As an FTM who lived 32 years of life as a woman, and the last nine as a man, I need to comment on this thread. I think the assumptions underlying this particular study are completely bogus and that this study shows nothing more than the interesting fact that after transition MTFs make 32% less and FTMs 1.5% more money than they did before transition. My guess is that only people who know very little about trans people, and/or whose ideology already presupposes gender discrimination would take those results as evidence of significant gender discrimination in the pay gaps between men and women.

My first thought when reading this was: how hilariously absurd. Gender transition is way more complex than having a little surgery, pumping a few hormones, and poof! congratulations you're now a man (or woman), and let's see how you do in the workforce. But that's how non-trans people seem to see it, including the researchers behind this study.

The anecdotal evidence from the experiences of two FTMs was interesting. What comes to mind for me is that often FTMs feel happy and liberated after transition, and people like them better than before, and because they like them better (because they are happier, not because they are now men) they perceive their job performance to be better. Or their job performance simply IS better because they are happier and feel better about themselves!

I'm just speculating of course, I don't know the circumstances around those stories. But it seems like wishful thinking to immediately interpret those anecdotes as being evidence of gender discrimination. I mean it could be, it really could be, but I think there's way more to it than that.

I think there are many factors that play into who gets ahead in this world, and I don't believe that gender per se is one of the main ones anymore.

As a woman I was very attractive and athletic, and presented most of the time just over the border of "acceptable" femininity, (according to my subjective radar). I didn't particularly think of myself as attractive, but looking back, I see that I was. I was also smart and a good competitor, and it never occurred to me that people wouldn't be interested in what I had to say. I always felt heard, and felt seen (and mostly in a good way). I was very successful. Making lots of money was never my focus, but I always got the great internships, and the great jobs, without trying all that hard. In some ways I guess my life was kind of like what many women might imagine life is like for Men.

Then I became one.

And I'm not bitter, I promise. But life as a man has not been the rosy swan song of privilege that many women seem to think it is - at least not for the vast majority of men. For one thing, as a man I'm fairly sleight of frame and short at 5'5".

I can't begin to tell you how many metaphorical pissing contests I’ve felt compelled to engage in just to hold my ground. That was the biggest surprise of my transition: How competitive men are with each other and how status-oriented in just about every facet of life, and so much so that much of it almost seems unconscious. Competitive in a way that doesn't include women, and that women truly don't see.

I sure didn’t see it and I grew up competing with boys. I did more pull ups in my 8th grade co-ed P.E. class than any of the boys, and I was a starting guard on a boys basketball team through the 9th grade. In later years I verbally sparred with men at work and at school. I thought that competing with men was fun, and not that big of a deal.

Until I became one. And the veil was parted, and I became privy to a whole new way of viewing and being in the world.

What I began to see was this whole realm of male communication that I had never perceived before, no matter how male I felt inside, because other males did not perceive me as such and so did not communicate with me in those ways. Really unconscious stuff - body language, eye contact, tone of voice - stuff that's so under the surface that it's really hard to incorporate into your personality in your 30s.

Napoleon Complex? Oh yeah. That was definitely me. In the nether world of male hierarchy, where I was not only short, but had modulated voice tones and a propensity for cooperation (despite my love of competition), I was instantly rendered invisible and unheard, a man judged by other men to be of no consequence. My overall sense of status in the world certainly felt much lower than it ever had - not that I had ever before considered such a thing as status, until mine became painfully obvious.

Of course I’ve learned to find my way, and I’m starting to get off topic here. My main points are these: 1) Interior, subjective attitudes and beliefs powerfully influence how one fares in life 2) men and women have different battles to fight, and life isn’t really “fair” for anybody, and 3) Why men make more money than women is just not one of the important questions anymore.