So for a trans person, that cloud hangs over every flirty interaction. I met a guy at a social event recently and got the feeling he might have been flirting with me, but I didn't know if he knew. I was scared a little the whole time because he was much larger than me (not that I'm small). I waited a month and a half of hanging out, without so much as a touch on the arm, before telling him. It took that long for me to feel sure I'd be safe either way. If you're saying to yourself, "Well, you shouldn't have led him on!" remember that some men consider simply being in the room with them to be "leading them on." You think I'd be safer wearing a sign around my neck? Some people are enraged just by the fact that I exist.

All right, so maybe it's safer to stay at home and try to meet people over the Internet? There we can merely be verbally assaulted, nonstop, in pretty much any setting. Internet slang for a trans woman is "trap," as in, a being who exists only to "trap" males into questioning their sexuality. So now I can be reminded that the world is filled with people who fly into a violent rage at the mere suggestion of my existence, from the comfort of my own home. Thanks, Internet!

This is a huge problem. Getting a divorce? You'd better be on good terms with your spouse, because that "mental disorder" you have renders you unfit to raise a kid. One trans parent in Ohio lost visitation rights based on the court's assertion that "the transsexualism of the [parent] would have a sociopathic affect [sic] on the child." Yes, the Ohio court system considers trans people to be a literal factory for breeding psychopaths. Your lack of ovaries might be the straw that ... turned the camel into Jeffrey Dahmer, I guess.

Coming out trans isn't exactly great for your career prospects, either. It was only in 2009 that the FAA stopped requiring thousands of dollars in psychiatric tests before they'd clear a trans person to be a pilot. "We wouldn't want to make the plane uncomfortable, because that would be wrong. Prove you aren't insane, please." And while the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is grand, transgender folks are still technically barred from the military on grounds of mental illness. Because the first question in any soldier's mind during a firefight would be "What genitals are hiding underneath my comrade's Kevlar crotch guard?"

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"Don't worry, Sarge! Backup's coming!"
"They better be pantsless!"

So there's a reason the unemployment rate for transgender people is double that of the general population. As long as admitting who we are also means a legal admission of crazy, things aren't going to get better. We thus have every reason to hide it, and that reinforces the idea that we're out to deceive you, and on and on the cycle goes.

Laverne Cox (of Orange Is the New Black) used the opportunity to express an honest opinion on why the question was inappropriate. Couric was so clearly shocked by the actual, unexpected journalism in this interview that it's hard to believe she's, in theory, a reporter. Who else would ever be asked to talk about their genitals on daytime television? "Your latest action thriller comes out this weekend, but can we talk about your junk now?"

The reason Couric, and people in general, are so curious is because of a huge misconception and source of confusion: the idea that being trans requires some kind of surgery -- either just the genital surgery (sex reassignment surgery, which is more properly called genital reconstructive surgery), or aesthetic procedures like having a jaw shave to make it look more feminine or a tracheal shave to get a smaller Adam's apple. That's not the case at all -- a huge number of "trans" people are just gender nonconforming. They feel they're androgynous and they don't see the need to not be.

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"Just because I like certain things, it doesn't mean I want the whole 'package,' so to speak."

In my case, I have natural breasts because I'm on estrogen. The only surgery I've ever had in my life was wisdom tooth removal. Female-to-male hormone replacement is basically steroids, and male-to-female is basically birth control with one extra generic prescription that blocks testosterone -- in other words, some of you are on these exact same drugs for other reasons. So my soft tissue acts as though I have normally functioning ovaries, albeit without the mixed blessing of a cycle.

When I started taking hormones, the biggest mental change was relief. I just felt so much better. Over time I've noticed that my face is softer and my hair grows lower. The stereotype that women have a better sense of smell is probably based on something too, because I do have a better sense of smell now. Yet, without surgery, my doctor had to certify that I was "feminine enough" to get the gender on my ID changed in San Francisco. It wasn't until 2011 that the State Department let you change the gender on your passport without proof of surgery.

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Both unjust and unsanitary.

Even in Sweden, a country you'd expect to be pretty enlightened by reputation, dropped attempted rape charges against a man because his victim turned out to be a trans woman with a penis (their logic being that it's impossible to rape a woman if she doesn't have a vagina).

And that's the real irony of being transgender in the modern world: You might not give one orphaned fuck about which genitals you have, but good luck convincing everyone else not to care.

In fact, any person who doesn't conform to the broadest stereotypes of "not straight" had better have a lecture ready if they want anyone to understand what they mean by something like "gender-fluid." The relatively simple premise of "feeling different on a weekly basis" has yet to percolate into pop culture. And when you try to explain it, lots of people get really, really angry. Which brings us to the most underappreciated aspect of life as a trans person ...