gender

Transgender

Transgender individuals are those whose gender differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, as opposed to cisgender individuals whose gender matches the sex on their birth certificate.

Behave summarizes research showing that transgender individuals have the brain physiology of the gender they feel themselves to be:

Studies have examined brains of transgender individuals, concentrating on brain regions that, on the average, differ in size between men and women. And consistently, regardless of the desired direction of the sex change (and in fact, regardless of whether the person had undergone a sex change yet), the dimorphic brain regions in transgender individuals resemble the sex of the person they had always felt themselves to be, not their “actual” sex. In other words, it’s not the case that transgender individuals think they’re a different gender than they actually are. It’s more like they got stuck with the bodies of a different sex from who they actually are.

While it should be enough to simply believe transgender individuals about who they are, such research easily refutes those who nonetheless think transgender folks are merely confused.