I know for myself a lot of the frustration and confusion comes when trying to define my partner's gender within the context of male and female. Sometimes it is more defining what he is not. He is not a woman. Never was and never felt like one. He is a transmasculine butch. That is his gender. Not female. Not male. He has legally transitioned and yet still retains butch as his gender. He does not use the term FtM to define himself.
If feels uncomfortable to me when we discuss how others choose to change their bodies. The problem I have seen with the Harry Benjamin guidelines is that they are too rigid in defining gender and the wide range that encompasses.
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