I'd like to know more about Transgenderism. I'm very much ignorant about this matter.

Hey! Reaching out to actual trans people to educate yourself and doing so in a respectful manner is a pretty good place to start. Just like cis people, though, every trans person is different and experiences their gender differently, so I'll try to answer your questions as clearly as I can, but keep in mind they relate to my person relationship with my gender.

1. How did you work out that the gender you were born as isn't your gender?

I'm a transmasculine nonbinary person, mean that while I present more masculinely, I don't find myself having any ties to being male or being female. That being said, I've always been nonbinary, even if I didn't know it. I'm AFAB (assigned female at birth), but the way medical professionals assign gender to babies almost entirely is based in what their genitals look like (their sex). Gender is the stuff in your head and sex is the stuff in your pants (primarily). I was about 20 when I had the crashing realization that my draw to more masculine appearances and my aversion (at the time) to a feminine appearance meant that I was probably trans. It took a lot of research and testing out pronouns and names before I settled on what felt the most comfortable.

2. How is it like to be trans? Like, how is your life any different since you realized you were trans?

My life isn't really all that different since coming to the realization that I'm trans. I'm happier, in some ways, to have a word to point to and say, yes, that's me, other people get me and I can be that. I know that I'm allowed to be myself.

3. How have your relationships with people you know changed since your coming out? How were they before?

To be honest, there aren't many people I've kept in my life since coming out. My biological family are very stilted about the whole thing but try very hard to use the right name, even if they don't get my pronouns right. The man I was dating at the time decided to end things with me, as I was starting to try to look more masculine and he was straight. But the cast majority of my friends have been supportive and loving and have only changed so much as to call me what I tell them to call me.

4. Is there anything at all you would like to have someone as ignorant as me regarding this issue being told?

Just remember that we're human, just like you are. We're trying to live our best lives and we just want to be respected as human beings.

1. It was a long journey that started with just general envy towards girls even as a little kid. I didn’t know why, but I wished I could be one of them. When I grew older and hit puberty my body became distressing. I constantly fantasized of having a female body, but I was very ashamed of that desire. It was a dark period of my life where I constantly tried and failed to repress it. I eventually grew a beard and tried to be a manly man, I fought the urge to be feminine and tried to convince myself that my flat and hairy chest was good and something to be proud of. I had crossdressed off and on as a teenager, and I decided to stop. Ironically at that point I began feeling that there was a duality in me, both male and female sides to my soul. I clung to the male, while cherishing the female in private. Eventually I began really questioning my gender, I had learned that there are trans women who aren’t extremely feminine and super straight, and it made me wonder if maybe that was me. One day I tried homemade breast forms and I felt right in a way I never had before. Crossdressing had always left me sad and incomplete because I just saw a man in a dress and it turned out that what I really wanted was a female body. I eventually realized that the male side of me was learned and a lie I told myself so I could pretend that I didn’t have to do something very scary. Years later I’m extremely glad I made the decision to transition.

2. My life changed a lot at first. Any major life change will do that, but as time went on it went back in a sense. I’ve been on hormones for nearly 4 years now and am more or less stealth (people only know me as a woman and my trans status is on a need to know basis). Before transitioning I was depressed, asocial, and just in a bad place. I was constantly fantasizing (often about being a woman) and I was miserable. Now years later I’m actually happy. I have the confidence and self love to date. I’m an extrovert now. I went from that weird miserable guy that strangers actually ask if he’s suicidal to that eccentric and super friendly chick that’s enjoying life.

3. My mom and I grew closer constantly for the remainder of her life. My father disowned me. My friends and I had our relationships change more because we became adults in that time (I was 20 when I started). Most of my family likes me more because I’m turning into my mom.

4. Transition was a medical necessity for me in the same way that antidepressants were for a friend of mine. I’m not trying to trick or deceive anyone, I’m just trying to be honest with myself and the world about who I am on the inside and to live a life that brings me happiness. Many cis (not trans) people think that they can tell who all is trans, but odds are you can’t. Many of us don’t pass for cis, but many of us do. Also a lot of people think everything about us is fake, so speaking for myself, my breasts are real and I’ve had no cosmetic surgeries, just hormone therapy and good genetics.

