Common Questions People have when Interacting with a Transgender Person
September Edition

After being nicely asked some questions from @williambanks regarding the pronouns I prefer to use, or have others use in reference to me, I thought this might be a helpful post for the Steemit community.

There are many questions not asked to others because they may feel taboo or incite potential conflict, such as politics/political theory, religion/spiritual theory, education/child rearing...and in my case being transgender.
Frequently those of you who are good natured and caring don't ask excellent questions simply because they don't want to chance offending the other person. While I completely understand the good sentiment behind this, it doesn't help in gaining mutual understanding.

[I am only speaking from my own point of view and this should not be taken as the view of every transgender (non-binary,etc.) person, who each have their own thoughts and preferences.]

A couple of common questions I've been asked:

Q. What pronouns should be used?
A. I live and present myself as female and prefer to use female pronouns; she, her, etc. A good rule of thumb is to refer to a transgender person using pronouns of what they are presenting. While this is not necessarily true for everybody, if there is a question about pronouns, just ask. I would assume most transgender people will take this as a pure and caring question.

Q. What did you're name used to be?
A. Good rule of thumb is to not ask this. This 'old name' is commonly referred to by transpeople as their 'dead name.' While it might come up in conversation after establishing a friendship, this is not something to ask upon first meeting. (Personally this wasn't an issue, having a gender neutral name like Corey, but I do believe I'm in the minority on this one.)

Q. What 'parts' do you have? or surgeries have been done?
A. Imagine yourself meeting a person for the first time and the ask you 'what genitalia do you have?' Pretty uncomfortable question coming from someone you just met, right? Same thing for transgender people. While this may be something that comes up later after establishing a friendship, it's typically not a good ice breaker.

Q. So do you like boys/girls/both? Does that make you gay/straight/bi?
A. First thing to mention here is that sexual orientation (preferred partners) and gender identity (self identity) are on completely independent dimensions. Some transpeople prefer men, others women, some prefer other trans or non-binary people, some identify as asexual while others prefer pansexuality or even polyamory. There are even more preferences beyond these mentioned which you can see a non-exhaustive list here to give further examples. The full gambit of options are available and there is never a way to predict across all people in the trans or non-binary communities.

This may not always be the best thing to ask when you first meet somebody though. While I am personally not bothered by it, I know many that are. How would you feel if you met someone for the first time and they asked if you were gay or straight?

The other thing to note here is that the definition of being gay versus straight is really quite subjective. While what I consider to be a 'straight' relationship with my boyfriend can be considered 'gay' in someone else's mind. Since I've not been concerned with labels (with more a focus on essence) it doesn't bother me that these word/categories break down. But I honestly believe many people have a negative reaction when their security blanket of labeled categories are threatened.

For example, imagine a straight cis-gendered (i.e. not transgender) person named Carl sees a girl he thinks is pretty cute and feels attracted to her in some way and asks her to lunch. During the conversation Carl finds out that she is a transwoman and immediately asks himself, "Does this make me gay?" See how quickly the gay/straight categorization breaks down?

Added Questions/Answers from Previous AMA

Question From @williambanks:
So I know that no one else will broach this topic with you. But literally, what is it like to be transgendered? You say "the gender you present" is part of a feedback loop. But if I shaved, wore a dress, put on makeup. Hell even if I went full out and "replaced the plumbing" as it were, I still could not hold the new identity beyond the one I was born with. You seem to do this effortlessly.

But I guess what I'm asking about is the question of the uncanny divide (which BTW applies to humans as well as machines), how do you cross this? How do you interact with cis-women? How do cis-women react to you? How do you deal with it when they react badly?

Answer:
While I know many argue over whether feelings of being gay or transgender are 'embedded' from the start or 'learned/chosen' from my own experience I subscribe to the former. At first this translated as a feeling of 'being off' when socializing (friends, family, etc.) and later molded into a much clearer picture as I learned of the concepts of transgender. This was the first time I felt that internal reaction of YES, that's it!

