When we realized we had reached the voting stage, we looked again at the list of guidelines for the program. It felt good to see that we already do almost everything that is expected of us. The vote is a confirmation of what we have already done, not a request for more work. It gets put under the same umbrella with gay, lesbian and bisexual, because transgender folks face the same kind of issues of discrimination and harassment. But the term transgender has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
Sexual orientation is about who a person loves or is attracted to.
Gender orientation is about how a person understands themself. A transgender person can be gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight. In its broadest sense, the term transgender refers to any people whose identity or behavior falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. That can include anyone from a person who occasionally likes to wear clothing associated with their opposite gender to a person who goes through hormone therapy and surgery in order to become that other gender. Gender is NOT the same thing as sex.