The Misrepresentation of the Transgender Community

I can’t understand what it would be like to question your own gender identity but I can picture that it would be a bitter and confusing emotional rollercoaster. You’re born into a body where your sex does not define your gender. All you want to do is express yourself in a completely different way to how others perceive you but are conflicted in doing so, fearing how others will react. We need to understand this because this is exactly what it is like for people who are transgender. 

For 20-year-old Taryn Dorrough who was assigned female at birth, questioning his gender identity was a process of discovering who he was and how he wanted to identify and express himself. Most of all, it was a process of what made him happy.

Today, Taryn has agreed to share his experience of coming out as transgender and identifying as transmasculine on this spectrum. This means a person born female who, on the binary spectrum with male at one end and female at the other, sits on the male’s side of the midpoint, even slightly. In his own words, Taryn says he “basically feels about 70% male and 30% female”.

Taryn didn't always know he was transgender.
Photo: Supplied

It’s important to recognise that gender and sex are not the same categories. Gender refers to the socially constructed categories of feminine and masculine and sex is the biological distinction between male and female, based on genital organs and bodily processes. 

“Every story is unique and it is important to understand that the most commonly heard trans story in the media at the moment is that ‘I knew since I was a kid.’ As a child I had no idea that I was anywhere on the LGBTIQ [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer] spectrum,” says Taryn. 

It’s midmorning on a Sunday in Newcastle and Taryn has said he will meet up before our soccer match. We sit on the cold metal seats before the game, adjusting our socks and positioning our shin pads. I ask when he realised he was transgender and how accepting this part of him made him feel. “There was never a set moment when I knew,” says Taryn, making fleeting eye contact with me as he begins to tie his laces. “If I had to pick a day, it would be the day I received the referral from my psychiatrist to the endocrinologist who would provide me with a hormone prescription. At that moment I was so ecstatic that I knew without any doubt that expressing myself as a gender other than female was not only right but a huge step forward in terms of my self-esteem and mental wellbeing.”

Barrie Shannon, a casual academic who focuses his research primarily on transgender and gender diverse young people understands the emotional struggles transgender individuals endure. “People who identify as transgender or gender diverse can experience a range of different emotional responses”, he says. “It is not uncommon for trans people to feel at odds with their bodies – this is known as dysphoria. This happens when there is conflict between someone’s inner sense of their gender identity and the way they perceive their own body.”

Gender identity is the internal sense of your position as a man, a woman, as both or as neither and this is normally developed by complicated interplay with socialisation and genetics. It has nothing to do with outlying factors; it’s just who they are. 

Taryn is timid and retrospective. He speaks of the denial he felt questioning his gender identity and compares this to other accounts of older transgender people. “I was probably in denial for a least 9 months, which is quite short in comparison to others.” Taryn was in denial for a number of reasons. He feared being physically and verbally abused by strangers and dreaded the thought that his friends, family, and others might hate him for being himself. 

“I am not as scared now but I still don’t feel safe in some public places because I just don’t know how people will react.”

The government organisation Headspace aims at supporting 12 to 25-year-old people on a range of mental health issues including gender identity. The initiative operates all over Australia and offers a plethora of information regarding issues affecting a young person’s wellbeing in their centres and online. It advocates that the understanding of gender diversity is as important as mental health, educates the wider community on LGBTIQ issues faced and addresses discriminative beliefs that stigmatise this community.

As he entered puberty, Taryn became very bitter and felt the changes he was going through were unfair. “I was always very jealous of my male friends,” he says. “I got periods and breasts and they got a deep voice and grew taller every day.” It is this gender dysphoria that Taryn brushed aside to begin with, commenting “I never questioned this. I didn’t think anything could be any different. I just considered myself your typical tomboy.” 

Before coming out as transgender, Taryn endured angst in his life including severe depression, anxiety and a troubled home life. Just before he left high school at the age of 17, Taryn came out as gay after “struggling to deal with internalised homophobia from a Catholic upbringing”. “This left little room for anything else. I’d say 60% of my worries was home-related issues and the rest was being trans and coming out as gay,” says Taryn. “In saying that though, I do look back and think how much better I would have felt in general if I wasn’t struggling with dysphoria even if I didn’t realise it. Honestly, questioning my gender identity probably affected me a lot more but I just put it down to other things.”

