African American Transsexuality - Relation To Gender Roles

Relation To Gender Roles

Transsexual men and women (referred to as a trans man or trans woman respectively) typically desire to establish a permanent gender role as a member of the gender with which they identify, often pursuing medical interventions as part of the process. These physical alterations are collectively referred to as sex reassignment therapy and may include female-to-male or male-to-female hormone replacement therapy, or various surgeries such as orchiectomy, facial feminization surgery, sex reassignment surgery, trachea shave and mastectomy. The entire process of switching from one physical sex and social gender presentation to the other is often referred to as transition, and usually takes several years. Some transgender individuals may elect to not complete a transition into a role of either male or female because of the expense of surgery, risk of medical complications, or because they found comfort at a mid-point during the process.

As well as conforming to the heterosexual lifestyles and gender roles, transsexual people often conform and identify themselves to a lesbian or a male-homosexual identity. Gender identity still takes precedent over morphological sex.