It's really encouraging to see a post like this, from someone coming from a decent, wholesome place. (Your English is great, by the way. I'm not going to say I thought it was your first-language, cos your English is finer than how people who have grown up with it speak it.) Please continue challenging yourself and acting with compassion and understanding. As titangroupie has already said, these are individual anecdotes to give you a picture, we can't represent everybody. Generally you should be able to understand transness from all this, but when it comes to specific details bout trans people, don't assume based off what you've heard here.

So, as for me personally, I am a 17 year old trans girl from New Zealand who goes by Ellie & uses she/her pronouns...

1. As early as I first heard of being trans, probably from coming across it on Wikipedia, I thought that might be me. On your question about "gender born as" - this is a misreading of the facts, it'd be more correct to say the gender I was raised or assigned as. The best science we've got right now apparently indicates that gender identity starts to develop around the age of three, so you can't be "born as" a gender. The large majority of people have a gender that's "in sync" with their physical sex, their genitals, but some do not. This leads to various effects down the line, of which I've experienced and continue to experience some. I have a "phantom limb" sense of where my vagina & other genitalia, and my breasts, ought to be, while my current genitalia feel strange, obtrusive, like they don't belong there. I assumed when I grew up that I'd be learning makeup, wearing skirts, all that sort of stuff, and when that didn't come to materialise I felt confused and cheated. I identify and get along with girls far more strongly, and don't like masculinity and a lot of male features. Being around male teenagers, I see shit I hate and can't identify with all the time - a love of yelling and raunchiness, of being the "big man" and looking for conflict, of making a mockery of everything, sex drives gone wild, yada yada. I prefer to gesture and sound like a girl, and detest my sex drive, my deep voice, my hair facially and otherwise all over, I can go on and on with listing more feelings but I'd like to get the basics down for now. Over the years I kept contemplating whether I really was trans, but life got in the way (after all, being trans doesn't magically mean you don't have a life outside of being trans; rather, it's realising you being trans is a part of your life just like all those other things you already know of), so I put it off and off because I thought I wasn't ready to be confident enough to discuss with at least a doctor, until last year when a good new friend of mine (now a close girl friend) coaxed me out of my shell.
2. Well at times in the past when I felt more girly, it hit me hard to feel like I was wasting my life on a comparatively empty male life. After embracing that I was likely trans, or at least openly talking about it, that feeling hit me brutally for a long, long time. I'm basically past it now, but that was a hell of a time. My perspective on life was already pretty gender-based, but this has multiplied it by 100x. I'm always trying to find moments, when I'm not in an environment that would look poorly on it, where I can be feminine, even if it's only in how I carry myself and pitch my voice. I seek out lessons from my "sisters" and try to find new avenues to be more feminine, such as going out shopping for girls' clothes with them or having them do my makeup. I would definitely say life's more enjoyable and above all earnest and true to who I am now. I can finally accept not feeling at place with boys or in boys' activities, and begin to hold less peer-pressured and more critical opinions.
3. All of the friends I've told have been very trustworthy, supportive people. Nothing has changed with my male friends. I'm much more of a "sister" to my girlfriends, which I enjoy very much; it's great to feel finally included and part of that whole scene. My parents are a lot more stressed, but they don't take it out on me, though their shitty theories and concerns in fairness do often get dumped on me. But they're still very loving and trying their best to look out for my wellbeing, even if they're not trying to accept me as I am just yet. Most of their concerns arise from what might happen to me; I know the risks, people get killed for being trans, but they're overstating them, and regardless I have to take those. I can't live life not as myself because of what other people think. Those officials in the school administration I've been working with (I'm planning to come out, and I'd be the first ever out while still at school) are supportive, but share many concerns about my safety. They've been wonderful, they really want to get things right and educate the school, even though it's a traditional and historically conservative institution. (Boys-only, too. Joy. I would move if I were younger, but by now I'd rather bite the bullet and at least force some change so other students don't have to go through what I have.)
4. There's a few random things I can list off. One, that period of accepting I was trans, even though I kinda sorta knew it for years, facing it and its implications head on was excruciatingly painful. It's best that trans individuals get through that as soon as possible, and have a strong support network through that process. But you've gotta realise in the end, if you let the pain hold you back, you'll never be able to put right what's gone wrong so far. Two, the doubt over being trans is very strong a lot of the time, and I've simply gotta have faith in my interpretation of the confused sludge that is my feelings. A huge amount of pressure is brought down on you, and a lot of competing sources, and you've got to try to get away from it all and look inwards. Three, trans youth are sooo getting the majority of the focus. I know very little about the issues adult transies face, but they could really do with some help, I gather. How are they supposed to deal with the loneliness; the exclusivity of their societies; their feelings of having lost a sizeable chunk of their lives? I don't know, but those questions need answering. Four, it's always a good idea to ask for the pronouns of anyone with any sort of gender non-conformity. They might not want to be called "she" but "they". I had people ask me what my pronouns were when I came out to them; it's a very simple, affirming thing that shows a basic level of understanding and respect.
5. I'm 100% happy to get back in touch and keep talking about stuff, I always enjoy a good trans yarn and am happ to educate. See you!

