But not all transgender people can or will take those steps, and it's important to know that being transgender is not dependent upon medical procedures. This is called transition.Īs part of the transition process, many transgender people are prescribed hormones by their doctors to change their bodies. So most transgender people seek to bring their bodies into alignment with their gender identity. Trying to change a person's gender identity is no more successful than trying to change a person's sexual orientation - it doesn't work. People in the transgender community may describe themselves using one (or more) of a wide variety of terms, including (but not limited to) transgender, transsexual, and non-binary. For transgender people, the sex they were assigned at birth and their own internal gender identity do not match. Gender identity is a person's internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or boy or girl.) For some people, their gender identity does not fit neatly into those two choices.
Transgender is a term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. To learn more about how to be an ally to transgender people, check out GLAAD's Tips for Allies of Transgender People.
