You know how they say couples start to look alike after a while? Well, they do kind of look like opposite-sex versions of each other. Which can really mess with one's head when one considers that at one time, they were the opposite sex, at least physically and socially.

Looking at the childhood picture of the FTM (Arin's his name, right?) I find myself thinking that at that age, I would have given anything for a "femme overload" kind of picture like that: poofy dress, hair bow, stuffed animal, the whole bit. That is, if I had no worries about being made fun of by my parents for it. Even gentle kidding I took with a deathly seriousness, so there was no way I was going to admit to such a thing. If there's one thing I learned at a very early age, it's that admitting you like anything feminine if you're a boy was definitely a bad thing to do.

But I realize Arin must have hated it, and knowing how the child in that picture turned out, I get the impression Arin's parents must have rammed femininity down the poor kid's throat.

Edit: And Abi, I know this probably won't help much, but I understand the way you feel. In fact, it made me kind of tear up a bit, because I feel precisely the same way. I'm constantly looking at the mirror, videoing myself, and the like--not out of vanity, however. Quite the opposite, in fact, as I usually engage in a running inventory of the things I find wrong with me. When I was in my twenties, I was so slim that I might have been gorgeous had I gone on hormones then. But back then, I doubt any doctor would have given them to me if I asked. But then, I would still have had the curved spine and the twisted body, so who can say how I might have looked?