Abstract
This paper examines the features of young transgender people's self-identities, which include their life stories and body images, from interviews with those who have a sense of discomfort in their assigned gender identities. These interviewees define their identities not as ready-made social identities and essential attribute but as unique and selective ones. In this paper, we call these identities the interviewees' “actual identities”. Also, we see that interviewees' body images do not fall into dominant existing categories. Contact with other sexual minorities facilitates recognition of their identities and body images as different from those available as part of a readymade social identity. Their actual identities and body images are altered reflectively, which invites uncertainties in their future.