To respond to the first part of your question:

You say "the gender you present" is part of a feedback loop. But if I shaved, wore a dress, put on makeup. Hell even if I went full out and "replaced the plumbing" as it were, I still could not hold the new identity beyond the one I was born with.

First we have to assume that that these transgender feelings are embedded from the start of a human. Now think of these feminine feelings as a periodic wave. When I came in contact with society which treated me as male, I was presented with a 180 degree phase shifted periodic wave, that cancels out (destructive interference) my wave. This is what generates my feelings of being off. When I socially transitioned and was then treated as female by society, instead the wave grew (constructive interference), which for me felt correct.

My point is that for you, the destructive/constructive effects would be reversed. You would feel correct by being male and perceived as male, which would only feel off if were you to present as a woman. The thing to cross is purely dealing with the fear of negative reactions from society. I've been lucky to have a fully supportive family (even though discussions for understanding have been necessary,) friends and little to no social backlash. Many others are not this lucky.

How do you interact with cis-women? How do cis-women react to you?

I don't feel that I've changed much as a in 'essence' since I've transitioned (outside sharing more.) The female friends I had before, while getting a little closer, remained a similar relationship as before. I will admit that there were a few additional topics, like clothes, facials, etc... were added, but these were minor in the full scope.

Most women react/treat me as if I'm just another woman. It helps me by being relatively passable, which has it's own rabbit hole of discussion. I am also always aware of how others 'could' perceive me, and can usually avoid or prevent potential issues.

How do you deal with it when they react badly?

I've not had any bad reactions luckily. The closest has been a friend from high school that I could tell was torn with what he'd always thought and accepting that I'd transitioned. He didn't say or do anything mean or wrong, but I could tell.

Outside of this is a period online troll or a real life person realize I'm transgender from some queue or another and give me the 'eye' or a scoff. But these really just bounce off of me and go on, they're going to feel the way they feel regardless of me.

Question from @williambanks:

So the answer to how you crossed the uncanny valley, was just that you were close enough to begin with that you already crossed it?

Closest thing I can come to the experience would be when I was 14 and my girlfriend dressed me up as a hooker for halloween. I didn't feel anything different about who I was and mostly it was just to humor her. We had a lot of fun and no one ever made mention of it afterwards.

But to my mind, this isn't anywhere near the same is it? When you present as male, you don't feel male. You might or might not have the plumbing, but in your seat of consciousness where it matters, you look in and find your homunculus is a female?

Was there ever a time you felt both or neither genders? Have you ever met people who simply refuse to be one or the other? Sorry i guess I'm just intrigued from an experiential perspective. I can understand feeling out of phase. But like I said when I cross dressed for halloween it meant nothing to me. It was just live action role play. However this is much deeper and I'm trying to understand how that works since gender is such a vital part of identity in general, yet I've met people who refuse the entire concept of gender.

Answer:

First, yes! To me 'essence' = homunculus!

Was there ever a time you felt both or neither genders?

[These are MY answers and don't necessarily speak for all trans or non-binary/gender-fluid people]
Prior to beginning to come out in my early 30s, I had kind of given up on the idea of intimacy and focused more on my intellectualism and developing personal philosophy. This was my closest to feeling 'neither' gender since I had accepted the idea of being single, found social gratification with friends (even if not intimate) and defined myself outside of gender lines. I was my soul, passions and ideas...all of which are essentially gender irrelevant in the traditional sense.

I'm not sure how much other feel this way, but I tend to think of myself more since coming out as what has been called 'Two-Spirit.' While I still feel and choose to present female, I do still have and understand a male perspective to a degree. In some countries this is revered due to the insight and knowledge from both sides of things. But much as we travel up and down through Maslow's Hierchy of Needs, my male/female needs and proportions flow as well.

