Isomers

I may be a statistician now, but before that I studied chemistry.  In chemistry there are things called isomeric compounds, or just isomers.  An isomer has the same chemical formula as another compound, but a different structural formula.  They are made of the exact same things, just formed a little different.  Even though isomers may look very similarly, they can have extremely different properties and reactions.  "Why are you telling us about boring science, Bridey?" you may ask.  Well I thought I would talk about the T in the "LGBTQ" community by using a concept widely understood and accepted in the scientific community.  So stay with me, please.  

Sterioisomers are isomeric molecules that have the same molecular formula and sequence of bonded atoms, and differ only in the three-dimensional orientation of their atoms in space.  The way to compare these different structures is through cis-trans isomerism.  The words cis and trans are Latin words meaning "on the same side" and "across", respectively.  For those of you who are more visual, here's some pictures.

cis-1,2-dichloroethene              trans-1,2-dichloroethene

Okay, I'll stop with the science before I bore you all to death.  Now on to the queer stuff.  Allow me to lay out before you two very similar, yet very different scenarios.

My friend Zac is one of the many wonderful people I have gotten to know through USGA.  He's from a small town in Texas, and is in Utah for school.  He was born into a family that actively participates in the LDS church.  Zac's sex is male.  He has a penis and can grow facial hair.  He is very comfortable identifying as a male.  He's also very comfortable with his attraction to other men.  Where things get a little tricky for some people is when I tell you that Zac technically has XX chromosomes.  Regardless, Zac is known as a cis-man.  Meaning he identifies as the sex he was born.

I have another friend, also named Zachary.  He too is from Texas, and is up in Utah for school.  He was born into an active LDS family.  Zachary is male.  He is very comfortable in his role as a man, and with his attraction to women.  Zachary was also born with  XX chromosomes.  The only real difference between them is that Zachary has a vagina and the other secondary sex characteristics of a female.  Zach is known as a trans-man.  This means he does not identify with the sex he was born as.

Like two isomers, these two boys are the same in every aspect except what you might find between their legs.  One is the same as what you see, the other is not quite what you'd expect.  Despite how similar these two may be, the world tends to react quite differently to their unique situations.

Zac is recognized as male right from the get-go.  He has to take hormones so he can grow his lovely facial hair, and not grow breasts.  Everyone accepts his being a male, even though he's genetically a female, because he was born with a penis. They can easily overlook it.  On the other hand Zachary doesn't pass as male as often.  He wants to take hormones so he too can grow scruffy face hair, and he wants a chest instead of breasts.  Only his close friends and family continuously accepts him as male.  To society, he's not only genetically female, but also socially female because he was born with a vagina.

Why does one deviation make such a difference to people?  Why can we accept the phenomenon of someone being sexually different than what their DNA is telling them, but not sexually different from what their soul is telling them?  Birth defects happen all the time.  Society as a whole accepts that sometimes the sex of the child is not 100% one or the other.  Why can they not accept that maybe it's 100% of the wrong one?

I want to say that the experience of both of these boys are very valid.  I do not write about this issue to claim that I have the answers.  In fact, if anything I want to tell you that I don't have the answers.  But what I do understand is that it shouldn't matter.  Zac and Zach, if you are reading this, know that you are loved by so many people. You deserve to be loved for the very person your heart is telling you that you are.

~Bridey J.