I'd like to learn where everyone comes from. Maybe tell me about the place that you grew up in if there is anything special about it.

If you come from the middle east, Africa, or some other place like that, what is it like to have gender issues and live in those places? Is it any different from maybe living in the United States for example?

I'm sorry if this has been asked...I'll take it down just ask me... I'm sorry if this is a dumb topic...

I'm Swiss.  I've never lived in America but to my knowledge the US isn't a poor country.  Switzerland's an example to many of the so called industrialized nations but We haven't any GRS surgeons here.  XO.

There are many places in America that are not very well off, some of the Native American Reservations, rural areas, and inner city ghettos that are pretty poor, but they can not match the poverty of say Haiti or Southeast Asia.

I'm from Austria (so basically Blanche's neighbour. Hi, neighbour! )
We're not the richest country in Europe, more like average, but it's okay. The two main problems about being TS (or just queer) here is for once that we are a very small country - not even 8 million inhabitants, so there isn't much of support or anything unless you are lucky enough to live in the capital (you could maybe find a support group in the about two other 'big' cities we got). The other problem is that the church has still too much to do with the state (mainly Roman Catholic, by the way), not in a direct, but indirect way.
A good thing about being TS in Austria is that at least Germany, where they got lots of surgeons and stuff (I have seen some amazing pics), is not far away.

I'm from South Africa, and though I grew up white, middle-class, our political and economic realities didn't really lend themselves to transition, or even understanding what being trans was. As it was, a big part of why I'm only transitioning now is because I grew up with a severely skewed view of transsexuality and consequently myself due to the influence of the state religion: Dutch Reformed. It was only when I went to Taiwan to teach English (aged 24) that I got access to proper internet and could start learning.

Things haven't improved much for the poorer sections of the population, and because of limited access to information infrastructure like broadband, there is little awareness of trans-issues. Programs like Oprah and others, having recently featured trans episodes, have raised awareness somewhat, but it is still very-much a taboo in a country where sections of the population still burn 'witches'.

Access to care is ... patchy, at best. There are a handful of people in Johannesburg and Cape-Town that have some experience, but there is no real standard of care. People tend to make it up as they go along. There is a unit at the Academic hospital in Pretoria that studies transsexuality and does about 4 surgeries a year, but they are VERY old fashioned (circa 1970 SOC, maybe) and apparently their surgical work is also not highly regarded, as they use a much older method prone to complication and error.

That said, if you can get past the waiting-list, lie your way past the psychologists and stay sane for long enough, you can have surgery for about R500 - 50 USD. ... as long as you don't mind them cutting out a part of your intestines to fashion a vagina. As for FtM, nada, that I know of.

Ultimately, you transition privately in ZA, or not at all, and with limited choice, you take your chances, and go to Thailand for surgery. Many people do what I do and attempt to go overseas to transition, but that of course brings a whole different set of difficulties along with it. In ZA, transition is really just for the rich. Of course, you can do a street-transition like in many other places in the world, but we all know how terribly wrong those can go.

~Simone.

I lived in the Philippines (in and around Manilla) for six months and this is what I gathered and was told by locals there (someone more rooted in the culture, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Although being a very Catholic-driven society, Catholicism is interpreted with more emphasis placed on the 'loving' one another as opposed to "anti-gay" tradition. As a result, there seems to be a huge LGBT population. Wherever I went, for every given, say, 50 people, I saw at least one transgender girl. Gay and lesbian seemed to be common place. Now, I'm assuming, because of the economic status of the country (there just isn't much money going around), transgender girls aren't always on hormones. The ones I saw (1 of 50) didn't seem to be on hormones but dressed in female attire. I knew of a number pretty "unnclockable" girls, so since I can't count those, I'm assuming the 1 in 50 to be higher.

I also don't know how they're treated in society, I just know there were a lot, and from what I was told, the climate within families seem to be very open to having LGBT children. When I came out and the news spread to family all over the Philippines, I received a lot of calls of support and well-wishes.