Let’s examine your “I don’t understand” statement about trans people

Let’s look for something other than understanding

Most of us are now the same sex we were when we were born. We will not only die that way, but we will also likely die without having given serious consideration to being the opposite sex. Though we are the majority of the world’s population, it behooves us to focus our awareness in the direction of a misunderstood and, unfortunately, maligned minority: transgender people.

I am a 73-year-old man who was born male. Like most people, I never questioned my birth sex, though I did experience a period of seven or eight years when I was struggling with my sexuality, which eventually settled on being predominantly gay, a Kinsey 5.

It would be too easy to blame my struggle on the era in which I grew up. But it’s clear that those times — roughly 1963 to 1971 — were vastly different from our current age.

During that era, any talk about variations of sexuality outside of heterosexuality was in hushed tones, held in private and mostly secretive conversations — if there were conversations at all. If you were anything but straight and cis, you either kept your mouth shut or you entrusted your feelings only to those in your tight circle whom you knew would be able to guard your secret. To do otherwise would lead to public ridicule and being ostracized.