However this is much deeper and I'm trying to understand how that works since gender is such a vital part of identity in general

While I can't deny biological sex, I've wondered how much effect society has in actually defining gender. It's nearly impossible to separate especially with it being so deeply rooted into out languages. He/she pronouns are use countless times a day, when really a gender neutral term like they/them could easily be used, but why? Why do many languages like french, spanish and italian have a masculine/feminine applied to everything. (It is la bibliotèque not le bibliothèque) What sense does it really make to apply gender to inanimate objects? This is really a hard one to separate since for many people conscious concepts require a word, and those words have un-noticed implications. I get the concept of 'gender role' in the evolutionary biology/psychology sense, but it really doesn't explain why it's still held to tightly or embedded in our vocabulary.

I forgot to mention that i have met non binary, gender fluid and androgynous people. Many have similar issues in common with transgender people.

Great question!

Question from @thecryptofiend:
I didn't even know you were transgender. It really doesn't matter although I can understand these days people don't want to offend anyone.

It is brave of you to reveal it and discuss it openly because I have seen some pretty horrible attitudes on Twitter particularly when there was that fuss in the USA over bathroom usage or something like that.

I love this quote from what you say it is so true:

Imagine yourself meeting a person for the first time and the ask you 'what genitalia do you have?' Pretty uncomfortable question coming from someone you just met, right?

I would like to meet the person that uses that as their first "ice breaker" question lol - or actually maybe I wouldn't.

The only thing I am curious about and this is quite personal so you really don't have to answer. You mentioned that trans people often consider the old name to be their "dead" name. It makes sense.

The question is how do you tell people who knew you as the old you about your transition? I can imagine that must be very difficult and I'm sure there's no right or wrong way to do it.

Thanks for sharing and being brave enough to open yourself up to our questions. I hope they are not too ignorant.

Answer:
Yea, I don't really talk about being trans that much since I focus on my intellectual passions. Truly once you connect with a person, it goes deeper than the physical body itself. Look at all of the friendships made on here, world of warcraft, etc. All of which are real, and gender is assumed, but in reality the two physical people never actually are around each other.

It's only a big thing because people make it a big thing, like with the HB2 bill in North Carolina that undid and preventing any further anti-discrimination laws in the state. This was done in response to the city of Charlotte passing a law that would protect the human and civil rights of the LGBT community. It's really strange hearing that an anti-anti-discrimination bill is passed, but it happened. This unfortunately has just been the latest and most covered scenario, but similar occurred in Indiana (driven by now VP candidate Mike Pence), Arkansas (in response to Fayetteville passing an LGBT anti-discrimination law), and even here in the city I live in had passed similar LGBT protection laws only to have it repealed about 6 months later by a razor thin vote. I actually made a post describing what happened here in this post a few weeks back.

Luckily things here aren't like the damage HB2 has caused people, businesses and public organizations for North Carolina. But I won't travel down that rabbit hole. lol

To answer you very fair question telling people that knew be before:

It was by far the hardest to tell the first people that I felt I was transgender. At this stage I was logically ONLY telling people that had known the 'old me' since that had been the only thing I had presented to anybody at that stage. Part of the difficulty was that there was no organic way for this conversation to start (being before transgender celebrities like Laverne Cox and issues started to be included in the main stream media.) It always had to start with a "So.... There's something I wanted to tell you..." statement, that are never comfortable. Honestly at this stage, the difficulty to tell somebody stayed the same while the DRIVE to tell someone constantly increased. Basically it was going to come out sooner or later.

While I did get a lot more comfortable presenting and interacting the way I wanted to rather quickly (it helps when there is only supportive people) I did notice that I had a harder time saying anything to people I had known since childhood...it was easier for me to talk to a new friend/stranger...specifically because of the reason you mentioned.

It's hard to shift the mental model we make for others, especially after being ingrained for so many years. To some degree the same holds in pronoun usage. I can understand why my dad slips a 'he' periodically. He's not being mean, I have no doubt he's trying, it's a tough thing to be 100% on after switching.

