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Most of what I see and react to on  my social media has to do with politics or the occasional reference to the chicken chain I refer to as "Bigot Chicken." (Chick-fil-A) Last night though I received one of the more interesting questions I have seen in a long time. It came from a guy who was new to me and I immediately thought it was one of those leading posts wanting me to send them a friend request or worse. Of course I never respond to those comments. Surprisingly,  this comment was much different.

It turned he didn't care at all I was transgender. He cared because I mentioned I was transgender so prominently in my profile. He went on to say he hoped I understood he wasn't being negative but on the other hand it seemed these days everyone is trying to push their feelings on to everyone else. He used vegetarians as an example. I thanked him for the comment and said I would probably make a blog post from it. I also told him my opinion was people are so picky in promoting their preferences  is because our country is so divided these days. And the divides lead us to wanting to support a certain lifestyle. Especially when it is being threatened to be taken away.  

Then I began to think about what he said. Years ago, my ideal would have been just to live my life as a woman. Without the transgender part added on to it at all. I would have been flattered if I could have been able to go "stealth." as a woman in my life. I would have arrived at my goal of being in the same category as many of the other impossibly feminine transsexuals I had encountered in my life up to that time. What would be the harm in removing the transgender portion of my on line profile and see what happens. After all, for all intents and purposes, I have led a stealth gender life for years now in the public eye, so why not do it on line also?

Suddenly it dawned on me, going stealth about my transgender status would be repeating the same exact mistakes many of the trans generation did before me. Perhaps you remember the days when anyone who went the distance and underwent a sex change surgery (as it was known in those days) was expected to move to another town where nobody knew them. There they would to all intents and purposes disappear and never be heard from again. Which left very few "gender educators" for the rest of us to follow. When I started writing this blog approximately a decade ago, I did it with the hope I could help others who were questioning their gender also. In that sense, nothing has changed. I still hope others receive help from what I write. Even the guy who wondered why I pushed my transgender profile so hard.

I thought I would mention again briefly how important it is to stand up against the gender bigots who want to destroy us and suddenly going stealth on line would certainly not help the cause. So in the meantime, I feel I will leave my profiles alone. I am proud  of being a veteran as well as being transgender and hope I can carry it forward the best I can.