Outing Myself

I believe I have mentioned that I finally stepped up and out by joining my local equality LGBT group.  This is huge in the sense those who talked behind my back will have to find someway else to entertain themselves.

Regardless of the outcome for all of them, I had to do what I had to do. Ironically I became involved in an in depth discussion with one of my long time friends who has stayed in the closet. (I do not begrudge him any of that.) All too quickly we jumped into one of my favorite soapbox topics: Stealth in the transgender culture. Here's how it started. I said I was completely surprised this group had no out transgender person, knowledge of our culture and almost no reference to it.


He said: "Okay, here ya go: (1) I believe that transition is about M to F or F to M paths, and if you chose to take that step you should know a little about the difficulty in getting to the end point. (2) I can see that some percentage of newly arrived F's and M's want to do something aligned with their attained gender and not risk that position by entering politics. That's their choice. On the other hand I don't have an issue with providing a little friendly support to someone on the journey, but I also disdain noisy in-your-face political activity completely."

The last reference was in response to my statement I was going to go to meetings and saying something about the lack of representation. Here is an abbreviated version of my response as I ignored the in-your-face comment:

"As far as the "going stealth" deal goes, I can see both sides of the story. Certainly we all know how incredibly difficult it is to switch genders and each is entitled to take their marbles and go home.  I do believe however that stealth is inherently wrong and will become unique to our generation. (Strictly speaking)  I attribute stealth to not risking yourself at all and it's the same as failing to cover another troop on the live BCT (basic training) range in the Army...but I know that is a bit dramatic. (We were both in the Army and I used it as a point of reference.)

You ask why I think the kids are doing it right? My latest big example was "Devon" on the Katie Couric Show.  I think in a couple of years she too will fade into the fiber of society to live as happily ever after as any of us can but she was totally stealth and still took a moment to come out and pay forward. I think the number of YouTube videos and the number of blogs are a sign of how these kids are building a better future for transgender people of the future. Their generation will change stealth to life on their terms and it just will fade away as a outmoded term. If you deal in semantics they will be going stealth and just living life on the same playing field as anyone else which is all we can ask for.

Now, let me point out of why getting surgery and going stealth didn't work for our generation. Did we indeed just jump from one closet to another? Yes! We did as all of the sudden we are waking up and realizing the transgender populace is the most legally discriminated minority in the country."

As the conversation moved on I used an example of an old mutual acquaintance from the mid 80's.  She went through SRS moved out West, married a man and became a very successful business person. Absolutely one of the most exuberant natural women I have ever met. Back to the chat:

"Susan" of course is the classic good transition example of a transsexual person we both know.  But now if she lived in Arizona and not in another state, all of the sudden she may have to produce a female birth certificate to even pee in a women's room.  If she was born here in Ohio she still can't get her birth cert changed by SRS. Was she mandated to make a statement? No. Should have she? Her call. I'm only using her as an example of my perceived epidemic generational transgender stealth problem.

The kids on the other hand, are realizing they better start screaming to get laws changed because no matter how good they look (Devon) a company can just up and fire them for being trans or can't even find a place to pee.

Before you accuse me of throwing huge rocks in glass houses,  I can rationalize my lack of action by saying I started late and didn't know how far I was going with this and then I get really torn by nights like last night. You know I have never felt I could go stealth no matter how hard I tried-but I could have been there last night. So now what do I do?

You are completely right to ask me why would I jeopardize all of that work over the years? The honest answer is at my age I'm in the home stretch of my life and I know due to very unpleasant circumstances in my life, I'm left with less to lose than others.

So bottom line, I should do some public work before I fade into whatever the next reality happens to be.  If I don't and there is another stopping point in eternity I would have to put transgender inaction in the loss column. My blog, Trans Ohio workshop and the Equality group are efforts to soften the defeat.  I will get back to you on the results!"

As you can tell, I flat out wore the "soap box" out!