Can I ask if you've had a chance to get to know some of them, as people and not just as stereotypes? Especially those who transitioned a number of years ago and who made it past the whole crazy mixed up swirl of personal growth involved in transition.

I guess I wonder where some of your views are coming from. Fewer trans men ("ftm") and trans women ("mtf") are het than the population at large, as far as I know. There's a notably more equal ratio of sexual orientations than there is in the cis population.

There is a pretty wide degree of variance in how people who've gone through transition see themselves. While some people fall into the "Harry Benjamin Syndrome" camp, there are also a lot of us who are sort of in between - I do consider what I overcame to be something on the order of a birth defect, but I believe…

In Australia we call them 'full stops'. I don't know why you Americans INSIST on having a different word for everything.

I guess my question about "male bodied" vs "female bodied" had something to do with the idea that there is a bright line that is crossed in transition. I look at mine, now, and I cannot find a specific point when this happened. Genital surgery was significant, absolutely, but it wasn't a defining moment. Many…

When my ex did the same thing in the early '90s, it was about $50 per session. She had some stories about how flustered the male students got when they closed up the speculum and she said um...you're stuck pinching around my cervix.

What does "male bodied" mean? This is a serious question.

I'd like to add to this - I have run into a number of people at one point or another who are not trans, but reject the label "cis" - frequently due to their lack of cleaving to established gender norms.

Speaking as a trans woman who knew what was wrong from a very early age, I can say this - if they know, they *know*. Going through puberty "the wrong way" was in some ways the deepest sort of betrayal I can imagine - my own body was so horrifically wrong I find it hard to explain to people who haven't been there.

You were being dismissive of "fluffy feminist theory" but I'll respond anyway. My "feminist theory", when it boils down, doesn't amount to much more than a desire that everyone live happy productive lives. If the standard treatment for trans* people is working (according to the people who know these things), then I…

As for mental and physical pain, that was what I was referring to when I was wondering about a treatment for a disease. Why is changing one's body the treatment? Why not treat the feeling?

Hi, I'm not Kyosuke, but I'm another woman who transitioned a while back.

I went through a gender transition some years ago (I'm a trans woman) and I was married to another woman at the time. After my family broke with me completely, I took her surname - I felt no connection with the one I had grown up with, and it was symbolic of my joining a new family. Her mother adopted me in spirit…

One thing I will say, you will still have people envy your provisional male privilege since they had none.

It's a problem because suggesting to a group of feminists that it might be a good idea to talk to trans people about how gender and privilege works generally results in laughter at the best and outright hate speech at the worst.

I'd like to add that the point i'm raising here (multiple layers of privilege) is orthogonal to Kyosuke's mention of "provisional" privilege. The external privilege I received through others' actions in my life was provisional and dependent on my ability to hide and lie.

My point in the original statement was about when male bodied female identified individuals still outwardly presented as if they were male identified individuals, they got to reap the rewards on the entrenched patriarchy (at that point in time).

It does really, really suck. I'm going to be a little ranty here for a moment - this is emphatically not directed at you, it's just me trying to vent.

My only other exposure to the concept of passing is when individuals passed themselves off as being of another race or socioeconomic background. I was not aware that passing as a male identified individual when you are male bodied is a non-viable option.

I just do not get the point of thongs, myself.