I dislike this idea that being stealth is harmful to the trans community a lot, and that somehow we "owe" it to the community to be out. I don't owe anyone jack, and I wouldn't help anyone by being out, I'd only be preventing myself from being myself, and that's the whole point of transitioning for me. Just because I'm stealth it doesn't mean that I don't help other trans people either. Maybe I don't post on here all that much, but I don't feel like I have much to offer you guys, I'm not good with emotions at all, so I prefer to frequent UK-centric facebook groups where I can dabble in facts and help people navigate to where they need to be. I may not be out, but I can help still help others.
Would some nicer portrayals of trans people in the media really make all that much difference to the way that cis people treat us? Nope, in my experience people only become accepting of trans people once they know someone personally and have taken the time to get to know them, either because they've been forced into a situation, or didn't know they were trans to begin with. Coronation Street had a trans woman character from 1998 to 2014, but it changed nothing as to my grandfather's perceptions of trans people, and nor did numerous gay relationships and storylines on that and other soaps to change his views on homosexuality. I know of several people who have spoken horribly about trans people, but upon discovering that I was trans they've been completely fine with it, and seem to have changed their views on me, not just to my face, but also behind my back, as news would have gotten to me if they hadn't been.
Even if you don't want to be stealth, you're not going to wander around with a big neon sign announcing to everyone you meet that you're trans. Once you are read as male consistently and have documents that are in the correct name the majority of people aren't going to know, and thus won't have the opportunity to be prejudice.
Anyway, getting back to the topic on hand, school is just a fraction of your life. You may not think of it now, but once you leave you probably won't see any of those people again. I could count on one hand the number of people I've spoken to, either in person or online since I left school. One person from college spoke to me because he wanted to know if I still had some work so he could copy it. If they do treat you poorly -- and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that most of them won't -- then you never have to see them again after you leave. I came out to two hundred people, mostly aged at the lower end of 17 to 36, plus at least fifty adults, and only two of them ever spoke a bad word, and they were admonished by people who weren't even friends with me before I got to say anything.
My motto for things like this is always that I'd rather be hated by others than hated by myself. You can escape other people, you can cut them out of your life, you can move, you don't have to have them in your life, but you can never fully escape yourself. There's a reason that transgender people have pretty high rates of drug/alcohol abuse, self harm, and suicide; they're trying to escape themselves, but they never really manage it.
