Ask me about gender

Sex is determined by physical characteristics such as what reproductive organs you have, what chromosomes, what hormones, etc.

Gender is a combination of everything that's not physical. Most people's gender is the same as their sex so it's hard to understand this distinction. Imagine this wildly unlikely scenario. One night, you are kidnapped and subjected to surgery that replaces all your reproductive organs and secondary sex characteristics with those of the opposite sex. When you wake up, you are effectively of the other sex.

What has changed about you and what hasn't? Your sex has changed, but your gender has not changed. Your brain and thus your perception of self, all of your memories, your experiences, and your beliefs are all intact. These are some of the factors in what is called "gender".

A transgender person is someone whose sex doesn't match their gender. In the scenario above where you got all your sex organs replaced with those of the opposite sex, then you would be a transgender person.

Since most transgender people don't get kidnapped and operated on, they don't have the benefit of memories of the body that corresponds to their gender. People aren't usually taught that their gender can be different from their sex, so they simply have this strange feeling that their body is not the right one.

It's much the same feeling you would probably have if your body was suddenly changed to one of the opposite sex. You might feel that your natural state was that of a man/woman, and the way your body looked after the surgery did not reflect the real you. People might start to treat you as something that made no sense to you, because they would determine your gender role by your appearance. You might not meet the expectations people have of your new sex, the way you "should" walk, talk, relate, behave, express emotion, etc. and you'd probably wish to have your own body back.

There are a lot of reasons why some people end up with mismatched gender and sex. Sometimes it's due to chromosome abnormalities such as X or XXY. Sometimes it's due to a change in levels of sex hormones between when a baby's body forms and when its brain forms. Also, some babies are born with intermediate or deformed reproductive organs, and doctors will often "correct" the deformity whichever way is easier. It's hard to say of a particular transgender person how they got to be that way.

The only "cure" for someone who feels that they're in the wrong body is to change their body. The "transition" to the opposite sex involves regular hormone treatments (testosterone/estrogen) and genital surgery. It takes a few years to complete the process, but the outcome is very successful (especially for male to female transition). although the appearance is entirely like the desired sex, they may still retain some internal organs of the birth sex. The transman in the article still has his uterus, so he can get pregnant even though he looks physically male.

It's very hard to actually define what a male or female mind is, so I'm not sure I can give you a good definition. For me, it's part social experience, part testing, and part unexplainable feeling... When I was a child I used to think I was a defective/brain damaged girl because I couldn't fit in with other girls. I tried my best to fake being like a girl, but I usually failed and the other girls treated me as an outsider. People would buy me girls toys but I didn't know what to do with them, so I secretly played with Hot Wheels XD

When the little boys/girls stopped believing that the others had cooties I found that I fit in and felt comfortable with boys. Once I started to feel like I belonged with boys I felt this deep need and longing to have my body changed so I could be just like the other boys. Of course I was still a kid so legally I couldn't make that choice...after a while this really intense feeling stopped being so important. I feel okay with being a sort of hybrid right now. But a few years ago I went to a gender specialist and took this incredibly long test that measured my masculinity/femininity, and I was equal in the masculine traits to a typical guy. The therapist approved me for transition but I decided I wouldn't do it until this strong feeling came back and it never did....

I was kind of afraid to answer this question because it seems weird of me to choose not to transition, and I can't really explain that well....

It's hard to say because our language doesn't really have words for what makes a mind male or female. There are plenty of examples of gender based differences in the mind (here's one), but we just don't know very much of what makes a mind male or female. I'll look for further things to add to this answer~

I've tried to present as a male, but I can't pass because I am only 5 feet tall and look very feminine. Men's clothes are much too big to fit me. So right now I'm wearing girl's clothes.

Lots of people will say I'm a girl because I look like one, but I don't mind what people call me since I've been through a lot of evaluations that confirm my identity. I don't really expect that most people would believe I am what I say I am no matter what I look like.

I have lost a few friends but mostly people support me. My family was really upset when I came out to them but they say that they will always love me no matter what! I'm very lucky having my family stand by me, sometimes parents will blame their child for being transgender or blame themselves for producing a kid with a birth defect.

Usually I feel uncomfortable explaining everything face to face, because I'm always afraid that someone would attack me just for being me. So most of the people I meet casually have no idea that I am trans. I tend to attract a lot of guys who find they feel comfortable talking to me and say I'm not crazy/confusing/different like most girls, but if I tell them I'm male gendered they freak out and start thinking they are gay. It's pretty hard to find someone who will love both my body and my mind, even if they are bi, it's just too much of a mind fuck for them. I have dated a few straight boys who would describe me as "a girl who thinks like a guy" which I figure is pretty much true.