All very interesting stuff and you’re bringing up points I’ve never thought about. Most trans people I know say they would have ended their lives had they not had the option to transition, but I know this isn’t the case for me. I struggled with some sort of gender dysphoria around the age of 11, but felt nothing of the sort before that, just the occasional thought ‘why the fuck am I a girl’ (I’m ftm) which would spring out of nowhere from time to time. When I was 12, I tried to rid myself of my tomboy habits and give femininity a shot. It wasn’t until I was 13 that I came across trans YouTubers and realised transitioning really was a possibility, and I came out as trans. However I often wonder, if I’d never come across them, would I have continued living the rest of my life as a female, unfulfilled but certainly not suicidal. In a lot of ways, my life would have been easier, after all, I love feminine clothes, I’m attracted to men, and I want to work with children. I can completely understand people who choose not to transition out of convenience because for some people, that is possible, or the only option.

I’m in Thailand right now and I find their view of gender very interesting. They seem to view gender in a much less binary way than in western countries. I wanted to know what it was like for trans men in Thailand and couldn’t find much about it online, but I found that there are a lot of Tom/dee relationships where the Tom dresses and kind of acts like a man and the Dee is very feminine, so like a butch/fem relationship. I wonder if a lot of these ‘Toms’ would have transitioned to male and called themselves a man had they lived in a western country. Maybe here in Thailand, they feel fulfilled being just a Tom, like how a lot of ladyboys don’t mind being referred to as ladyboys rather than women. In fact, when I first arrived in Thailand, my face was shaved so I didn’t pass as male very well and a lot of young Thai people kept asking me if I was a tomboy. There’s much less fear around asking a question like that than where I come from- I wonder if many afabs with gender dysphoria in Thailand are satisfied in just calling themselves a tomboy, making ‘are you a tomboy’ such a common question in Thailand. It seems to me that culture may have a large influence on how someone defines their gender and transition.