Last week I saw an article explaining the first transgender doll is to be released in July. This doll is modeled after Jazz Jennings, one of the youngest documented transgendered people. There has been a lot of controversy over this doll; many people believe teaching children it is ok to be transgender is not acceptable and transgender children are ultimately parents' fault for not correcting the confusion. There is still so much unknown about the transgender community, it is easy for people to make quick judgments such as those. That being said, blaming parents for a child being transgender is not only unreasonable, it is false.

Gender is a social construction. This means it has no biological basis; it was created by humans and varies across time and cultures. For example, the United States has two genders, women, and men, but in India, there are three genders, women, men, and eunuchs or other. These two examples show the number of genders recognized by the respective governments, not the number of actual genders there are. There are infinite genders someone may identify with. Sex, on the other hand, is biological, it is based on hormones and genitalia. There are only two sexes, male and female, and you are assigned to one at birth.

Transgendered people have been around for quite awhile, but it has just recently come into the spotlight and been discussed more frequently. In fact, there are an estimated seven hundred thousand people who identify as transgender in the United States. Transgender became a part of the higher education curriculum in recent years, but because it is a recent development, the older generation did not learn about it in the same way my generation has and the generations to come will. Learning in school about the difference between gender and sex is the main component of having the world accept transgendered individuals.

The transgendered community is going through the same process as the gay community did not too long ago. The more research is done on being transgendered, the more people will understand how sex and gender differ and how identifying with a gender that differs from your sex is possible. While it is a sensitive topic and one many people have a hard time accepting, it is crucial to the well-being of transgendered individuals that they have the support of their friends and family. They face a lot of discrimination because of their identity and, in turn, have a very difficult time adjusting. Because of the discrimination they face, transgender people attempt suicide much more frequently than people who do not identify as transgender; about forty-one percent of transgender people have attempted suicide.

Hopefully, the more this is talked about, the more educated people will be, which will turn into more support for the transgender community. As of right now, there are only eighteen states that have laws protecting people of the transgender community. The goal is to get that number to fifty. There is so much to learn about the transgendered community, all you have to do is try.