There is such a huge variety in experiences of trans people, but I'll share my own hoping that it can shed some light. To give some context, I'm 34 and started transitioning in the summer of 2018. Sorry ahead of time for the walls of text:

1. I started having general disassociation feelings at around 11 or 12 years old, pretty much when puberty started. These were feelings of being very passive in life, like I was just observing somebody else through first person. When I'd look in the mirror, I didn't feel any connection to my physical body, it felt the same as looking at somebody else. I also felt myself identifying with female characters in books, TV, movies, etc. much more than male characters; I especially identified with gender ambiguous characters and lesbians. These feelings continued through my teens and I began feeling envious of all the girls I saw around me: their bodies, the clothes they got to wear, make-up, jewelry, it being acceptable for them to be shyer, sensitive, enjoy cutesy things, etc. Back then there weren't many examples of transgender people in media, and not as much easy access to internet communities or info. I had developed the solid feeling that I wished I had been born a girl, and that everything about my life would feel better and be better if I was a girl instead of a boy. When I went off to college and as the internet matured, I got more exposure to the LGBTQ community and started realizing what being transgender was and started thinking that could be me. I let a lot of excuses keep me from addressing the issue though: dealing with clinical depression, struggling academically in college, having a girlfriend and being secure in my sexuality, having a "masculine" physique (tall, broad shoulders, narrow hips, protruding brow). For another 15 years I kept it repressed as I dealt with my life, going through a lot of things that kept me from addressing it but it was always in the back of my mind. Every year the ticked by it was easier to tell myself that I had missed my chance to transition, that I'd never pass or live a happy life, that I just needed to accept that I was a man and deal with it. In 2017 I was happily married (the same girl I started dating back in college), successful enough in my career to move from NYC to LA for an amazing job, and had all my other mental health problems well under control (clinical depression and ADHD). Even with all that positivity in my life, it was still eating at the back of my mind that I should have been a woman my whole life. I finally started seeking out information about being transgender online, reading about other trans women's life stories, and faced my own questions head on. I didn't want to live with this underlying misery any more, I didn't want to regret putting it off any longer. I hated myself for not addressing it 15 years earlier, and I didn't want to feel the same regret in another 5, 10, or 15 years.

2. The obvious difference is the transition itself, taking hormones to medically change my body and changing my wardrobe and in general presenting myself as a woman. Since starting hormones, the feeling of disassociation have greatly diminished; when I look in the mirror I actually feel like I'm looking at myself. Emotionally, before I felt like I was always in a fog, but now my emotions feel full and unmuted, like a movie that was out of focus before and is now fixed. The hormone change really makes a huge difference in the brain. I also care a lot more about my health and body now, so I'm exercising more and watching my diet better. The other large factor is losing all the privileges and safety of being a straight man. I'm married to a black woman, so we had to be on guard about racism already. We now also worry about homophobes and transphobes. When there's somebody demonstrating for "conservative" values on the street, do we have to worry about getting harassed by them? Are we going to be safe travelling to certain parts of the US or certain countries, do we have to re-think our vacations?

3. I'm not out to all of my extended family and old friends yet, but so far the only small problem was my mother for the first few months. But she's gotten over her hang-ups and everything is good between us. My wife and I are closer than ever, and she's actually more attracted to me than ever before (she's been openly bisexual her whole life). I've also reconnected with my brother and his family more which has been fantastic.

4. Not all transgender people have the same exact issues. Some have a lot of problems with their genitals and it causes them immense distress, while other don't care, and others love their genitals. And transitioning isn't just about being seen socially as a different gender, for a lot of us it's also the physical/medical changes. Even if there were no gender norms and people could do whatever they want without judgement, I would have still been suffering from the mental cloudiness and being a body that was the wrong shape and feel.

Hopefully this gives you some good insight, feel free to ask me anything.