I assume the same reasoning holds with asking to be called a new name by people that knew you by another name for so long. I had it easy on this one since I didn't change my name.

Wonderful question, sorry for the long answer :)

Question from @jedau:
If you haven't even made this post, I wouldn't have known that you were LGBT, and really, I just consider you more awesome for having stated this :) I know quite a few LGBs, but I couldn't say I know any transgender individuals personally before you.

I'm not quite sure if it's been asked before here but, when did you find out about your true orientation and when did you embrace it (if you don't mind me asking)?

I feel sad when I discover that there are a lot of closeted individuals who can't embrace their true nature out of fear of persecution, social repercussions or religion. Everyone should be free to embrace who they truly are, and I'm glad that you have fully embraced your true self :D

Answer:
Thank you! While I don't try to hide being trans, it's not something that comes up into to conversation much for me. I find that my primary passions fall in other areas. But now some answers! :)

...when did you find out about your true orientation and when did you embrace it (if you don't mind me asking)?

I had feelings that something was 'off' as early as age 5-6, which was (I believe) due to starting school. This is the first time that a norm outside the family was experienced. While I didn't understand what it WAS as the time, I could tell what things didn't fit. This was in the early 80's and the gay awareness campaign was in its infancy. While being exposed to the concept of gay, it didn't feel like it fit for me.

In my early 20's I first started finding concepts of gender change on the internet, some fiction some non-fiction. While I'll admit seeing transgender people (usually in poor light) on main stream media such as Jerry Springer, I didn't find this very helpful. It was all about the internet and felt a huge weight lifting as I started to find there were others like me out there in the ether. Right about the age of 30 is when the split between what I presented and wanted to present started passing my 'comfort' threshold and told my first person about this. A month or two later is when I told my parents and sister.

I feel sad when I discover that there are a lot of closeted individuals who can't embrace their true nature out of fear of persecution, social repercussions or religion.

This is so true. I've been very lucky coming from a reformed Jewish background, which tends to be extremely LGBT accepting. Another benefit was that I don't have a 'fundamental' wing of the family, every single one of my family members have been supported (even though conversations so that could understand better were necessary and completely understandable.) My biggest fear was dealing with society. At the time transgender was usually presented as a comedic skit or whatever that was on the Jerry Springer show, again not very helpful. In fact my perception for a long was more attuned to the negative depictions like these as well as the horrible violence or murder towards transpeople stories. While awareness wise we now have a much more positive showing in the media like Laverne Cox or Kristen Beck.

Everyone should be free to embrace who they truly are, and I'm glad that you have fully embraced your true self :D

I completely agree and I believe a large part of the American population would to. The others will either have a revelation, die off, or be dragged kicking and screaming about their "Religious Freedom Bills."

Wonderful Question! :)

Question from @anca3drandom:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject! Being a curious person I watched many documentaries about transgender. I have found out that adjusting your voice can be difficult. Is this something that you struggle with?

Answer:
Happy to share! :)

I have found out that adjusting your voice can be difficult. Is this something that you struggle with?

This is very very true! For female to male transpeople the voice change isn't always as much of an issue. For many after taking testosterone for a period their vocal cords actually thicken and deepen much like a boy going through puberty. For some though, the voice doesn't drop as much as they want.

For male to female transpeople this can be a little tougher. The vocal cords have already 'thickened' and short of surgery (which I'm personally not a fan of) the raising of the voice is achieved through practice. Female hormones don't have much if any effect on a transwoman's voice. There are lot of free and pay for resources out there like this, even an app on voice training. I managed to find a few tips and run with them.
I've done voice impressions for a long time, so it helped having the ability to notice and control certain 'noise effects' of my speech. I used singing as a fun and helpful practice tool that got me more comfortable in higher scales without having a 'grumble' as I call it. Working in a call center for year or so also was great practice, especially having a gender neutral name like Corey. Callers determined my gender solely by my voice, inflection, and vocabulary.

