Bending Gender, Ending Gender: Theoretical Foundations for Social Work Practice with the Transgender Community (Commentary) (Critical Essay)

Science has classified humans into two categories: male and female. If a person does not fit neatly into one of these categories, he or she could be looking at serious societal problems. Transgender individuals make up this gray area. The purpose of Burdge's article "Bending Gender, Ending Gender: Theoretical Foundations for Social Work Practice with the Transgender Community" is to explore ways that social workers can help transgender individuals become comfortable with themselves and society. Transgender includes any person (man or woman) who finds conflict between his or her gender and a sense of self (Burdge, 2007). This term can be used to describe anyone from a cross-dresser to someone who has had sex reassignment surgery. Because it is hard to account for all transgender individuals, especially those who are only cross-dressers or those who shy away from public awareness, only two groups have been numerically accounted for: intersex individuals and postoperative transsexuals. Intersex individuals are those born with ambiguous genitalia and are surgically modified to normalize genital appearance (Burdge, 2007). "One to two infants out of every 1,000 born" undergo this procedure (Burge, 2007, p. 244). Postoperative transsexuals are those adults who choose to undergo an operation to change their sex. This surgery can be male-to-female or female-to-male, though male-to-female is more common. This can "range from 1:500-1:2,500" surgeries per year (Burdge, 2007).