Board Thread:Wiki Discussions/@comment-10733658-20161106155157/@comment-10733658-20161113053820

Well, the convo is currently sort of concluded.

But just for clarification on something folks seem to be confused about, surgery/medical stuff is not a requirement to be Transgender. We tend to be more exposed to celebrities that have undergone full surgery, but in reality is actually a very complicated issue within that community for a variety of reasons.

Surgery is not only incredibly expensive in most of the world, but rarely covered by any sorts of sort of insurance. It can easily end up being as much as a small house, which isn't something a lot of people have to spare. It also tends to require jumping through a ton of legal hoops, getting various approvals from doctors and meeting strict requirements in a lot of countries. You also have to be healthy enough to undergo surgery and hormone therapies, which not everyone is.

In terms of Transwomen, there's a loooooot more that can be done surgically. In comparison, Transmen are a lot less likely to have surgery down there. The procedures are considerably less advanced, and tend to have a done of negative outcomes or side effects. So it's a huge risk, and not one everyone is willing or able to undergo.

So tldr: Requiring surgery to acknowledge someone's gender is really flawed, since it ignores a ton of complicated stuff.