I've gotten way more comfortable with my voice over the years and It's also fallen 'naturally' into a more feminine sound nowadays. But I do have days (especially with sick) where I struggle, or when I'm tired and just don't care. :P

Great Question!

Question from @andrew0:
It really doesn't matter to me if someone is transgender or has any sexual identity/orientation, the person matters, beyond all definitions!

The problem is people being easily offended: they don't like if you say what you think or what you are, personally it's quite hard to offend me, just because I respect any standpoint and I don't think to own the Truth.

So sometimes heterosexuals, religious people are offended if they see something "not straight", other times LGBT people get offended for other reasons.

So please everyone, start becoming sincere and open and stop considering offensive anything which is not in tune with your views!

Answer:
I absolutely 100% totally agree on this!

The only way things are going to improve is for those on both sides to HAVE THE DISCUSSION! We are all people and should respect each other as people. While I can understand the point of LGBT people who have a long history of honestly being offended, we can not allow this to jade our view of everybody.

In my opinion the start of everything human needs to start with the keystones of "Don't be an asshole" and "Look first for the goodness in others."

We are all on this spaceship called earth together!

Well said @andrew0!

Question from @kiethwillshine:
Do you have any other struggles? like emotionally? or physically? Which you could warn people about before they go down this path.

Answer:
Since I have the stance that the feelings that led me to transition were there from the beginning, it merely took me a long time to figure them out and decide what to do about them, I don't really have anything to urge against this path in the general sense. For me this was something that I feel would have happened sooner or later. If I hadn't I truly believe that I would at best unhappy, at worst I'd have psychologically broken from feeling isolated and alone.

With that said, there are health concerns with hormones. Potentially increased chances of blood clots being the big one I watch for, which includes some awareness of high potassium foods. I luckily don't have much else on my radar. I'm not much of a medical person, so I just watch what I need, but not much expertise outside of that.

One thing I will recommend is to work with a doctor who can monitor blood work regularly. Personally, I'm not comfortable with the DIY approach both because of blood work monitoring and me not fully knowing what are in, or potential problems, with internet bought medications. I'm more comfortable deferring this judgement to my doctor.

One last thing on the medical side...talk to a counselor/psychologist/therapist. I can't speak for everyone, but I found this invaluable. I needed this time to talk through how I felt, read materials I'd not heard of, and talk with other transgender people in a support group so that I was sure that I both wanted and felt I was strong enough to transition.

As far as other struggles, nah. I like to think I became a very emotionally and intellectually strong prior to even telling my first person. My biggest issue was dealing with ingrained behaviors from having a giant wall/defense mechanism put up for so long. Three quarters of my life I didn't talk about and steered conversations away from any topic that might have led to me talking about how I felt about being what I now call transgender.

I've been very lucky with a supportive family, accepting friends and when I actually go to a religious function (like a wedding) there being an inclusive congregation.

Question from @nathanbrown:
I'm all for people taking whatever gender identity they want. The thing I don't really get is surgery and hormones as they relate to privilege. Only people in wealthy countries have this option, and yet it seems that trans folks feel surgery and hormones are really important parts of providing viable options for people to have the gender identity that they want. How does that work for the vast majority of the people outside of wealth industrialized countries who don't have the money to pay for surgery?

Answer:
There is a split between the social, physical, emotional and sexual portions of a persons transition (or journey.) While I can not speak for every transperson, the social transition was by far the most important for me. There is a rarely noticed feedback look of 'I present female' --> 'I'm treated female' --> I feel validated and continue presenting female.

While I know of many transpeople that would love to have the surgeries, most haven't and might never be able to. This can be due to wealth, health or insurance issues. Sometimes health and age prevent a transperson from being able to take hormones, yet still find greatly enhanced satisfaction just from the social transition. The SRS surgeries (like a lot of pharmaceuticals) also tend to be much more expensive in the US, partly due to there not being many domestic places that performed them, on top of many insurance companies not covering them. A vast majority of the SRS surgeries have been performed in Thailand (a second world country) for a long time, where it is cheaper and more socially acceptable.

