I don't actually know much about the trans community but when I see trans content (like, videos on YouTube by trans creators, interviews with trans people, or articles by trans people), I feel like the majority is by/with/about trans women while trans men make up a much smaller cut of that. Maybe my perception is just skewed there (I probably just see people that are really out there and would never register the smaller creators since I'm not actively looking) but could that be a real issue?
There is a difference in number, and it's not a small one, but at the same time it's not an outrageously big difference.
There are definitely more MtF transgender people than there are FtM... I haven't really searched anything about it in ages, but last I saw anything, MtF numbers were about twice as big as FtM.
Nonetheless, as Pearl-chan said. FtM are definitely out there and totally exist, they just aren't as visible as MtF trans.
Where do I get started on this research? There's so much material its overwhelming.
It's hard to give any specific pointer because each person is unique and no two people feel the same way, so... There isn't really a magical resource that will explain everything about how transgender people feel about themselves.
What I can tell you though, is that usually speaking, the wish to transition doesn't come from "wanting to be of the opposite sex", but instead from "I hate my biological sex."
Basically, transitioning is a huge pain in the ass that comes with a plethora of very big issues that nobody would ever want to go through... The people that go through it, don't go because they want to, but because they need to. As in, they can't see themselves going through life if they don't transition. Transitioning is not a choice, but a necessity. This kind of thing.
Also, the feeling of incongruence with the biological sex usually comes from very early on in the person's life. Like, since they were children and stuff. It's not necessarily the case with everyone though, some people start feeling the incongruence in their teen years and some even in their adulthood.
... That said, there is a big difference between feeling some incongruence between their biological sex and their gender, and actually realizing that they're transgender and that they should (or not, as not all transgenders actually go through transition) transition. Some take years and years after realizing that there is a problem to actually pinpoint the root of the problem and finding out that there is a solution to it.
What else...? Uhn... It's also good to think of gender as a spectrum instead of as a binary thing. Most people are born on one side of the spectrum and also identify with the same side... Other people are born in one side and identify with the other... And some are born in one side, but go more into the middle, without identifying very well with neither male nor female genders and stuff like that (if you ever heard anything about the apache helicopter meme and about how there are over 30 genders, it has to do with this... Though well, the apache helicopter is making fun of the idea of there being more than 2 genders... >.>).
Oh, and just because someone identifies themselves as transgender, it doesn't mean they'll actively go through a transition, take hormonal therapy and what not... Similarly speaking, just because someone took hormonal therapy, it doesn't mean they'll actually go through a sex reassignment surgery.
You see, gender dysphoria hits each person differently... Some have a small degree of it, some have a big degree of it. Those that aren't affected by it much might be able to live through life while still living as someone with the same gender as the sex they were born with, even if they don't necessarily identify themselves like that... Others that suffer from a more severe dysphoria might need to transition in order to bear with seeing themselves in the mirror without breaking down crying.
Ah, and to reinforce the initial point. Each individual trans person is different from the other. Each person feels differently and deals with things differently, while they also went through very different experiences throughout their life that helped shape how they view themselves and how they should handle their own life. So... It's not that good to generalize. And at the same time, it's not that troublesome to take some liberties with how you portray things, because the way you are portraying it might not represent someone, but may represent someone else.
I think that's all I can think of? I could try touching on matters with how family and/or friends and/or society in general might reject transgender people due to prejudice, but I think those things are more well known and stuff... If anything, I guess I can say that family and friends, even when they do accept the person for who they are and wish them the best, might still have a hard time treating the person transitioning as their actual gender, often times going back to referring to them by their biological sex... Which might hurt the person in question quite a bit (especially if it goes on for prolonged periods of time), even if it's done without ill intentions and stuff... Though as I said above, each person is different, so the way they handle those things may differ as well.
) but I wonder if other people might feel similar and don't dare to try new things because of that? At least for GB, that might explain the difference between the genres.
