When I first came out as transgender about a year and a half ago, I got a lot of questions from other people, and my peers were very often well-intentioned in their curiosity. Many of these questions were quite personal but that’s a story for another article. My point is that a lot of these questions were based off of some common misconceptions about what it’s like to be a transgender person, and I’d like to clear a few of those up.

Disclaimer: Although I am a trans person, I am in no way a representative of what it means to be transgender for anyone but myself. These explanations are based off my own personal views and research that I’ve done. Every trans person is different. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

1. Being transgender means you’ve had “the surgery.”

First, let me clear up what it actually means to be trans.

When a baby is born, the doctor will identify the child (in most cases) as either male or female based on genitalia. This is your sex. Your gender, is an identity of maleness, femaleness, etc. It is an internal sense of who you are. In the majority of the population, people’s sex and gender are the same. For example, many babies are assigned the sex “female” at birth and grow up identifying as female. But for transgender people, sex and gender mismatch, meaning that the trans person has an identity that is not congruent with the sex they were assigned when they were born. An example would be a baby whose sex is determined to be “female” who may later identify as male. This was the case with me. Being trans is not determined by whether or not you have had surgery, rather, it is an identity.

There is also no such thing as "the surgery” because trans people can undergo multiple surgeries, many of which are non genital-related, throughout the course of their transition.

2. All trans people have genital surgery.

Many transgender people take cross sex hormones (estrogen or testosterone) and have surgical procedures to align their bodies with their identities. However, there are also trans people who simply live as the gender they identify as, often times with the help of hormone replacement therapy. There are even transgender people who chose not to (or are unable to) transition at all. As I mentioned above, transitioning is different for everyone.

3. There are only two genders.

This is simply untrue. Gender is a spectrum, just the way sexuality is a spectrum. People can be heterosexual, homosexual, somewhere in between heterosexual and homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, as well as neither (asexual). People can also be male, female, somewhere in between, neither, or something else entirely. It is also important for me to note that someone who is transgender can be of any sexual orientation, just the way a cisgender (non-trans) person can. Trans people can be gay, straight, bi, etc.

4. People often regret transitioning.

I can imagine that for a cisgender person who feels at okay in their skin, people radically changing their bodies to fit their identities must seem like such a foreign concept at first. Therefore, it’s easy for non-trans people to say, “what if you regret it?”

This is a valid question, as transitioning gender presentations is a serious decision. But the actual chance someone will regret transition is, statistically speaking, extremely rare. Studies show that for transgender individuals, going through with transition significantly improves quality of life. For me, transitioning has changed my life drastically in a positive way. I am finally beginning to feel at home in my body.