I know very little about this subject and I would
like to hear from the posters on this forum - their
understanding of "transgender." What it means - and
should our communities be better informed to help people
understand what prejudices and discriminations transgender
people have to live with and how can we make things better
for us all?

The more we assign importance to this division by gender, the more we talk about it, the more people will become desperate to identify with one or the other and anxious when their body does not fit their gender expectations.

This gender-based tension may have been a survival mechanism when people died young and procreation was paramount, but it has no positive role today.

As procreation should become a thing of the past due to overpopulation, so should gender.
And as gender becomes a thing of the past, no one would feel that pressure to modify their corresponding bodily features.

Once nobody is known by gender anyway, once society does not pay any attention to genders, once the differences between certain bodily features stop being considered a big-deal, all gender and transgender prejudices and discriminations would fall off on their own.

People of one sex believing that they are of the opposite sex are deluded. People who support them by agreeing with their delusion, are not doing them any favours; and they are outright liars, pretending that the deluded souls are something that they are not.

Understanding what it's like to be transgender is hard.
I watched a recent program where the parents of a young
school girl talked about their experiences and what their
child had to go through both at school and in society in
general to be accepted as a girl when she was born a boy.

For those of us who have never met a transgender person
understanding is not an easy thing.

I've never really thought much about it all. My understanding
is very basic. I've always thought transgender was a term used
to describe people whose gender identity is different from the
gender they were thought to be when they were born.

In other words someone born as a boy may internally feel they
are a girl and vice versa. It's an internal thing. Which many
of us can't quite grasp. I feel that we need to treat people
with respect according to how they identify - not how they
were born.

We should not judge others because we have not experienced
what they are feeling and/or how they are treated.

O)ne's sex ID is a medical term - a label - male or female
that we're given, that we are assigned at birth based on
the appearance of our genitals - that we were born with.
Our genitals do not define who we are or what our gender
identification will turn out to be.

That's the way I understand things.

The more we learn about each other - perhaps the more
tolerant we may learn to be of our differences.

I remember reading the biography of cate McGregor -
who was born a bloke and later in life transgendered.
He was a close friend of Tony Abbott - and Mr Abbott when
he found out about his mate's identity change - said it made no
difference to their friendship. Which I greatly admired.

I've also read the biography of Carlotta (Les Girls), the famous
performer, and TV personality. And there are quite a few others.

It would be very difficult, to not have the support
of family and friends.

And then we have people like Shane Jenek - also
known as Courteney Act. I've read about the sassy
exterior where a young man struggled with his
identity. He initially presented himself as a Drag
Queen - the very female stereotype, feminine illusion.
Today his identity is "gender fluid."

He/she has come to realize that you don't have to
conform to one spectrum or the other identity. That
we should identify people on a wider scale and try to
understand things a little bit

I don't think anyone can even try to understand the minds of people who are either brought into this world as a non-standard or wilfully work on being non-standard.
I have no problems if those affected try to find solutions but burdening others is not right. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people all with some problem or another. They go & see a Doctor etc. but they don't demand others to take on their problems.
If there is physical deformation modern medicine has done some incredible work but I don't believe someone's personal desires should be a burden to the wider community.