My point out of all of this is that the privilege of wealth and access doesn't really apply to a 1st, 2nd or 3rd world country but to the transgender community as a whole (who also have a much lower socio-economic status on average, kicked out of their homes at an early age, can be fired or kicked out of an apartment or rental with no recourse.) The entire community world wide is under-served as a whole (outside of Caitlyn Jenner) and there really isn't a privilege disparity between transgender people. The 'privilege' is a rarity in out community unfortunately.

The other point here is to look at social acceptance of the trans community to exist. It's more common for transpeople to be treated as an equal 1st and some 2nd world countries. But most 3rd world countries are very conservative and tend to shun or worse those that 'come out' as transgender.

Surgeries, while maybe preferred for some, aren't what make a transperson transgender. It's that inner feeling of how they would like to be treated (as male or female) and reciprocated by society that creates the feedback loop of gender that is more than sufficient for most.

I think I answered your question in all that. Lol

Question from @wiser:
I did think of one question, maybe a complex one. Do you often interact with people whose religious convictions do not allow for acceptance of the change? So, if you were born biologically a man, then that would be your gender for life, according to these convictions. How do people from that background relate to you: will they use the pronouns that match how you present? Or do they insist on using the pronouns corresponding to gender you were created with (as shown by the usual way new parents identify their baby as a boy or girl)?

Answer:
I got very lucky that I was raised, and the majority of my extended family are, reformed Jews, who are typically very accepting to the LGBT community. Most of the 'bible thumping' I've seen has been from fundamentalist Christians. (The city I live in is in the buckle of the bible belt has the world headquarters of the Assemblies of God church.)

While I have not had to deal with any issues directly (I should also note that I have at best labeled myself agnostic for a long time,) I do know many that have and do deal with things like this.

Before going to far, I want to note that this is not a blanket statement for all Christians or Fundamentalist Christians. I've met many good hearted and well meaning people who self identity into either of these groups. During the period between LGBT non-discrimination laws being passed and then repealed (which I wrote about in depth here) I saw a number of people leave their fundamentalist church over the spewed hatred. While I try to give the benefit of the doubt wherever I can, the LGBT bashing arguments are founded in nothing but hatred, fear or ignorance (in my opinion.)

Unfortunately there really isn't a way to change the mind of people fixated on how their pastor (or whatever) has interpreted the meaning of the bible. In my opinion it's used either as a political tool to influence people for some agenda based on hate, fear or power (usually by the pastor) or a security blanket for individuals who don't want to allow them selves to think outside of their 'comfort' box.

I know many transpeople that have been kicked out/unwelcomed by their church for many years, fired from jobs, disowned by families, or worse. These are the people that tend to refuse someones transition and purposely uses the incorrect pronouns and/or names. Sometimes good people after gaining some insight to being transgender, but many just stay embedded in their ways. This is a large reason (in my opinion) that the assault, murder, and suicide rates of transpeople are STAGGERING.

Just look at the attempted suicide rate in the above image. 41% of all transpeople have attempted suicide compared that of the general population of about 1.5%. The more anyone looks at transgender statistics the INSANITY is apparent to just about anybody.

Let me know if I missed answering anything. Great questions!

Question from @daut44:
What was your childhood like in terms of interests, friends, and family? At what age did you realize you identified with being female rather than male? Or was it not a sudden realization at a young age but a gradual transformation?

Answer:

What was your childhood like in terms of interests, friends, and family?

I had a pretty 'normal' and comfortable childhood. At the time I didn't think anything of it, but until about 5 or 6 years old I wore my emotions on my sleeve. Unfiltered is a good way to put it. In 1st grade, after getting picked on, crying, which led to more getting picked on...I essentially developed the defense mechanism/strategy to not 'show emotions.'

