Gender diversity has existed across cultures and throughout recorded human history. Transgender history is rooted in the struggle against colonial powers, indigenous freedom, and many other struggles for self determination.
Transgender people are a diverse group, holding many different views and opinions but sharing in the experience of resistance to oppressive gender binaries. This shared experience and struggle is relevant to more than just the transgender community–it has implications for how all of us express ourselves.
As a white transgender therapist, this struggle is present in my work and my personal life. Whiteness is the dominant identity that people see and experience from me while my transness creates new potential marginalities. The transgender experience often guides my work, even when transness is not explicitly a part of the conversation.
Using Queer theory in my work it often leads us to ask “what is the best way to live your life” and “how much do norms really serve me?” Through asking these questions I find that clients are able to have some creativity in how they choose to live. Clients are also more willing to address their desires.
My own identity has led me to hold strong dialectics in thinking. As a nonbinary person, I find my gender is expansive and holds many truths at a time. This impacts how I see the world and encourages me to allow for more than one want, and an open mind to the many possibilities I might encounter. Before I accepted myself as nonbinary, it was very difficult to think outside of a binary. Good and bad. Happy and sad. Feminine and masculine. There is a freedom in going beyond one or the other and embracing a more complex story.
The rejection of binary came to me after much of my physical transition was over. I had already utilized my agency to be in the body I truly wanted as a transgender man. Through that journey I realized that my body was truly mine. And by being mine, it could operate in the world in whatever way I wanted.
This experience speaks to a specific kind of freedom brought about by the power of transgender embodiment. Transgender embodiment is the experience of transgender people feeling IN our bodies. Gender dysphoria can often be described as a sense of incongruence with the body. This often is a sense that the outward presentation of the body is not seen by society, interpersonally, or by the individual as aligned with the individual’s sense of themselves. This is in contrast to gender euphoria, which is the experience of relief or joy associated with feeling congruence between the self and how we present ourselves.
Imagine that you are a plant that has been deprived of adequate sunlight. You were placed in the corner of a room, but you aren’t aware that you don’t have what you need. You still grow, but you don’t thrive. Now imagine that sunlight starts to poke out every now and then. Those little glimpses are moments of gender euphoria. One of your stems perks up in response. For many transgender people, embodiment is the act of being placed in front of the window, and finally growing to our full height.
Through embodiment, transgender people express true bodily autonomy and self determination, and cultivate gender euphoria. This can be experienced through medical transition, social transition, or even self-knowledge. Introspection, emotional identification, and struggle are often wrapped up into the road towards transgender embodiment.
In my own experience embodiment through medical and social transition allowed me to see myself as grander than a binary gender. It also allowed me the opportunity to try out different social roles and ultimately decide that I did not want gender to define my role. For a trans woman or man who sees themselves in a binary gender this may look like fully inhabiting the role of a woman in society in the way that feels best to them. For a cisgender person, this may be asserting their bodily autonomy through activities that make them feel IN their body.
Consider the social roles that we often take on in sex. Oftentimes there is a gendered role attached to the sexual experience. To feel in the body in this environment, people have to have bodily autonomy, and they have to feel safe enough to speak to what they really want.
As of the time of writing this article, there are 17 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in the Illinois legislature, the majority of which impact the definition of gender identity or access to gender affirming care. Gender affirming care for minors often includes health intervention (such as puberty blockers) or in some cases therapy. Attacks on gender-affirming care have implications for everyone’s capacity for self expression and self determination, as they more narrowly define who is acceptable in society and who is not, who makes “correct” choices for their life, and who does not.
Transgender embodiment is a dangerous concept to many, because it opens up conversations about embodiment on a grander scale. Transgender people challenge gender essentialism, the concept that gender is prescribed at birth and is stagnant for life. Embodiment challenges the idea that in order to thrive we have to adhere to our assigned gender at birth, and embody the role associated with that gender. When transgender people embody something other than our assigned gender at birth, it threatens beliefs that allow people to feel comfortable and ordered in society.
Transgender identity can challenge current day circumstances and question our capacity to grow and change when we are dissatisfied and uncomfortable. Transgender people are often asking through transition: “Could my life be better?” or “How could I be more satisfied?” or “What would it mean to be treated with dignity everywhere?” These questions point at where our dissatisfaction is and what might be required to change it.
As we see continuous and growing attacks on the rights of children, immigrants, and those excluded from dominant systems of white privilege, the questions of transgender embodiment become more urgent. The transgender identity lends itself to acknowledging multiple different possibilities of a future – a potential for a future in which all people (cis or trans or otherwise) have a right to bodily autonomy and self-determination.
Micah Fisher is a psychotherapist at Wildflower. They are currently accepting new clients. You can schedule your initial session online or reach out to us via our contact form or phone at 312.809.0298.
Sources
American Civil Liberties Union. (2026, January 30). Mapping attacks on LGBTQ rights in U.S. state legislatures in 2026. American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Attacks on LGBTQ Rights Tracker. https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2026?state=IL
Martens, A. (2016, June 10). Transgender people have always existed. ACLU of Ohio. https://www.acluohio.org/news/transgender-people-have-always-existed/
Mittertreiner, E. J. E., & Lacroix, E. (2025). Gender euphoria as a pathway to authentic trans embodiment: a thematic analysis of Reddit users’ experiences. International Journal of Transgender Health, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2025.2520954
Public Broadcasting Service. (2025, March 6). Interactive map: Gender-diverse cultures. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/
Spade, D. (2015). Normal life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Duke University Press. https://www.deanspade.net/books/normal-life/
Vargas, J. (2025). The Effect of Need for Closure, Gender Essentialism, and Contact on Transphobia (dissertation). ProQuest. Retrieved February 25, 2026, from https://www.proquest.com/openview/9bf61793ebd05b6f59b4a64777ce796c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y. Walsh, R., & Einstein, G. (2020). Transgender Embodiment: A Feminist, situated neuroscience perspective. Journal of the International Network for Sexual Ethics, (Special Issue 2020), 56–70. https://doi.org/10.3224/insep.si2020.04
