Leelah explained that she always felt like a girl and wanted her parents to accept that. They did not, mother Carla Alcorn told CNN, for religious reasons. Though she loved her child, the mother struggled to wrap her mind around what transgender means.
“The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights,” Leelah pleaded in her note. “My death needs to be counted.”
There is more information than ever about transgender people — from new research to a freshly written book of personal essays, “Trans Bodies, Trans Selves” to the critically acclaimed new Amazon series “Transparent.”
What is transgender?
Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity, expression or behavior does not conform to the sex they were assigned at birth, according to American Psychological Association, which recently posted a Q&A on the topic. Sex is different from gender: Sex refers to genitalia, and gender is the cultural construct society has created to differentiate between men and women.
Transgender also gets confused with sexual orientation. Just because someone is transgender doesn’t mean they are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
It’s also important to know the difference between transgender people and transsexuals. Transsexuals alter or want to change their bodies by using hormones, surgery or other means to come more in line with the gender with which they associate, the association says. Not all transgender people want to change their bodies.
Although it may seem like a relatively new topic, transgender people have been documented since antiquity in many cultures around the world.
A transgender person has told you they are transgender. What’s the first thing you should say?
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Transgender first-grader wins right to use school’s female bathroom
The Colorado Rights Division said that keeping Coy Mathis, born with male genitalia, from using the girls’ bathroom created “an environment that is objectively and subjectively hostile, intimidating or offensive.”
It was a first-of-its-kind ruling in the country regarding transgender students’ rights.
That sounded like progress to Fran Cassata.
When Ryan Cassata was in school less than a decade ago, he was told he could not use the boys’ or girls’ bathroom but had to go to a nurse’s station to sign in, his mother said. He always signed the name “Ryan.” One day the nurse told him that he couldn’t go to the bathroom unless he signed his birth name, Fran Cassata recounted. So the teen went to principal, who told the nurse that the teenager could say he was Superman, just let him take care of business.
“You hope there are kind people your child will encounter,” she said. “You hope there are people who help them rather than ridicule them.”
But there will be people like that nurse. There will be people far worse.
“Just be a parent,” she said. “Trust that they can handle themselves, and give them your strength when they need you.”
