Struggles of Being a Transgender Woman

The transgender community faces many hurdles in life because of their identity. Discrimination remains rampant despite the great strides made in the last few decades.

As a community, we still have a long way to go before the LGBTQ+ community enjoys true equality in all spheres of life.

This article looks at the many struggles that a trans woman faces in society today. 

 

Firstly, the expectations surrounding a trans woman can be overwhelming to many.

When you reveal to a person that you are from the trans community, they might try to find traces of masculinity in your appearance, behavior, and general characteristics. As a result, many trans women consciously try to be hyper feminine.

Since people might try to find masculinie characteristics in a trans woman, and some even explicitly point things out, it is common to see many trans women overcompensating to pass as cisgendered women.

Many trans women have pointed out that this was the only effective method to avoid offensive comments highlighting traces of masculinity within them.

It can be particularly frustrating when someone points out that you have “masculine hands” or makes comments along these lines, since attributing gender to body parts like hands and legs is incomprehensible.

Each woman and a man has unique hands and it is evident that to attribute genderedness to such aspects is an attempt to offend a trans woman.

These comments, inevitably, make trans women conscious of every movement and action they engage in, so they are not considered “manly.”

The expectation that a woman has to look a certain way is extremely discriminatory against trans women.        

 

The second struggle that trans women go through is associated with the barrage of questions directed at them from complete strangers as well as acquaintances.

Typically, the nature of these questions are invasive, personal, and sometimes outright offensive.

In fact, a lot of times, the questions directed at trans women are related to their surgeries and nether regions.

As a rule, if you wouldn’t ask straight people a specific question, refrain from directing them at trans women too.

To understand what is considered an offensive question in the trans community, please check out our article dedicated to this specific topic.

While it is understandable that one may be curious about gender reassignment surgeries and transition, many questions that you may have can be answered with a quick Google search 

 

The third problem that is common to the trans community is gender dysphoria.

As most of you may be aware, gender dysphoria is when your biological state does not align with your gender identity. In simple terms, you are born in the wrong body.

Eventually, when you learn about this mismatch, there are feelings of intense discomfort and distress.

These are often accompanied by feelings of hate against the physical body. Gender dysphoria can be overwhelming and sometimes leads to severe depression.

Spreading awareness of this issue and ensuring that trans people have access to good therapists can resolve this issue to a certain extent.   

 

Finally, dating as a trans woman can be particularly challenging. The reason is that many straight men are not open to dating trans women.

This is especially true if you are a trans woman who is passable.

In such a case, when you go on a date, someone may really like you, but might show disinterest when you disclose your gender identity.

Each time, coming out as a trans person can be scary and stressful and that is just something you have to live with for the rest of your life. 

 

So these are some things that many trans women struggle with on a daily basis. While this is not an exhaustive list, these issues are very commonly cited in the community.

Every trans person is different and their experiences are unique. Society is slowly evolving to become more inclusive and we hope that the LGBTQ+ community’s hardships alleviate with time. 

 

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