By Jaylene Canning –

Issues facing the gay community have recently come to the forefront of national attention. The recent Supreme Court decision essentially making gay marriage legal has created a lot of controversy, and the debate around this community is not going away soon.

With all the talk about the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community, people may wonder what the “T” really stands for. Transgender people are born one gender but know that they are supposed to be the other gender and feel uncomfortable in their natural body. Sadly oftentimes, these people isolate themselves from others. They feel awkward and out of place with their own gender, but cannot really be free to be with the other gender.

Gender-fluids can be more complicated. They are people who may at any time identify as either male, female, neutrois (that is being gender neutral, or having no gender), or any other non-binary identity, or some combination of identities.

Transgender and gender-fluids are quite different. While a transgender person may actually want to change his or her gender to the gender they identify with, a gender-fluid usually does not change. They just stay who they are but dress as they want depending on who they feel they are on a certain day. Perhaps because the gender is so fluid with these people that they are the target of the highest level of hatred. It seems as though the general public does not realize that these people are in pain.

Speaking of hatred many think that it is unnatural for someone to find themselves trapped inside the body of the wrong gender. Others may just feel uncomfortable around these people. They do not realize that gender fluid people feel just as uncomfortable, they just cannot help it.

Most people don’t know the feeling of being around a transgender person or how it feels to be transgender so they just judge them for being “unnatural”. These people would much rather have the opportunity to lead a normal life. If the general public would take the time to see the pain they go through, then they would not judge this community of people so harshly.

Another serious problem is that the majority of parents cannot accept their own child being transgender. Gender fluid people in this situation suffer, often isolate themselves, and often they even learn to hate themselves. However there is help out there to aid in someone who has to identify their own gender, and there is help for families to cope with the conflict that this. Genderidentity.org has education and support groups to help individuals, families and even workplaces. Nonbinary.org is another helpful site for understanding this often misunderstood group of people, who only want to be accepted.