According to Headspace, research shows that small amounts of change from families, for example, being slightly more supportive and using their preferred pronouns can reduce the risk of developing mental health issues like depression, anxiety, self-harming and substance abuse. For Taryn, when people use his preferred pronouns it shows that they respect, understand and accept him. “I started asking people to refer to me as he when I came out to them so it was really over a period of time. I just got to a point about a year ago when referring to myself as she just starting sounding weird,” he says. “It was also just a matter of getting used to male pronouns but now that I'm used to them, anything else sounds completely wrong and I don't identify with that.”

When I asked Taryn to tell me how those around him reacted to him coming out as transgender, he delivered a two-sided response. “My closest friends and immediate family reacted the best way I could possibly hope for. They stated they still loved me and that nothing would change that. While most of them had questions, they were overall supportive,” he says. “However, a few religious relatives still do not accept that I am transgender but I have not talked to them since." 

"I even have one Aunty who is praying for me.”

According to the Department of Human Rights, the prevalence of violence, bullying and harassment of the LGBTIQ community is arguably higher than that experienced in the wider community including physical, verbal and emotional abuse. Transphobic discrimination can take place anywhere, from the workplace to out on the streets. It’s important to understand that transgender people feel emotions just like the wider community. 

Taryn (second from right, centre row) happily
poses for a photo withhis teammates.
Photo: Supplied.

As we sit as a team relishing in our victory I look around at my teammates and wonder what kind of stress this puts on Taryn and whether he feels comfortable playing in a women’s soccer competition. “Soccer is something I love and I always knew playing in a women’s competition and transitioning was going to be difficult but it was something I couldn’t do without.” Taryn isn’t fazed playing with women but struggles with the fact that people still think he is a woman and he is unable to do anything about it

Taryn expresses it took him several months to decide whether he would play in a men’s, women’s or mixed competition, or play at all. Fearing for his safety in a men’s competition, he made his decision. “I wanted to keep playing with friends and people I knew would support me,” he says. “I stayed with my women’s club and whilst I didn’t expect violence or harassment, I decided I would feel safer on the field in a women’s team. Plus, I didn’t want to be in a situation where a guy realises I have boobs and reacts badly.”

“Medically transitioning is such a difficult process,” emphasises Taryn. He goes on to explain that people don’t realise how hard it is for transgender people to receive adequate, simple healthcare and stresses that “you are still a normal human being”.  Transitioning is a long process with appointment after appointment and you can’t just turn up to your local GP and ask for hormones. “To get onto hormone therapy you need to see a doctor, psychiatrist and endocrinologist. To change your birth certificate in NSW you need ‘corrective surgery’ never mind that it is virtually impossible to get a hysterectomy at 20 when there is nothing medically wrong with you,” states Taryn. “Nothing is simple and nothing is easy when you have to fight to have your gender acknowledged every step of the way.” 

Taryn, recognising Australian society’s conservatism, lays emphasis on checking your privilege as an Australian and what he has learned being transgender in Australia. “Never take freedom of identity expression for granted. There are people who cannot dress or live the way they feel most comfortable simply because they fear that society will not accept them,” he says. “Expressions of identity such as tattoos, piercings, even hairstyles are now widely accepted. We [transgender people] still have a fair way to go. It is a constant struggle to simply express ourselves in everyday life without being abused, harassed, treated disrespectfully or refused service.”

Taryn knows how much better life is now that he can express himself as transmasculine and finally there is someone inside him that he actually cares about. “I spent so long dissociated from my body that transitioning was like being thrown back ten years and then learning how to function and interact with society again,” he says. “I feel more grounded, calm and confident with who I am.” This next phrase he said struck a chord with me. “Right now I feel like I am actually living life rather than pretending to be alive.”

Smiling and thumbs up! A much happier and comfortable Taryn,
finally able to be himself.
Photo: Supplied

One last piece of advice from Taryn for those who are coming to terms with being transgender or questioning their gender identity is that exploring this part of you isn’t and never will be a race and to not brush it aside as nothing. “Sometimes the most pressure comes from the people themselves, who think that fitting into the gender binary is the most important goal. Being happy and content within yourself is by far the best thing you can strive for.”     

Dysphoria is not a pleasant experience and the only way transgender people can combat this is to embrace who they are by expressing their gender. So it’s a simple task; be a good human, treat others with respect and most importantly, try to understand and empathise. The transgender community possesses the same emotions as you and I. 

People aged 12-25 seeking help for a mental health problem should contact headspace at www.headspace.org.au or if you're struggling with your gender identity there's always someone you can talk to. Call QLife on 1800 184 527 or use their open online chat.

Check out TED Talks for more information and resources on gender identity.