How does a person become transgender?
This question depends on what one believes “transgender” to be. In popular culture, there is the assumption that transgender can be put on and taken off like clothes and makeup. Superficially, this is the case with most drag performers and with some cross-dressers. It is not at all the case for transsexual and non-binary people. Everyone I just mentioned falls under the very diverse “Transgender Umbrella.”
First, what is “transgender?” It describes a person whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what their birth-assigned sex would imply. So, transgender has both an identity component and a behavioral one. By identity, we mean our inborn/innate gender identity, which is what our brain perceives our sex to be. Gender identity is a bit like handedness: we are born right or left-handed, or ambidextrous, and we cannot change this (though left-handers have been forced to act like right-handed people quite often in history).
