The transgender world is a crazy world in which there are many shades of grey, and millions of colors.
Benjamin just used 6 degrees, from:
1 (cis-gender),
2 (periodic/fetish),
3 (passing),
4 (public),
5 (wants transition),
6 (must transition).
Kinsey gave 6 grades of sexual preference:
1 (heterosexual in desire and preference),
2 (bisexual fantasies, heterosexual behavior),
3 (bisexual fantasies, some gay, mostly hetero activities),
4 (bisexual fantasies, bisexual activity),
5 (bisexual fantasies, mostly gay behavior,
6 (gay fantasies, gay behavior)
That's at least 36 possible combinations available, from the gay fetish dresser to the drag queen to the transsexual lesbian.
Unfortunately, it took a few decades for Benjamin and his colleagues to break the association between gender identity and sexual preference. Even in the 90s, many therapists thought that you couldn't be type 6 transsexual if you also had a desire for the "opposite sex from your birth sex".
Then there is the incongruity between one's actual life practices and their true identity and preference. Someone who is type 6 transsexual may be forced, or choose to live as a heterosexual cis-gender male in public life because the consequences of discovery or transition are more than they can accept. We have seen many reports of girls like Leena Alcorn, who was beaten and isolated because she revealed her true self to her parents. To her parents, he seemed like a sweet boy, and they even thought he was accidentally hit by a truck, until her note on facebook, and the driver's statements, made it clear that SHE had walked in front of the truck so it couldn't avoid hitting her.
I had to delay my transition because my ex-wife had made credible threats that if I continued with transition, she would stop me from having ANY contact with our kids, but I would still have to pay full child support, day-care, and extra expenses.
The question isn't whether you, or someone else, is trans enough, but rather where each of us is in our own lives. It can be very painful to be a 5-6 in gender (transition recommended or needed), and have to live the public life of a cis-gender male, who most people assume are gay because he is so feminine.
There is often a struggle to find people who are in a similar space to where we are, or where we want to be. I was type 6, but when I tried to talk to drag queens they said I was just a gay man who was deceiving myself (because they were gay men who just liked dressing up for tips and shows). When I talked to cross-dressers, they made it clear that they were MEN who liked being men, and had no desire to transition and couldn't imagine why any sane man would. When I talked to transsexuals, they saw the guy who was feminine but would have to make so many changes to pass, and couldn't imagine that I was as severely in need of transition as they were. A few post-op transsexuals even tried to tell me that I would hate it because I would have to hide the fact that I was ever a male.
Sadly, so many of us live in stealth, both before and after transition, that we often find it hard to communicate to each other, let alone stand up for each other in public. 99% of the people I see in the world have no idea that I was a man. I'm an older woman with a slightly deep voice, but my voice is higher than my wife's. When we are out in public, we don't engage in PDAs, so most people see us as two women friends, maybe sisters, having dinner together.
The greatest barrier to transition for most of us, is ourselves. We often know in our hearts that we hate being seen as males, as boys, as men. We are not alpha males, and don't even want to be. We may not even be attracted to alpha males. We just want to be able to be our TRUE selves, which happens to be female. Some of us, perhaps many of us, are also intersexed to some degree or another. We have female brains, skeletal structure, and unusual male anatomy. With the advent of the MRI, CT scans, and ultrasound, which allow examination internal organs without surgery, they are discovering that many transgender males even have residual female parts.
For decades, statistical counts of the transgender community were based exclusively on those who went on record as actively seeking transition. Those who were cross-dressers or fetish dressers were protected by doctor-patient confidentiality and often kept their secret so well that even their own parents, wives, and children didn't know. It was only with the advent of the Internet that it became possible to uniquely identify and survey thousands and eventually millions of transgender people, both FtM and MtF, and discover that the transgender population was MUCH larger than anyone had estimated, possibly as high as 1 in 10 children is a type 3 or higher.
Part of the problem is the persecution of transgender people, especially transgender boys. Athletic coaches and gym teachers often try to get better performance out of their players by calling them "girls" or "ladies", which creates a general consensus among male athletes that a feminine male is a low form of humanity, and such feminine boys become the target for physical assaults, sexual assaults, verbal abuse, and public humiliation, often several times a day on a daily basis, including the formative years from age 6 to 12 when social, emotional, and sexual patterns are established. Transgender boys, seeking to avoid this persecution often go into "deep cover", almost like undercover cops or spies. They have to try and avoid the persecution by hiding their transgender desires. Often the physical abuse also sours their willingness to show any attraction to men. Even in high school, it can be incredibly confusing because they don't interact with girls the way boys usually do. They look a girl in the eyes instead of staring at her breasts, they compliment the girl on her hair, jewelry, wardrobe, or shoes, instead of making general references to their bodies, they socialize with girls easily, but don't seem to respond to flirtation, or become very confused when a girl flirts with them. Often they are perceived as gay even though they are terrified of males due to their violent past.
So if we have 36 possible slots which show the "ideal situation" based on someones true identity and preference, and we have 36 possible slots of "apparent situation" based on how someone appears to the outside world, we can see that it can be nearly impossible to find a match for both types. The problem is that we are looking for people who were like we are now, and have become what we want to be. We may be barely passable and are in our male mode, when we see a woman who is beautiful and we just barely realize that she's transgender. We want to go up to her and ask her all sorts of questions, because she is being who we have always dreamed of being. Yet when we approach her, she either runs or acts very threatened, because she sees what looks like a cis-gender man about to blow her cover and make her a target for all kinds of abuse.
Sadly, the most important thing of all, is for you to be willing to look at where you really want to be! If I could wave a magic wand and turn you into a beautiful, attractive, and pretty woman or girl, and change you back when you wanted, what would you do? Would you change yourself into a girl then break the wand so nobody could change you back? Would you keep the wand and switch at will? Or would you change your level of attractiveness based on time, place, and situation?
There is no right or wrong answer, but knowing where you want to go is probably the most important part of the process. The next part, the hardest part, is telling people in your life who might be willing or able to help you, or might reject you. You normally have to tell at least 12 people before the doors to people who can help you begin to open. It's often a friend of a friend of a friend, of one of those 12 people. Even then, there may be fear and distrust at first.
The hardest part of all, is when you finally get the courage to tell someone you think can help you, and they reject you. The wife who says she wants a divorce, the father who beats you, the mother who throws you out of your house, the relative who has you kidnapped by a conversion camp where you are tortured, harassed, and even raped, to "convert" you into a good "normal" boy or man, then monitored for signs of "regression". The hardest of all, for me, was telling a psychologist, social worker, nurse, doctor, or professional - and then being told "I can't talk to you about that" and actually REFUSING to allow any further discussion.
If you want to be a girl, even part time, then you are transgender enough - to need some help, some guidance, some support, from people you can trust.
Originally Posted by whowhatwhen
and i do how ever like TRANS women also 
Warning: This post may contain up to 63% post consumer recycled Sarcasm ... or Peanuts." 
