I'd agree with the others, the best way to learn is to ask. But you can't just start pestering people, though simply telling them during a conversation that you have questions and are curious has always been the way to go for me. And as long as you're not judgemental and keep an open mind, its informative AND interesting!

Like one trans woman I used to play video games with told me she wanted breasts, vocal cord surgery, BUT didn't want to change her other genitals. In her words "[my penis] is one of the few parts of my body I'm comfortable with"! Before I talked to her, i always assumed trans wanted to obtain ALL changes associated with their desired gender!

Talking is the best way, believe me. Writing things up is easy. But talking is sooo much more revealing and effective, that I started to prefer talking over reading hours and hours of the same explanation. Being a trans person is much more of an individual thing, so to avoid generalization I'd like to ask a trans person, in person, what they feel like. I don't want to be educated, I'd like to know and to understand.

The trans people of the world are not your personal tutors!

If you don't even care enough to read the basics, why should they think that you care enough to really understand them?

And there are writings from untold thousands of trans people, with different views, so it's not like reading will only give you generalizations. You'll get thousands of specifics.

Kudos for making the effort to understand. At the same time, I think we can empathize that part of the minority experience is forever having to explain, and not being able to simply exist.

From the Miles Davis album A Tribute to Jack Johnson:

> "I'm Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world. I'm black. They never let me forget it. I'm black all right. I'll never let them forget it."

I know that in order to talk to someone you need to learn the language.

Otherwise you're the stereotype of an English speaker going to a foreign country and insisting that people can understand you if you JUST TALK LOUDER.

You don't even seem to be doing the equivalent of picking up a tourist book containing a few phrases to say.