Many Types of Gender Identity

In all the recent uproar over the extremists barging into San Lorenzo library and terrorizing little children who were being read to by a lady who volunteers her time to entertain children, no one either side of the issue has taken time to explain the difference between a drag queen, a transgender woman, and a cross-dresser, and the names often get interchanged in the media. Most drag queens are professional entertainers, volunteer or paid, who dress up as women and provide some sort of entertainment. Transgender women are women who have a gender identity disorder (gender dysphoria) who are not comfortable with their gender assigned at birth, and choose to transition from male to female. Most take feminizing hormones and/or have surgical procedures to make them more comfortable with their lives. Crossdressers are people who wear the clothes of the opposite gender, for whatever reason, but do not fully or publicly transition. All three groups are valuable members of society who need to be respected, but I think it is important to know the difference. And I think it is important that drag queens continue to entertain little children without being disrupted by a bunch of angry men who try to impose their radical agenda on the rest of society.

–Angela Shipp, Castro Valley