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Originally Posted by Squishor
I can see how MTF would be a lot more challenging socially than FTM. It's not very fair how men are not given the same kind of flexibility that women are.
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A big part of it has to do with how easy it is to pass. Sissy is lucky in that she had a late onset of puberty and started hormone therapy early enough to greatly inhibit the development of masculine features. She's never had difficulty passing and never gets read.
A great many MTF's aren't as lucky. Most don't transition until adulthood, after masculine features have developed, and once this occurs, it's very difficult to mask them entirely. Hormones help, but don't affect beard growth, don't elminate body hair, have no effect on the voice, and cannot alter the skeleton.
For a FTM, it's much easier to pass. Male hormones make major changes to the female physiology, inducing beard growth, thickening body hair, thickening vocal cords and deepening the voice, and allowing for the development of much more muscle mass. It isn't unusual for FTMs to become body builders. The biggest hurdles for a FTM are height--they're about six inches shorter on average than the average man--and breast development, which requires binding or surgery to remove fatty tissue. But generally, FTM's are nearly impossible to distiquish from any other relatively short man, while MTF's tend to have many more tells. That, plus the fact that in our culture, a man in a dress is a joke, and a woman in jeans and a t-shirt is everyday casual wear.
To put it more simply, FTM's have it easier in every way except for genital surgery, which isn't to say it's easy; it's still extraordinarily difficult, but MTF's who want to pass have a much more difficult row to hoe.
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I have never really been a perfect fit with the female gender role, but as someone who hasn't felt that sort of deep dissatisfaction with their actual sexual identity, I can probably never truly understand what it's like. I've known plenty of bisexual and gay people, cross-dressers and the like, but not any transgendered (as far as I know). I certainly think I'm an open-minded person when it comes to these sorts of issues.
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You certainly sound like it, and I'm glad there are gradually becoming more and more people like you out there.
Actually, transgender is a catch all-phrase for anyone who actively adopts aspects of the opposite sex for whatever reason, and includes cross-dressers. Transsexual refers specifically to those whose gender identity is the opposite of their anatomical sex and who seek sex reassignment, with or without genital surgery, as a result, regardless of where they are in the transition process. My friend Jen is a transsexual, even though she currently is living as a man and does not intend to go full time for another year yet.