Understanding What Is a Transgender Man: Key Insights and Answers

The question of gender identity is hotly debated among the general population in recent years, even though both the medical and scientific communities, as well as transgender people themselves have been pretty firm and consistent on the topic. 

Doctors, scientists, and transgender people themselves have long been aware of what being transgender means, what it entails, what makes transgender people who they are, and what kind of medical and non-medical treatments they need.

However, as with all other things, society’s zeitgeist moves a few steps behind the scientific consensus, so, it’s quite normal for a lot of people to still wonder – what does it mean to be a transgender person, what is a trans male, and what else should we know about transgender people?

What Is A Trans Man?

Put as simply as possible, a trans male as anyone who has been assigned female at birth but whose gender identity doesn’t match with that and instead correlates with a man’s gender identity.

Such transgender people can look exactly like a man, can be more gender non conforming or androgynous in appearance, or their gender expression can still exhibit a lot of physical characteristics associated with femininity because they are near the beginning of their transition.

Either way – people whose gender identity is male are considered such, whether their sex has been assigned at birth as male or female. Should they be the latter – they are trans men, but they are still considered men nonetheless.

How Does One Become A Trans Male?

Most of the misconceptions surrounding many transgender people have to do with the process of becoming a transgender person.

Many of the more regressive media pundits and politicians describe the medical care and medical treatment options transgender people undergo in the most misleading and often even grotesque ways possible in order to stoke resentment toward transgender people.

In reality, however, trans men (and trans women alike) are what they are simply by following their gender identities.

Does A Trans Male Have To Have Gone Through A Sex Change Surgery?

Many transgender people do undergo medical procedures on their secondary or even primary sexual characteristics in order to better align their physical appearance with one’s gender identity.

However, a trans male doesn’t need to remove their female genitals to become a transgender person – they can, if they want to, but that’s not necessarily required.

How Much Hormone Therapy Does Someone Have To Go Through To Change A Person’s Gender Identity?

The much more common type of medical treatment many transgender people go through is hormone therapy. For trans males this means getting testosterone treatments to help turn their physical characteristics closer to the male end of the perceived gender binary.

Such medical treatments are usually recommended for people with gender dysphoria, but even they aren’t strictly necessary for transgender people to be what they are. Even if a transgender woman or man is just beginning their hormonal treatment or is yet to even start it, they are still a trans person. In fact, not all transgender people even go through hormone therapies.

Is Being A Transgender Man Or A Transgender Woman merely A Question Of Identifying As One?

This is a point that often stumps a lot of people but there is no right or wrong way to approach one’s gender identity. Whether they are assigned at birth as male or female, whether they are a trans woman or man, people whose gender identity is different from their sex assigned at birth are trans people and that’s all there is to it.

For many transgender people neither surgeries nor hormonal treatments are necessary and they are content with just being who they are and who they feel as.

Some people assigned female at birth will just get a short hair cut and identify as a trans male, while others will choose to go through every possible treatment out there to become as masculine as possible – yet, both are trans men regardless, as that is what gender means.

Questions About Trans Men And Gender Identity People Often Ask

1. Is There A Difference Between Trans Men And Transgender Males?

No, there isn’t – the two terms are used interchangeably but mean the same thing and describe people who have transitioned from female to male.

2. What Sexual Orientation Can A Transgender Man Have And Who Are Gay Trans Guys Attracted To?

Transgender people can have any sexual orientation, the same as cis gender people. They can be gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, heterosexual, or any other sexual orientation. In the case of transgender people, their sex orientation is used to describe who they are attracted to in life and want to have sex with.

Whether a trans male is a gay man, a bi man, a straight man, or any other sexual orientation, these terms correlate to the person’s own gender identity, not to the sex they have been born with.

For example, a gay or bisexual trans guy will be attracted to other men, be they cis or transgender themselves. Likewise, a lesbian trans woman will be attracted to other bisexual or lesbian women, whether they are transgender women or not.

3. Can A Transgender Male Become Pregnant?

Yes, they can. According to the American Journal of the National Institute Of Health, as long as a trans guy hasn’t undergone any physical surgeries to their primary sexual and reproductive organs, they can still get pregnant.

Prolonged testosterone treatments can affect the fertility of trans men, however, briefly pausing such treatments reverses the effects and trans men can still become pregnant even years after transitioning.

