Why do people identify as transgender? You might have heard that people who are transgender feel like they are "a man trapped in a woman's body" or vice versa. While this is sometimes true, transgender people do not necessarily identify solely with either the male or the female gender. Instead, many view gender as a spectrum with male and female at either end, with themselves somewhere in between.
Do transgender people get sex changes? "Transgender" is sometimes used as an umbrella term that includes all people who do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. However, by the more narrow definition, transgender people do not usually get sex changes. People who choose to alter their sex surgically usually identify as transsexual. More specifically, the terms "pre-op" and "post-op transsexual" are used, depending on whether an individual has already gone through sex-reassignment surgery. Sometimes transgender people are referred to as "non-op" transsexuals.
