All of us are going to be ambassadors / educators / path makers for others to some degree or other just by transitioning and living our lives. That can be hard enough. You don't always have to do more.Originally Posted by ErikaS
There was soldier who was a out trans military activist who killed herself a few months ago. A lot to carry.
Anyway you have some time as you move down that road to think it all thru.
I don't really worry about it much, I don't go around telling everyone, but if someone knows or asks I won't deny it either. I just smile, and wink as if it is something we both know now.
I have cis folk who know, and quite a few who don't. Not much difference in the way they are around me.
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
Who says it isn't a burden now? I've never said that it wasn't. It exerts a terrible toll on every single person I've watched do this, including me. I have no illusions about that - the trans men and women who've gone before me locally are generally burned out, have massively neglected self-care, get dumped by some of the big LGBT groups as a political liability. My predecessors are generally a freaking mess. I've spent time counseling one of them who's just a train wreck. The irony of this is quite apparent to me, as is the cautionary tale.
I do what I do for several reasons:
1. It serves some purpose. I've helped quite a lot of people at this point.
2. I believe visibility helps all of us, although it is an insufficient reason for me to do this.
3. For whatever reason, I am able to be public about this in a way that many other trans people I know are afraid to experience. I can do it.
4. I feel an obligation to do it, at least now.
5. I spent my whole life in the closet. The idea of staying in one bothers me.
My goal in trying to help is to end up less screwed up than my predecessors. I have no illusions of making a career out of this. The party will end, I'll either burn out, or become a liability and get ditched, or both. I have a very clear understanding of how that happens. (Hey, I may return after my GRS next week to discover they don't want me back - such is the nature of non-profits.)
What I do is actually exceedingly stressful, and sometimes rather unpleasant. I am exhausted most of the time. I have no outside hobbies or interests to speak of. And the great part is that because just about every single problem I deal with is beyond me, there is no question that I'm going to fail. Sometimes spectacularly. Hopefully not fatally for anyone. I am not an especially competent or talented person. I am a computer programmer trying to help other people out of sometimes awful situations, and to speak to cis people who'll listen to me. There is absolutely nothing about my past, my training, or the skills I've developed over my life to prepare me for any of this. In fact, I've spent a bunch of my life avoiding it. And yet, here I am.
At some point, when I can no longer serve a purpose for others by being public, I expect my boyfriend and I will pack up our shit, and get the hell out of Texas. This state sucks. I hate it. I've always hated it. I hate the weather, I hate the mindset of many of the people here. I may very well decide to live as anonymously as I can. I may not though - I may hate the BS I take from cisgender folks, but I hate the feeling of withholding the truth about myself even more. Who knows how that will change in the future.
Please don't think I expect many other people to do this, be an activist. I don't expect anyone to do it. I think you have to be insane to do what some of us do. I have no issue with people who choose to be stealth, or at least greatly limit their disclosure. I know why they do it - it's WAY easier, for the most part.
Since I have been transitioning for almost a year and a half I probably have encountered some burdens. I agree that I may need to experience more before stepping fully into the activist role. However I know what I intend to do at this point. No judgement if people are able to just go ahead with thier life privately . I have kids and a wife and a public job I intend to keep. Given this environment I don't see any possibility to not be faced with a public transition.
On that note I am having dinner with my hero, Theresa Sparks this Evening. She is the head of the Human Rights Commission for San Francisco I am indebted to her for her public transition!
This! I have a high visibility at work. I can easily hope that I normalized this for many people instead of it being "the person down the road that they never meet". They know me and work with me and now they see it isn't a big deal. And that will be the same for Becky and for Suzanne and has been for Kaitlyn and Angela I would think.
For me, I sometimes wonder if my ability to transition while still embracing my past as being good (not as an identity but as a life) allows me to be open because the tie to my past is just fine with me. I feel authentic now and I can see all the differences in my life because of this wonderful thing they call transition. But I really don't care if others know. I may not tell them up front, but I am okay if they learn. Because of that, I choose a path other than just normalizing as a woman and moving on as I am fine. If it doesn't work, then maybe will think about a retirement village instead of retiring in place.
If you have not ever tried to live stealth, I am here to tell you it is not an easier life. It is a hell of a lot of work! You are always looking over your shoulder and covering your ass. Dreaming up new lies and excuses then trying to remember who you told what. Think of a fugitive on the run. I tried that for a few years. I don't know many that were ever able to live that way very long.
