by Daniel Dermont

Created on: June 16, 2009

I cannot speak for what life is like for all transgendered people. Though the community shares a few common ties, as individuals we are far too varied to be easily categorised. There are even differences where most would expect to see similarities. For instance, we are not all "changing sex"; some of us feel we have no gender at all. When you have a group that includes everyone from the man who likes to wear dresses in his free time to the female to male transsexual you really can't make any assumptions. This is why rather than giving you a list of statistics that "all" transgendered people experience I am instead going to tell you about my own life.

I am a gay female to male (FtM) transsexual. While I am very open about being gay, my transsexual history is not often something I talk about. For me, being a transsexual is so low on the list of important things to know that it comes somewhere between my dislike of The L Word and my allergy to (red) grape juice. While people understand that the newly out, mid-transition, and openly trans parts of the community face problems, very few think about what life is like for those of us who live full time in our correct gender designation.

A good example of this comes up every year during Pride month. I adore Pride; I have been going since I was 12. An excellent way of summing up my pre-transition days is my first ever San Francisco Pride festival. A friend had recently come out and his parents thought it was important that he be exposed to all parts of the GLBT community so they said to invite someone for the weekend. Being 12 and 13 we thought that in order to go to Pride you had to dress up. We both donned long, sparkling gowns, rhinestone tiaras, and the worst makeup on the West Coast. Though I was still living as a girl at the time (I wouldn't come out as trans until my early 20s) no one realised that I wasn't, in fact, a drag queen. Even before I came out I was seen as another one of the (gay) guys.

While this experience does mean I have a bit of an edge on my gay FtM peers (many of whom came of age in the lesbian community), it also causes a few headaches. Though I have been going to Pride for over a decade, I have never been able to take part in many of the parties and social events that take place prior to or just after the festival. Close friends will wonder why I'm not dancing shirtless in the streets like the rest of them and my only excuse is that I'm modest (I'm not). When I join

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