I don't know (don't know of, even) any high-profile transgender people. One of my husbands friends is transgender, but she doesn't like to talk about it, so I don't really know why she had years of hormone treatments (still has, I suppose; you have to take them indefinitely, don't you?) and traveled to Thailand to have major surgery. All I know is that it must have been very important to her to do all that; it's not something you do on a whim! And she's a perfectly normal woman now, not flamboyant at all. Heck, she doesn't even wear skirts most of the time. She still works at the same IT job, and is still as nerdy as before. She just feels more at home in her body, and has become less shy I think (I didn't know her that well before).

For me, the 'body map' explanation I've read about makes perfect sense. In fact, it's the only explanation that makes sense to me. Why else go through years of trouble with hormones and major surgery? Of your private parts? When you could cross-dress instead?

There are also people who have the same sort of feeling about other body parts. That's got to suck even worse; at least transsexuals are starting to become accepted now.