Fathima Idris, in her letter The woman in transsexuals - or is it? wrote: "No matter what, a transsexual is never going to escape from the male she is. Perhaps the best is not to contort the physical reality but to try and understand what this feeling of being a woman means and how it can be honestly expressed."

Perhaps the transsexual discussed here is not a male, either. Perhaps "contorting the physical" to make her as female as possible is the best way to accommodate the transsexual's condition, enabling her to live a life that is more honest about who she is.

The only reason she might need to lie about her past (having been born in a male body) would be to avoid the prejudice of others who cannot accept her condition. If you take away the stigma of anti-transsexual prejudice, bias and ignorance, transsexual people could have their transitions and live full, productive lives with their sex and gender in balance (which is no more than non-transsexual people are privileged to experience).

They wouldn't have to pretend that their bodies are different from what is expected. There are many kinds of people (besides transsexual people) who have physical conditions that they are ashamed to reveal to others.

This is the crux of the matter - the inability to accept or empathise with someone who is different from ourselves. Transsexual people are really transsexual; they may function socially as either male or female, but the shape of their genitalia at birth need not be the defining feature of their entire lives.

It is only a convenient belief that our genitals define us, made to seem logical due to a majority of people's conformance to that paradigm. This doesn't make it true in all cases. There may be a deeper or more complex truth about what makes a person male or female that we do not yet comprehend.