4. Do All Trans People Have Gender Dysphoria?

Having gender dysphoria isn’t a necessary prerequisite to being a transgender woman or man. Transgender people born with gender dysphoria are the ones we most often talk about, as gender dysphoria can greatly affect the mental health of a person if they are not allowed to transition in a manner of their preference.

However, transgender people can just be who they are even without it – transgender people seek to be who they are whether they have dysphoria or not.

5. Are Trans People Accepted In The Queer Community?

Broadly – yes. There are certain LGB organizations who show discrimination toward transgender people, but those are rare and far between, and are seen as the exception that proves the rule that transgender people are accepted in the broader LGBTQ+ queer community.

6. At What Age Can One Transition To A Different Gender?

As being transgender is a matter of who you identify as, a person can be transgender as soon as they have an internal sense of their own gender, as well as of what gender identity and gender expression even are.

Simple definitions, such as this often lead to trans-opposing people feeling scandalized about “transgender children” and point to that as an example of people trying to “turn a girl into a boy.”

However, when talking about the gender expression of children, we are merely talking about what they identify as, how they describe themselves, and how their gender identity positions them in the gender binary, whether they are assiged at birth as male or female.

7. What Is The Difference Between A Trans Male Person And a Non Binary Person Who Was Assigned Female At Birth?

The difference between the transgender and non binary is purely in how they identify and express themselves. Gender non conforming or nonbinary people usually reject the idea of strictly having to identify as male or female, and nothing else.

So, they prefer to identify as gender non conforming and express their gender identity however they feel like.

For example, someone might be born as a woman, but reject their female sex as they grow up. Yet, they may not see themselves as a man either, and prefer to express their gender identity as a non binary person instead.

So, as part of expressing their gender identity, they may or may not dress more masculine, may or may not go through testosterone therapy, and may or may not undergo surgeries of their secondary and primary sexual characteristics (chest, voice, face, reproductive organs, or others) – all that is up to them and how they choose to live out their gender identity.

However, you could still say that they have “transitioned away from their original (assigned at birth) gender” – they just haven’t “transitioned into the gender identity positioned in the other end of the gender binary.”

8. Is The Term Transgender A Slur?

No, the word transgender isn’t a slur in and of itself, although any word can be used as a slur, should the person using it chooses to apply a negative connotation to it.

For example, in the case of the term transgender, using it as a noun is widely seen nowadays as a slur. This is because a lot of transphobic people use it with a negative connotation. As an opposite example – using “transgender” as an adjective is not seen as a slur, because the word itself is an adjective.

At the end of the day, transgender means an umbrella term that captures any person, be they a man or a woman who doesn’t identify with the gender they have been assigned at birth and/or with the gender identity society is trying to pin on them.

9. Are Trans People Accepted In Western Society Or Do They Face Discrimination?

Transgender people are definitely more accepted in Western societies today than in most other places around the world, given that their gender identity is outright illegal and persecuted in most other countries.

However, even in the US and in other western countries, most transgender people live in a near-constant anxiety and fear of discrimination against their gender identity, of the impeding taking away of their public health necessities, and even of physical violence from their more transphobic peers.

According to the National Center For Transgender Equality (NCGE), transgender people in the US still lack a lot of basic legal protections their cis gender peers have and are often under threat of discrimination.

The National Center of Transgender Equality also warns of the risk of incoming increase in discrimination – both personal and legal – as conservatives are soon to control every branch of the US government, including the Supreme Court.

So, even though the life of transgender people in the US is still considerably better and safer than that of people of any trans or non binary gender abroad, they still face a lot of risks of discrimination, abuse, violence, substance abuse, and more.

10. Is It Safe To Transition From A Woman Into A Man?

In general – yes. Whether a male or female person is transitioning to a different gender purely on a social level or they are taking hormonal treatments, transitioning to another gender in and of itself is safe.

Of course, there are risks and side effects to hormone therapies, same as with any other treatment, but they are broadly considered negligibly compared to most other medical procedures, and especially compared to the risks of continuing to identify as the sex and gender you have been assigned at birth.

When talking about physical surgical procedures, there is always a risk too. However, physical transition is not a requirement for someone to describe themselves as a transgender person. Both women and men born as one gender can transition to the opposite gender or live life as a different non conforming gender identity even just with hormonal therapies or even without that.