For quite a few years now, I have just tried to live my life. If a situation requires me to out myself, I do. To most of the people around me, I am just that crazy blond architect chick that is willing to help anyone and everyone that needs some help. Believe it or not I have gotten quite a few dates because I can weld and am a mechanical wiz. I can't tell you how many farmers stop by needing something welded on their farm equipment or they can't get their combine started. It usually pays off too. It is nice to wake up on a cold winter morning and find your 1/4 mile driveway all plowed out. The majority of the women in the area are always stopping by to visit or I am going past their house and stop in for a while. I do nothing special. No parlor tricks. I just be myself. That is what it is all about. Try it.
For the first year of full time, I worked for a company where everyone knew. No big deal, no different treatment compared to before I transitioned.
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Now I work elsewhere and no one knows. Better for me, but in reality not much different, just how I feel about it.
Last edited by Angela Campbell; 08-28-2015 at 08:09 PM.
All I ever wanted was to be a girl. Is that really asking too much?
I think I could have written this exact post 2 years ago. In fact, I bet one could find something very similar from me in the archives.
My sincere hope is that you can keep this feeling. That all of the new girls can stay above the fray. I know I stand on the shoulders of giants, and as the new girls climb up, I truly hope my generation of sisters has helped to make it a tiny bit easier.
You did Melissa. We even had some arguments about it. It's not about hiding; it's about giving oneself the chance to live on one's terms.
It's Frances with an E, like Frances Farmer. Francis is a man's name.
Not that I have a large dog in this fight as I am not transitioning but I do have an understanding of how this affects me in my current situation . . . so please don't take offence.
I really don't have the ability to hide as people in my life and at work see me as both a man and woman. When I came out in the military it went quickly in my circle (the Canadian military is small in comparison to the US military). Within a week of release to my Branch it was wide spread and right up to the Chief of Defence Staff (akin to the US Joint Chiefs). I have an upcoming working group at a major training base and quite a few people on that board have known me as a man (I went through training with many of them) and I was contacted last week by the commander of the school (another close friend) who wanted to know if I required any special accommodation if I was planning attend the working group as a woman not a man. I am planning on doing so, but I had never informed him or the base training staff but they knew so I informed them I would be and no special accommodation is required. So I cannot hide only embrace unfortunately . . . not complaining before anyone assumes that . . . merely pointing out I made a choice when I went down this gender fluid pathway and it has cost me some good friends but I have made others.
Cheers
Isha
Isha - it blows me away that you manage as you do, in a millitary environment no less. i just can't imagine doing what you do. Your pretty freaking brave. There should be a reality show on you.
Figuring out your identity and making the decision to transition. While difficult and confusing us actually the easy part. It's all the external stuff that makes it difficult.
It's very euphoric when first coming out and it's do liberating you need to scream to anybody that can hear. "In transitioning". Yay me. But that again is the easy part. Who are you? What is your ultimate goal? Do you want to live in trannyland or do you want to integrate into society as female. That's hard, damn hard. I don't have any answers. Some feel they need to disclose to all they meet they are Trans. Others go to great lengths to hide it. Finding your balance is what is hard.
It depends on the company you are with. Certainly if you are going to be intimate with somebody. They have a right to know. If they are going to be friends they will either figure it out or you will disclose. Casual encounters have no reason to know.
I said at the beginning of my transition I'm not trading one closet for another. I meant that I hid my identity and now that I let it free, I wasn't going to get stuck in trannyland. I never even gave it a thought that integrating as female could introduce a different closet.
Stealth for me at my age will never happen where I live. I am transitioning in place. I am outgoing and have no penmen meeting people. It can get tricky disclosing information. I don't volunteer, nor do I deny who I am. I joined my Sailing club as Stephanie. I've only disclosed to one member I've gotten close that I am Trans. The other member knows my brother and he outed me to her. Not intentionally but pronouns don't come easy to those that have known you a long time. I'm sure the other members have a clue, as I have been misgendered, but none have asked. They have met my ex as my friend and roommate. Not lies, but truth.
This thread is a perfect scenario sent I'm having more difficulty in my second year full-time than the first. I can predict that my third year will be just as difficult. That is unless I don't care about integrating and just live my life as a tranny.
