The trans identity has been written about extensively from a political perspective. Many columns in the Blade, and other outlets, speak of gender ID laws, barriers in trans healthcare, pronouns, trans representation in state legislatures and eventually Congress, and the legality of offering trans children hormone blockers, among other treatments.
While speaking of politics can be good, it’s equally important to understand trans lives from the perspective of someone with a social work degree — or, in other words, from an emotional and therapeutic perspective.
Trans people, simply put, face many emotional barriers in life that others usually don’t have to encounter. Let me list several here.
I don’t have an MSW, but will try my best to articulate these problems in detail. First and foremost, trans people face lots of change: change in personality, change in appearance, change in passing versus not passing.