artoftransliness:

How To Ask A Trans Person Questions Without Being Insensitive About It

A great text, which covers most important things to consider. It left out one thing though, that I think is very important:

Ask yourself why you want to know the thing you’re asking.

Especially if the question you are about to ask is a personal one, this is really important to consider. Why are you curious about this individual’s surgery preferences or the relation between their gender and their sexual orientation? It is very likely - in fact I would say that it is the case 99.9% of the time - that you are about to ask a personal question to to learn about a general thing. You want to know what kinds of surgery trans people can choose and how they choose between them. Or you want to know how most trans people experience the relation between their gender and their sexual orientation.

If that is what you really want to know, ask that general question. You will be less invasive, you will ask us to expose less of ourselves and you will probably get a much more useful answer. We have thoughts and opinions beyond our own personal experience of being trans. We often know a lot of trans people and a lot of different trans experiences. Without going through the painful and exhausting experience of opening up our own personal diary, we could tell you a lot about the diversity of trans experiences.