  It starts at around 5:11 and goes until almost 9:00.  Listen to the experiences recounted by the trans* people who talk about their experiences growing up.  Try to put yourself in their shoes.

I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to identify with a gender that’s different from the sex I was assigned at birth.  I cannot imagine what it’s like to know in my heart that I identify with one gender while having friends, family, society telling me I can’t possibly be the gender I identify with.

Listening to this video, I’m trying to imagine what that would be like, because this is the reality[1] of the people speaking in the video.  If I want to undestand them and support them, I need to struggle with that reality, I need to try to imagine what that reality is like.  I need to try and understand that reality and how that affects them, even if only imperfectly.

Note:
[1]  One of the greatest pitfalls of privileged people everywhere is that just because they can’t imagine a marginalized person’s reality, they subsequently deny that reality.