"When failure is off the table the only thing left is to negotiate levels of success" M Hobbes
"Never Let your Fear Decide Your Fate" Awolnation
"A new dawn destroys the tranquility of the darkness" Steph W
You say you are having more difficulty in your second year full-time than the first. What type of difficulty? What is giving you the most trouble?
You get those days where for some reason it seems people are staring at you, normally no one pays me any attention.
Or days where your voice is just all wrong and the male vocal is so obvious, on those days I tell myself "So what, if people think I am trans so be it, I have nothing to be ashamed about",
yet I know the words are a lie to make me feel better, I don't want to be trans and if possible I would erase all evidence of it and run as far away as I could.
As Sue said everyone at work knows, hundreds of people and I can do nothing about that except hopefully show that we are nothing to be scared of, that it's no big deal.
Despite that I can't tell you how many times people ask me about other trans stuff, media types like Caitlyn and say, yeah but your not like that. I argue that I'm just the same, but it seems despite my obvious transition people still only see the outside. Apparently I look pretty convincing and because of that I have been accepted easier. It's sad but it really does come down to looks, hence why I am such an advocate of FFS.
It's ironic but some very open people will address me as she, while still talking about another TS as he, I correct them but they just can't see past the look of someone.
Perception is everything, no one can see into your soul.
This is the way I look at it. My situation is that I live in a very (very) small town. When I came out, I announced it to just about everyone I knew personally, since there was no way I was going to be able to hide it from anyone. I figured it would be better to be upfront about it and see what would happen. I got lucky: nobody who knows me personally has ever turned their back on me or hassled me in any way.
Now I assumed that once a certain number of people in town knew "my secret", absolutely everybody would: small-town gossip, you know. I subsequently found out I was mistaken about that. There are people who don't actually know. Why word has never got round to them, I don't know, but that's the way it is. It leaves me in the odd situation of not knowing who knows and who doesn't.
The upshot is that I don't try to hide my status, but I don't go around trumpeting it, either. I have in fact made some new friends (all of them women) since I came out, and it appears to me that most (if not all) of them didn't know at the start that I'm trans. I work on a need-to-know basis. If they're casual acquaintances, there's no need to say anything, so I don't.
But as Jorja has indicated, if you're becoming close friends, things can get awkward. Good friends do talk about their past, and if you want to be stealth, you have to decide what you want to say and what you don't want to say, and then try and remember it all and stick with it. That can be a headache. I also found myself feeling a bit dishonest in a way.
E.g., with two particular women, the talk would on occasion turn to LGBT matters, especially a few months ago when a nationwide referendum on same-sex marriage was coming up. I felt like a spy, eavesdropping on a conversation when they had no idea that I was LGBT myself. I felt like I was being a bit unfair to them. Maybe I didn't need to feel that way, but I did. They're two women I like a lot, and I felt the need to be out in the open. They never said anything bad at all about LGBT people, and I didn't expect them to, but I still didn't feel right. If they were a couple of people I didn't much like, I'd let them say what they wanted and decide what I thought about that. Eventually I came out to them and got the reaction I was expecting: "It's OK, we love you just the way you are." And both of them gave me a hug.
Another friend who's a former nurse and has seen just about everything there is to see simply said, "It's OK. I take people as they come. I look at their heart, and that's all that matters to me."
So my point of view is that it's simply a judgement call on a case-by-case basis. If you have good reason to come out to someone, consider doing it. If you don't have good reason to, I don't think you're under any obligation to.
I think if I ever write a book - I'll title it "Trannyland."
One of the things I've come to realize is that it used to really bother me that people viewed transgender persons as, at best second class citizens, and at worst as sub-human. We are sometimes viewed as so different and unrelatable that many people refuse to view us as human beings, like them.
After looking at our society, though, I've begun to conclude that this no longer bothers me as much. After looking at how the world is run, I don't really want to be like most people. The discrimination we face is an enormous problem though - that aspect of it really sucks.
I realize it probably doesn't sound like it - but I do have a fair number of friends who aren't trans. They know about me, and seem to be accepting of me. One of the things I've found interesting about this is that I frequently hear stories from them that I wouldn't otherwise hear if they didn't know that I was trans. I've had some interesting talks about race relations. I've had several people come out to me as bisexual. I don't generally come out about that so often - it's more of an open secret, handled much like some here describe the way they often don't talk about being trans. I think my openness about who I am makes some people more willing to be open with me about themselves.
That openness and honesty feels like a perk anyway.
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