Stealth versus Invisibility

 I have re-written this post several times as I try to include all of you who are still living in your closets. Finally, I decided to go ahead and publish it because hopefully there will come a day when you too can live freely as your authentic selves. Now, here is the post:

I used to resent quite a few of the transgender women I knew who underwent gender realignment surgery then promptly went stealth. By "stealth" I mean  they went away to simply live their lives away from the remainder of the transgender community. Before you say the often irritated and jealous transgender community...I agree. In fact,  in many ways, I don't blame them. 

Even so, to a large degree, there were very few trans women and men to follow.. No one to tell us it was perfectly OK to feel and act the way we do.  

Over the years, I have battled the urge to go stealth even though for the most part it has been available to me. Much of being able to go stealth has much to do  with my partner Liz as it does with me and any so called passing ability. Since I so rarely go anywhere without her, I am so very used to letting her lead the way with calling me the proper pronouns. 

Sometimes I wonder if being too invisible as a transgender woman once again is letting the community as a whole down. Or what the subject even means to the average transgender person just trying to get by.  

As I try my best not to be too in depth about the topic at hand, recently I had a chance to unfortunately witness yet another ugly episode of transgender infighting. To make a long story short, in the transgender - cross dresser support group I am in (or used to be), a disturbance erupted between two members basically concerning who was more trans than the other. 

Once again it seemed to me, the more things change over the years, the more they stay the same. I mean really, what does it mean if a person is more trans than another.

Maybe on the other hand, as a community we should protect the out and proud leaders we have gained such as Laverne Cox.   

The more out and proud trans people we have, the more chance we can defeat the evils of the stealth and the invisibility culture.  

One of my Faves

 Out of the many invisible Facebook friends I have, one of the ones who is not and I am absolutely fascinated with is Melonee Malone (no relation to Connie). In addition to being beautiful, she adds uplifting inspirational posts about surviving life as a transgender woman.

On this Labor Day weekend, here is Melonee: on a rainy morning in her native Wisconsin. 

Trans Survival in a Cis Gender World

 

No matter where you find yourself  in the coming out process, I am fairly sure along the way you may have encountered some resistance to changing genders. Mine came years ago when I was called a pervert in a women's room I was using. Later on that same evening I was asked to leave the venue all together. From other happenings similar to that, I developed what I call "Transgender PTSD".(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) On occasion, I still experience it today.  

How did I survive? Basically, everytime I had to go through extremely negative experiences, I shed tears and went back to the drawing board and tried to improve my exterior self to match my feminine interior self.  It was tough for me because I had very few feminine traits to build on after spending decades perfecting my macho act. Along the way, I still lived in fear of hearing the dreaded "Hey! That's a man in a dress." 

Gradually I did improve my appearance as I learned to dress for other women and to blend into where ever I was going. An example? If I was going to one of the upscale pub/restaurants I went to socialize I would wear a fancier outfit which would indicate I was a professional woman of some sort. On the other hand, if I was going to meet my lesbian friends at a sports bar we normally went to, I would wear a nice pair of jeans and top. All of a sudden, my life in the cis-world became easier.

When my life really became easier was when I started hormone replacement therapy (HRT). All of a sudden I went to the tipping point of no return. My face and skin started to soften as my hair began to grow along with my breasts. Relatively quickly I reached a very androgynous spot in my life. Finally cross dressing as a guy felt very wrong. 

I need to emphasize none of this was easy. I went through terrifying times all the way to feeling euphoric with my progress. Crossing the gender frontier could be a path I could follow after all. 

If you are considering following the same path, don't go it alone. Find a therapist or a gender professional to monitor your bloodwork and hormones. Estrogen can be a good thing until it goes too high and can become toxic.

In the meantime, try to relax and enjoy the ride. Very few humans have the opportunity to experience both of the binary genders up close and personal.

When it happens for you, you too will be a true survivor.