Living Transgendered

So it's been a while since I posted... but I was just so busy learning I didn't have the time! Plus with Spring break over here at the university there just was a lot going on. Anyway, we had another guest in class via Skype this week. His name is AJ and he is female to male transgender man who is a second year PhD student at Ohio University. AJ was very open to discussion and was giving us lots of insight on his life and how he came to make the decisions he made in his life.
At first, before top surgery, she found herself to be very depressed and didn't know how to cope. Even being part of the lesbian community, she was unable to find happiness because inside she felt as if she was a man. When she finally decided to get top surgery, some people he knew were for it and some against it. In my opinion the most interesting response she got was that she shouldn't change her sex because it was more political to be a lesbian.However it wasn't about being political to AJ. He really just wanted to be happy and judging by the conversation we had, he seems to be very much so.
Another topic of interest in our conversations was having to do with his sexual preferences. Right now AJ is with another transgendered man. Both of them have to take hormones once a week and have received top surgery. However, neither of them have had bottom surgery. Despite this fact AJ still considers himself a homosexual man. This was confusing to my classmates and I but this is exactly how it was explained. It's confusing because we are trying to label all of these things in a specific manner when sometimes they don't fall under a specific category.
Someone might say, well if AJ is a man and he is homosexual then why doesn't he get bottom surgery? Well from what he said, technology is a major factor here. According to him, bottom surgery for female to male hasn't changed much since 1950. So until there are medical advancements AJ will stay where he is. In my opinion it is probably for the better to not use outdated technology. It seems better to wait until he can get a desired result.
AJ's situation is more common than you would think. Because of these technological setbacks, many people live as as transgendered males who have not had bottom surgery. There are more people who live as transgendered than one would think. In fact AJ told us that the first boy she ever dated is now living as a transgendered woman. This comes as a surprise to me and many other I'm sure. On the surface it is extremely hard to tell. That's how the saying goes: can't judge a book by it's cover.

Here's a video about a family who has a male child who practical from birth felt as if he was a girl. You can see how difficult it can be for a family to go through this, specifically the parents: