Transgender

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My boyfriend has revealed to me that he is a woman trapped in a man's body and he wants to do the hormone therapy to change some of his features from male to female. I am in love with him and I want to be with him, at the same time I also don't want to be bullied as a sick freak for staying with him — is that selfish? Every time I think about him doing this it makes my stomach turn. I don't know what to do or how to handle the many emotions going through my mind right now. Please help me!

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Here's a post from OnSugar blog My DISFunkshion.

This is just sad, sad, sad.

According to a survey conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, 41 percent of transgendered people have attempted to end their lives. What's the national suicide attempt average? A paltry (in comparison) 1.6 percent.

The survey reports that, in general, trans people have experienced overwhelming amounts of discrimination due to their gender identification. 47 percent say that they have been fired, not hired, or not promoted for jobs because of their identification, while 29 percent report being mistreated by police. For those who identified as trans in their adolescence (up through twelfth grade), 78 percent report that they faced harassment at school. It's even more depressing that the harassment doesn't seem to get much better post-high school.

In the wake of the media flurry a few months ago surrounding the suicides of various gay teens, I think we may have forgotten that transgendered people also face this problem to a striking degree, with their own set of associated problems. And maybe this Valentine's Day, we can all cast a little love in that direction.

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This question comes from a Group Therapy post in our TrèsSugar Community. Add your advice in the comments!

This is a really hard thing to talk about. I'd appreciate you listening.

I am transgender. I know from reading posts on the Sugar network that a lot of you have no idea what it's like for us. From my very first memories in life every part of my brain screamed that I was supposed to be a woman. When I acted like myself, which was quite effeminate for a boy, I was teased in school and punished by my religious-right family. Developmentally, I became withdrawn and depressed. I had no friends for many years, because solitude was easier than being ostracized for acting like myself. The things many of you take for granted, girlfriends, being able to express yourself in a feminine way or even the pronoun people call you were the things I could only dream of.

Find out what happened after she transitioned here.

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• Report from transgender camp for kids — Double X
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• Brazil offers asylum to Iranian woman facing stoning for adultery — Guardian
• 5 maddest moments from last night's Mad Men — BuzzSugar
• College kids cannot grasp that using words they didn't write amounts to plagiarism — New York Times
• Justin Bieber, 16, coming out with a memoir — Huffington Post
• Bankrupt housewife Teresa Giudice films commercial for "Sizzle Tan" — The Frisky

If you were born a woman, you likely don't remember the first time you fielded a sexist remark. But if you're a transgender woman like comedian Juliet Jacques, after you make your transition you begin to learn what it means to face unwanted attention and misogynistic comments.

As a comedian, Juliet knows what public rejection feels like. But as a transgender woman, she explains in her Guardian column this week, she must also confront hecklers off stage. After being called a "tranny" on a regular basis by perfect strangers, Juliet decided to consider "passing" as a woman, something she had thought of as conforming to suffocating gender stereotypes. Once she began conforming more strictly to female gender expectations, a different type of rude comment came in. She writes:

In one of my first lessons in what it means to live as female, I had to consider what types of clothing would draw unwanted attention. This meant trying to avoid the classic male-to-female trap of wearing clothes that looked wrong for my age — one I'd fallen into before transitioning, wearing floral dresses to clubs only to be told by strangers that "You look like my mum."

Luckily, Juliet's sense of humor is one of her best weapons against this, and she's derived a new theorem: "the unimaginativeness of the comment is directly proportional to the unattractiveness of the commenter."

"I always felt like the male from the time I was a child. There wasn't much feminine about me. I believe that gender is something between your ears not between your legs."

— Chaz Bono, the child of Sonny Bono and Cher, explains why he decided to transition from female to male. In his first interview since announcing his decision, Chaz says that he didn't want to wait until he was an old man to enjoy his life in a male body.

On Friday most of you agreed that 13 is too young to get a boob job, but can you ever be too old to get a sex change?

Renee Ramsey, 77, has become one of the oldest people to undergo a sex change operation. Renee says she's been dreaming of getting the procedure for decades and that she knew something was "different" about her since she was 13. After saving up money for the pricey operation, she finally went through with it after her second wife died.

Renee, who used to be Richard, was also a Green Beret weapons specialist in Vietnam and served in the US military for over 20 years . . . Don't ask, don't tell.

“Chaz is embarking on a difficult journey, but one that I will support. I respect the courage it takes to go through this transition in the glare of public scrutiny, and although I may not understand, I will strive to be understanding. The one thing that will never change is my abiding love for my child.”

— Cher on her child's decision to transition from female to male and call himself Chaz.