What Does it Mean to Be Transgender?

Transgender is an umbrella term for people who fall outside the standard realm of masculine-male and feminine-female. It encompasses transsexuals, crossdressers, and even people who feel like they do not fit any gender role.

To understand what is meant by gender roles, there should be a distrinction made between a person's sex, a person's gender, and a person's gender identity. 

Biological sex is the physical configuration a person is born with. While most human beings are born either male or female, there are a fair number of people who are somehow intersexed. While the popular cultural legend of hermaphrodism (possessing both sets of genitalia) is extremely rare, the rate of intersexed births is approximately 1 in every 1000. 

Gender is the cultural expectation usually attached to a person based on their biological sex. This is where we get men and women. From birth, girls and boys are treated differently, and based on the culture they are raised in, are expected to dress and behave in certain ways. While "man" and "woman" are the two default gender roles, many people have characteristics of both, ranging from "tomboys" to effeminate men to people who are entirely androgynous.

Sexual orientation is who a person is attracted to. Homosexuality is same sex attraction, heterosexuality is opposite sex attraction, bisexual is attracted to males and females, and a new term, pansexual, refers to an attraction to all sexes and genders.

Transgender people are those who either fall outside of the gender norms of man and woman, or who cross from one to another. Some transgender people are also transsexuals, who physically change their biological sex. Transgender people can be MtF (male to female or transwomen), FtM (female to male or transmen), genderqueer (preferring to identify as neither gender), or a number of other categories that they define themselves in.