This isn't to mean I didn't enjoy the good times, laugh and play, but anything that 'showed weakness' or basically giving others the response they wanted to continue the pattern. (i.e. Pick on me, get me to cry, so they felt better, making them want to pick on me again.)

While I remember hanging out mostly with the girls in kindergarten, around that 1st grade time period I instead mostly hung out with boys. I had some good close friends, so this is not a complaint, but I know I avoided things that for me, at the time, I perceived as feminine/weak (can't blame a 6 year old) which could cause me to be picked on. A lot of my time until my 20's revolved around just blending in, not getting bothered or picked on, and just being ok. There is no denying that I had a HUGE wall of things I wouldn't talk about and steer conversations away from. I got a lot more in depth in my introduction post titled My Transgender Journey.

My interest were really somewhat gender neutral. I played a lot of card, board, computer, and video games as a kid. I was ok at most sports, except golf, and was actually on the wrestling team for a few years in high school. My family has always been great to me, but I'll admit that I limited how close I got to them and others, which takes time to change and I'm improving on.

At what age did you realize you identified with being female rather than male?

While I can only say this in retrospect, I remember that 'something' felt off around the age of 5-6, which is when I started school. This was in the early 80's, the gay awareness campaign had just begun, and transgender wasn't a concept I could even fathom at the time. Prior to the internet, my closest thing to an anonymous search while lacking all 'keywords' was to ask the old Librarian about things I had no way to articulate.

Or was it not a sudden realization at a young age but a gradual transformation?

From my own experience, it was something that had always seemed to be there. It just took a while for me to first figure out what it was, next how to do it, and finally if I had the courage to go through with it knowing the various hardships it could incur.

Wonderful questions! Please let me know if I missed anything.

My Introduction Post: My Transgender Journey

Question from @littlescribe:
Thanks for your article. I do have a few questions, and I don't know any trans people, so can I ask some personal ones? I would never do this if we just met, but since you are offering:

1. How does it work? I mean, did you always feel like a female psychologically speaking, and doing the physical transformation just helped the essence of your real gender show? Or is it more just the physicality of the gender that you felt more in line with? What exactly motivates the physical transformation, if you can explain for those of us who have no point of reference, unfortunately.

2. If there is no "gay" or "straight" and sexual orientation is irrelevant, does that mean sexuality is irrelevant too? Are you saying that being transgender has less to do with sex and sexual attraction, and more to do with who you line up with as a gender? What does "gender" mean? And again, is the physical transformation more a manifestation of the gender you feel, or is the physical aspect a big part of what it means to be a woman?

3. How does this kind of transformation work in a society that seems to be leaning toward gender neutral? Do you prefer to see more traditional differences that make a more clear distinction between the two genders so you can enjoy that transformation more fully? Does gender neutrality, irrelevance in sexual orientation, and the ability to change genders make you feel like the male and female body are truly irrelevant? And doesn't it seem an irony at all?

Please forgive. I don't want to offend. Just clueless.

I'd like to write my own pontifications on the subject. Keep a look out for it and feel free to comment on there if you see it come up. I would not use your comments to me unless you gave me permission to do so, but I may likely refer to your article, if that's ok.

Answer:
Absolutely no worries! Those are more than fair questions and not personal at all.

How does it work? I mean, did you always feel like a female psychologically speaking, and doing the physical transformation just helped the essence of your real gender show? Or is it more just the physicality of the gender that you felt more in line with? What exactly motivates the physical transformation, if you can explain for those of us who have no point of reference, unfortunately.

While I know many argue over whether feelings of being gay or transgender are 'embedded' from the start or 'learned/chosen,' from my own experience I subscribe to the former. At first this translated as a feeling of 'being off' when socializing (friends, family, etc.) and later molded into a much clearer picture as I learned of the concepts of transgender. This was the first time I felt that internal reaction of YES, that's it!

In essence these feelings were already there and felt correct once I had transitioned.

If there is no "gay" or "straight" and sexual orientation is irrelevant, does that mean sexuality is irrelevant too? Are you saying that being transgender has less to do with sex and sexual attraction, and more to do with who you line up with as a gender?

