Trans-what? has always been there for me. Years ago, before "trans" was a part of my lexicon I knew a Thai Khatoy. He was the hairdresser on our expat compound in Saudi Arabia. I saw him as flaming gay, but he wished to be treated like one of the girls. He enjoyed their company and liked to play Mah Jong with them. I was perfectly fine with socially treating him as he wished, but no doubt you've already noticed that I use the pronoun "him" with respect to him.

In private conversation he told me that he really felt like a woman in a man's body and that he was trying to save money for reassignment surgery. On vacation in Thailand, we bumped into him by chance while he was also on vacation. He was in the company of a man who made no effort to present as a woman, flamed with supernova brightness and tried to hit on me in the presence of my wife. Was he really gender dysphoric or a homosexual transvestite trying to find a comfortable place in a world hostile to homosexuality? I'll never know but in retrospect, he may deserve a she from me.

I wish that people could go thru a discovery process about their own sexuality painlessly. Especially when escape from that pain leads to a medical intervention that was not really right for them or other tragedies.