Well, the “Someone you know tells you they’re transsexual, do you care?” thread inspired me to come out of lurkerdom and offer you this one.
For the record, I’m FtM (female-to-male), and transsexual might be a bit of a misnomer, depending on how you look at it: I’ve been taking testosterone shots for about three years now, but I haven’t had surgery as yet. I’m looking into it, though, so I do know a quite a bit about it. I pass as male pretty much unequivocably; I have a goatee, and that certainly tips the balance in my favour.
I’ve known since I was sixteen. I started hormone treatment when I was eighteen and a half. I’m twenty-one now.
Sexuality (people always ask): I’m queer, or pansexual - which is like bisexual, but includes the genderqueer. A lot of FtMs tend to be more genderqueer than our MtF counterparts.
Something I saw touched on in the “Someone you know…” thread was MtFs and hooker-makeup; I can answer this one, too. When I was fifteen, and desperately trying to be a girl, that’s just what I did, too. It’s just a case of “if I overdo it, it’ll come true!”. In my case, gender-wise, in their case, bio-wise.
Another thing that might be worth mentioning is the outrage and worry the “pregnant man” caused in the FtM community - he was “blowing our cover!!”. I don’t personally agree, but I thought it might be worth bringing up, as I don’t think many people know the reaction he got among his peers.
I can’t promise to know the answers to questions on genderqueer and MtF folk, but I think I know a bit about them, so ask away and I’ll do my best.
I’m pretty open with all this, so feel free to ask me anything you like.