Gay/straight and transgender/cisgender dimensions, while independent from each other aren't irrelevant, just not coupled. For example, I am a transgender woman. Do you think I like men or women? What if it was the other way around for a transgender man? Do you think he likes men or women?

While you may have a guess, there is really no way for you to know. I could like men, women, be bisexual, asexual, or pansexual, and so could the transman. This is what I meant by independent dimensions, the large list of sexual orientation choices are available to a transman, transwoman, androgynous or non-binary/gender-fluid person. I would still say the sexual orientation (or at least finding a partner or more) is important for most if not all transgender people. I don't think the word irrelevant is correct.

What does "gender" mean? And again, is the physical transformation more a manifestation of the gender you feel, or is the physical aspect a big part of what it means to be a woman?

Honestly, in my mind, I see gender as a social construct that has been embedded deeply in all humans. Look at how many he/she pronouns are used everyday. Languages like french, spanish and italian even have a gender assigned to inanimate objects. Now I admit that there are differing average preferences and pre-dispositions between Men and Women. Hormones alone are a very powerful thing that change things. There are other 'processes' that are required for one biological sex or the other that shape certain behaviors. (i.e. Teen woman not necessarily wanting to get pregnant while many teen males usually haven't thought much on it since they don't get pregnant themselves.

Personally I believe that all people have a preference towards either;
being 'aggressive/physical' based (which we associate with male)
or 'compassion/emotional' based (which we associate with female)

Because of this, I define somebody with this 'essence' of feminine a woman regardless of their physical body. However an important thing to note here is just because I define somebody by their essence alone does NOT mean society does. Even I don't expect people to be comfortable when someone that is clearly presenting as a male into the women's bathroom. (However there really aren't any incidents of transpeople trying to use the restroom while NOT at least attempting to present accordingly.)

How does this kind of transformation work in a society that seems to be leaning toward gender neutral? Do you prefer to see more traditional differences that make a more clear distinction between the two genders so you can enjoy that transformation more fully? Does gender neutrality, irrelevance in sexual orientation, and the ability to change genders make you feel like the male and female body are truly irrelevant? And doesn't it seem an irony at all?

Personally I interpret what I see others viewing as a trend to gender neutrality, instead as acceptance of the full spectrum. Put another way there is no black and white but only infinite shades of grey. Many people have a hard time because it's not as easy as the applying the binary (male/female) because it requires us to individually meet and model a person before applying male or female, which is a lot more work.

I think that the importance is in the shades of grey instead of male/female. I think that as time goes on people will have an easier time finding their own, best shade of grey and society will get better at acknowledging that placement on the gender spectrum is just as much a person right as life, liberty or property. Let the girly girl be girly, and let the manly girl be manly, and let the whatever be whatever.

Since I think of gender being a part of my essence (or soul) rather than a body thing, I have a hard time discounting this part as irrelevant. I think this is more an issue of passing along these types of options to generations to come, and allow them to find what works best for them while at the same time need society to be open to this. (i.e. teen transgender girl Jazz Jennings gets death threats, wtf!)

Please let me know if I didn't answer something or would like clarification. I'm about to fall asleep but wanted to answer you questions.

TL;DR

Last month I put out the common questions I've found many people genuinely want to know, but sometimes are afraid to ask, usually because they don't want to offend anybody. I've incorporated a lot of the questions that were asked in last months Trans AMA into here hoping it can add more insight for those that are interested. I wanted to open this back up again for those that might have missed this or not been on Steemit quite yet.

Ask Me Anything

I'm sure there are other questions out there that people may have and this is an open invitation to ask them! Feel free to ask me anything, the worst I can say is that I'm not comfortable answering that.

[Additional disclaimer: I am only answering in regard to myself or what I have perceived of the community I've been exposed to. This in no way is an attempt to speak for everybody since each person has their own answers and comfort zones.]

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