Can someone explain the subject please

Alright, I'll start from the basics. Gender identity, in a sense, is the gender one sees themselves as. Lots of different components. Gender is a spectrum, much like sexuality is. So it's basically all these little things, like your assigned at birth sex, your gender expression (how you dress and act), and your identity that form your gender as a whole.

FtM refers to someone (like me) who's assigned female at birth but identifies as male. MtF is the reverse- a woman who was assigned male at birth.

I'll post more later, when I have time to cop out a response.

 

Kay, so here's how it works. If you're trans*, broadly speaking, that means that your sex (what's between your legs) does not match your gender (what's going on between your ears).

This can manifest in many ways. You can have a male body and still be a woman (which is MtF, or transwoman), and have a female body and still be a man (FtM, or transman). Also, these terms are controversial. Some people really dislike them because the qualificaiton transman or FtM implies that these people "aren't really" their gender.

It's also possible not to have gender, have gender fluidity (which I think might be what I experience), or be between genders (bigender, and I'm sure there are other words I don't know which also describe this).

 

I might add some more later when I'm up to it, but here's a good post from Tumblr I found a while back that's very informative on this topic and what you're asking: The Giraffe against gender conformity!

 

Alright, so I'll start out with what it basically is to be transgender. Being transgender means your biological sex does not match up with your gender. I'm biologically male, but I identify as female. It's what my brain says I am and what I feel that I am inside. The thing that a lot of people don't understand about gender is that it isn't binary. There are more than just two genders and both sexes can express any of them. I chose to express the female gender because it's what I'm most comfortable with. Living in a man's body is terrible for me honestly. Everyday I wake up and look in the mirror and just don't feel right. Looking down and having the wrong parts there is also not good at all. Being turned on is terrible as well, I don't enjoy the experience. You know your transgender... Really you just know. You spend so much time thinking about it that eventually you just know that you are, and that's enough. It's hard to explain honestly you just kind of feel it inside.

We do things to relieve the stress (known as Gender Dysphoria) and put us more in line with our correct gender. I shave my body hair to keep from feeling dysphoric along with working to change my voice and lose weight and sculpt my body into a more feminine shape.

MtF means Male to Female and FtM means Female to Male.

I really like Adrian's comment that sex is what's between your legs and gender is what's between your ears. That's very true.

If you have anymore questions at all you can message me and I'm sure any other trans* person on here would be happy to give you more information.

 

Actually, there's A LOT more to it than just Gender Reassignment Surgery. For MtF transsexuals you have to go through therapy (pretty much for the rest of your life), undergo HRT (Horomone Replacement Therapy) and then you're on hormones for the rest of your life, then there's electrolysis where they burn the hairs off of certain areas of your body, IF you're lucky you won't have to go through with top surgery (breast implants) or facial feminization surgery, then AFTER all of that you get bottom surgery, which is the actual Gender Reassignment Surgery. Overall it costs in the field of $40,000 - $50,000, and that's the bare minimum. FtM is basically the same process except they have to have top surgery to get their breasts reduced.

So we have to go through ALL of that, and only bottom surgery is covered by insurance in most cases, if that. So we have a ton to pay out, not to mention you can't tell a therapist the truth if you've ever attempted suicide or you won't get recommended for HRT or surgery, you have to live as the opposite sex for at least 6 months in most cases before you can start HRT, you have to take time out of your personal life for court dates for legal stuff, you run the risk of losing a lot of loved ones (I lost my girlfriend), plus nowhere wants to hire you, and just... There are a ton of personal costs...

 

If you really want to dive into trans* issues beyond the basics, I recommend going through the archives of Natalie Reed's blog. Ozy Frantz also has a few good posts on the subject, especially this one.

There are also some people who may identify as non-binary but not trans* (the asterisk is meant to make it an umbrella term, including transsexual and transgender). For the time being, that's where I'm placing myself because I only rarely feel out of place in my body, even though I do usually experience a disconnect between the concept of "woman" and how I see myself and how I want others to see me.

I don't know if others feel the same way, but I've found that whenever I've started to understand gender, it finds a way to surprise me by being even more complicated than I realized. For example, gender identity and gender expression are separate things...except when they aren't. For some people, expression, identity, and even orientation are closely related. For others, they truly have nothing to do with each other. Natalie Reed once said something along the lines of the thing that defines transgenderism is its diversity. Every person experiences gender differently.

 

This is known as passing. Presenting as the gender you identify as. So I don't exactly know what it entails for the other side- ladies help me out here- but as an FtM guy, that usually entails binding my chest, packing (padding the crotch to mimic the shape of a flaccid penis- not all guys do it but those who do have various methods. There's socks, like you mentioned, and that's a method I use when I'm experimenting at home- then you've got packers, which are basically replica dicks), layering clothes, assuming more masculine gestures and etc.

 

Previous posters already covered the basics perfectly and more, so I don't think my addition to this thread would be of any new information, but....

I'll answer this one. It differs between trans* people. I'm fairly uneducated and unaware of the details when it comes to MtFs, so I'll speak from an FtM perspective.

Top surgery (removal of breasts for an FAAB person) is cool with me. I'm planning on it, one day. Results are typically decent, and I have dysphoria when it comes to my chest, so the quicker they're gone, the better. It's an A+ in my book.

Bottom surgery to me is something I'd rather not dabble with. Some insurance companies don't cover it, others do, but even the ones that do cover for some of the costs, the procedure itself is extremely expensive and you have to dish out a load of cash. At the moment, I don't really like the options available for me. It's not just one surgery for phalloplasty, for example. It takes multiple surgical procedures and it involves borrowing skin from your arm or thigh in order to make a penis, and that to me isn't something I'm comfortable with at the moment (even though it looks like a cismale dick, but that's not my concern).

I don't know how common it is. I'd say that it's fairly uncommon due to the high costs and the fact that the procedures themselves take a lot of time and sometimes the results may not be too great. I'm hoping that in a decade (give or take some years) stem cell research can be applied for trans*men when it comes to developing male genitals, considering there's been an advancement for when it comes to regrowing organs. Perhaps I'm living too ahead in the future, but again, it's not that important to me.

It all differs between transmen (and transpeople) when it comes to their bottom surgery or choices of surgery. Even though I don't want bottom surgery, a different transguy might think I'm crazy because he desperately needs it. Dysphoria manifests in different areas for each individual person.

 

Believe me, every time a woman says "Man...I wish I had boobs. And I'd sure love to get pregnant..." I'm sitting there thinking, "Take it. TAKE IT ALL!"

But in any case- yeah. There's still a lot to be done. It's easier to be trans* in this day and age, sure as hell not easy enough.