Thank you all for your warm messages. It means the world to me that you're not disappointed. When it was happening all I could think about was my family here. They weren't just offending me, they were offending everyone here and that wasn't ok. People can say stuff about me, but the minute they say something that is offensive about any of my family that's when it bothers me. I couldn't sit back and say nothing. You are all my family here and no matter where you fit under the transgender umbrella, you're family to me.
I think that what worried me was because I didn't have as much knowledge as I thought I did. I mean, I told them what transgender was and the difference between sexual orientation and gender and I tried to challenge her beliefs on the biological man and woman thing from the perspective of a trans person (they don't know I'm trans myself) but I found myself lacking the evidence and confidence to back my points because of my lack of knowledge. However, this can be a good thing because it's made me realise that I need to look more into the biological aspect so that I can back up my arguments more efficiently. I tried my best in the situation, but it wasn't quite good enough. On reflection it's been a negative situation but it's given me a positive learning experience about myself as a person and I can now learn more about the parts I'm not so knowledgeable about.
Also, since I spoke out and argued my point, my teacher came in today and said that the discussion yesterday made her realise that she wasn't that well educated about transgender issues and gender reassignment. She told us she spent the entire evening last night gaining more knowledge and researching about transgender and speaking to a friend about it. So even though I may not of been able to change the opinion of the original lady, I managed to raise awareness and educate the teacher without even realising it.
