Art of Transliness

Zak: I don’t know the “right” answer for this or the official answer or anything, but I’ve been thinking about this question for a little while and my personal reasoning for this is that many people don’t use “transgender” as an umbrella term. Whereas “transsexual” used to refer to people that physically transitioned and “transgender” was more of am umbrella term, these days fewer people use those words that way (although there’s recently been more people labeling themselves as transsexual). These days I see a lot of people using the word “transgender” as only referring to people that are mtf or ftm, leaving out those that identify as genderqueer, agender, and so on. So, that’s the reason (in my opinion) behind using the word “trans*,” it is more welcoming and inclusive even if transgender is already technically an umbrella term. 

Zak: I don’t know a whole lot of the MtF resources, but a few that come to mind are Susan’s Place, Laura’s Playground, Tucking and Other Skills, and fuckyeahmtfs. Here’s a good general list of other links, though. Youtube is also a great resource for trans* people in general to connect and hear each other’s stories. If you’d like to give her some books to read, I’d highly recommend Gender Outlaw and She’s Not There. 

As for helping her, I’d assume that having anyone there who is supportive, can listen, and affirm her identity is a huge thing so being that person is playing an important role! 

Zak: Laura’s Playground has a lot of information on a variety of topics, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone on there you could find something about this. If not, they have forums where you could ask other people what they wish whoever taking care of them after surgery had known beforehand or some general information about aftercare. Susan’s Place also has forums and information where you might find something. Like I said before, the best thing for you to do would probably be to post on a forum or something asking others for information based on their personal experiences. You could probably also ask around on fuckyeahmtfs.  

Tuckingandotherskills is the closest thing that we know of to us that’s geared toward trans* women. Fuckyeahmtfs is mostly a community blog where people introduce themselves, post pictures, etc. but also includes some helpful advice. 

Zak: Tucking and Other Skills and fuckyeahmtfs would both probably be good places to take your questions. I may be totally wrong, but it seems like there are more resources for partners of trans* men than partners of trans* women. Maybe some of our followers know of some other resources. 

Zak: Thanks! The most similar blog to this that I know of for MtFs is Tucking and Other Skills. It’s not a blog, but Laura’s Playground is a website with a wealth of information on all sorts of topics related to gender and transition. 

Zak: I’m assuming you are referring to the pap exam article we wrote, where we mentioned that it was important for trans* women to get everything checked out if they had a cervix. We got that information from websites like this one and this one that assert the same thing. Some trans* women have cervixes from certain types of bottom surgery, others do not. From what we understand, it depends on the technique the surgeon used.