You know, I didn't even
know there was a forum for INFJs until Google Reader alerted me to this thread--and seeing as I'm both a transsexual woman and an INFJ, I figured I might help clear up some things.
First, on the term
transgender: most people use this as an umbrella term for anyone who feels that their internal gender does not match the gender society would assign them based on their physical sex. This includes cross-dressers, transsexuals, gender queer people, some drag queens/kings (not all of the latter consider themselves to be trans, but some do.)
Trans is a convenient shorthand (generally) for
transgender.
It's generally considered bad form (by us, at least) to use transgender as a noun--better a transgendered person, a trans man, etc. The construction
trans space sex (trans man, trans woman) is pretty much univerally used for transsexuals, i.e. people who permanently live or want to live in the gender they weren't assigned at birth. YMMV on the importance of the space; I prefer it, because it makes trans a modifier of woman, rather than making me some scary creature: transwoman from Maaaarrrssss!
To lay aside some other things: it's not that trans people think that gender
isn't socially constructed; I certainly do, as part of being a pretty ardent feminist. But we also believe--because it's happened to us--that a person's
gender identity, i.e. that thing that tells her what gender she should belong to, is somehow innate. There are a lot of studies about just how this might be without anything you could take to court, but the evidence definitely points us in this direction. Also, there is the fascinating and tragic
David Reimer case. At the age of eight months, David Reimer's penis was destroyed accidentally during circumcision; his parents, on the advice of Dr. John Money, a prominent sexologist, attempted to raise him as a girl, Brenda. But Brenda never felt like a girl; she never acted like a girl; hell, she even tried to pee standing up. Finally, in his late teens David was told the full story and began to live as a man.
The point being,
something innate told David that he was male, not female, despite his parents, twin brother, schoolmates, etc. all telling him he was female. So it's not so simple as to say a person's gender is totally constructed or totally determinisitc.
People don't, in my experience, choose to be transgender--trust me, many times I wished I could take the blue pill and wake up, either male or female, but with a unity of gender and sex. (Ironically, my estrogen
is a blue pill...) But it never worked. All my life I tried hard--and I guess with some success--to be the male person everyone wanted me to be; but I was never free of a constant feeling of being out of place,
wrong in some fundamental way. Since I transitioned, I don't feel that anymore; in a lot of ways, I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted and I have the energy to accomplish so much more.
Not that it's easy; it's really hard to be both a woman and trans. But that never-ceasing chatter in my brain is finally gone.
I talk about these issues (& feminism, and other things) on my blog,
The Second Awakening; there's an excellent blogroll as well on
Questioning Transphobia.
Best,
C.L. Minou
So in reality women define what is masculine and men define what is feminine.
