which is the most realistic approach for the future benifit of living trans

[stephaniec]

as the debate rages on about stealth, " passible ,  non passible" etc, what would you say is the most realistic and beneficial approach for the community as a whole. 1: to exhaustively help the total community to achieve a moderate form of stealth through absolutely all means possible through surgery, training, electro, etc, or 2:  through every possible means of education, media , politics, revolution, grass roots door to door education, etc, have the reality of being transgender become mainstream. Being totally stealth , non trans, or totally open where trans basically becomes stealth because its totally integrated into the fabric of modern society.( Disclaimer, not meant to cause harm, it's Saturday night and I have nothing else to do)

[JoanneB]

I would opt for a third option of neither/both. IMO in this day and age "Stealth" is an illusion. We all have a paper trail. The older you are, the deeper the pile is. This does not necessarily imply "Being Open". What about "No big deal. It is what it is"

I know that if the time comes that I need to transition to full-time, stealth is not an option. I live on my paper trail. I rely on being good at what I do. So OK, now what? I have to transition, I still have to be me, as in all of me.

I see no need to be in the public domain. No need to shout from the roof tops "I am a Transsexual". Not being that way does not preclude me from helping other folks in their journeys, just as I have been to date. Nor does it mean that when a "Teachable moment" presents itself I will avoid it. I may.... Since not all people are open to enlightening. But again it does not mean I will not correct people on pronouns, or speak up about the realities of being trans.

Public advocacy is needed today and will be for decades to come. There are many brave souls out there now fighting that fight for us. I've been a small part of it myself helping to get a trans protection bill passed in Maryland. Being an advocate is like being trans. It encompasses a broad spectrum and is not a one size fits all situation. Nor is it something everyone is capable of doing. I am honored and thankful to personally know and to have met some of our more vibrant advocates. Yes, I sometimes feel a bit of guilt about not being as passionate as they are. As a child of the 60's (OK 50's), I've seen a lot of social change take place thanks to these passionate folks.

We all do what we can, what we are capable of, when called upon. If being "stealth" is the only way you can live your life, fine. Who am I to question it? I wish we all can live our lives without gathering any unwanted attention. So does a person born with say a cleft pallet.

The only I can foresee us achieving any moderate form of stealth is by transforming society, not us. Many us will innately want to live up the "norm" for our chosen gender. But only when society at large accepts us as that gender will we ever truly achieve stealth. Or, in other words, "So ____ is trans. Whats the big deal? I'm left handed! No diff."

Another few hundred years perhaps, likely never globally. But we can dream. Sexuality and gender are too primeval to the human experience to ever go unnoticed, or especially noticed w/o an opinion(s) Publicly displayed and privately held.

[Alaia]

I'm going with the third option of neither/both as well. But only because I think people should feel free to choose their own path. If they want to try and be as passable as possible so that strangers and casual acquaintances don't know any better, then awesome, I say go for it. On the other hand, if they want to live loud and proud trans*, educating the public and working towards acceptance into mainstream society then again, that's awesome, go for it!

What needs to stop is any judgement towards each other because one person choose a different path than the other chose to take.

[ImagineKate]

I think everyone is different and one size fits all isn't reality.

[Cindy]

My personal opinion is that in 5-10 years time we will be where the GL community is. No one will care if you are T or not. We are just human beings who live their lives and to be accepted as such.

That is where TG are in Australia to a very great extent. Fear is in the TG community, not elsewhere.

How you in the USA deal with the fundamental religious minority is a special case.

[kast]

The flaws in the first option are 1. not everyone wants to be full stealth or even partially stealth, 2. not everyone wants all available forms of transitioning. That option is reminiscent of how we were treated in the old days (ie; be straight, sterile, have full srs, burn your bridges, integrate into society and never speak of your past ever again), which doesn't really help our community, it doesn't promote any social progress, and it's even unethical to force such treatment on everyone (it sounds like 'full transition or no transition', basically).

You can never really go wrong with educating people and encouraging society to be less ignorant and more compassionate. The trans people who want to be open about themselves should have a supportive world to do that in, and the trans people who want to be stealth should be able to live their lives in peace. And both of those groups should have access to the medical treatments they need. The bottom line is let everyone choose to do what's right for themselves as individuals.

[ImagineKate]

My personal opinion is that in 5-10 years time we will be where the GL community is. No one will care if you are T or not. We are just human beings who live their lives and to be accepted as such.

That is where TG are in Australia to a very great extent. Fear is in the TG community, not elsewhere.

How you in the USA deal with the fundamental religious minority is a special case.

I've never really had an issue and I live in a fairly conservative place. As far as I know the issues with religious fundamentalists are only in a few places like the Deep South. Most people here do not care, really. Many people don't want to go there for other reasons too.

The major metro areas are diverse and accepting. Especially major cities like NYC and SF which have well established LGBT communities.

[Cindy]

Nice to hear Kate. I just read and hear so much bizarre stuff from weird politicians and strange preachers. It saddens me.

[FTMax]

I think everyone is different and one size fits all isn't reality.

Agree with Kate here, but chose neither. I don't think we'd ever be able to take a blanket approach just due to how different the social climates are in every area of the world. I think the nature of transitioning is also so individualistic and personal that we can't really confine ourselves to just those two options.

Realistically, I think acceptance will mostly boil down to time, advocacy, and positive media exposure. I have had nothing but positive experiences coming out and interacting with the world as a transman, but I live in DC where all things LGBTQ++ are relatively well known. In places where that isn't the case, we need friendly faces and caring, informed allies to normalize being trans to the greater community.

[suzifrommd]

There are people for whom stealth is not possible. There are others whose emotional constitution precludes it. I fall into both categories. For our purposes, I think no matter how much we concentrate on your #1, we owe it to so many of our fellow transfolk to spend sometime on #2.

[Emmaleigh]

I want to believe that this country (the US) is currently being swept (or dragged kicking & screaming, depending on your viewpoint) into a future that simply accepts sexual orientation as a non-issue, and I can't help but believe that acceptance of gender orientation will simply be a natural part of that progression. I feel as the doors open wide they become un-closeable, and all the possibilities of presentation will just be quietly integrated into the new 'norm'. I feel that as more of our society adapts to and becomes comfortable with 'queer', they will find 'trans' not so difficult.

I would love for this to happen overnight, but nothing ever moves that fast. I've always felt a compassion for the out-spoken pioneers on the forefront of societal change, who must wait and work through their entire lives for what will eventually become a simple, and maybe only foot-noted, part of our past. The rest of us muddle through day by day, accepting what comes our way on the timetable in which it happens.

As illustration, I was born in the 50s, and grew up a sci-fi nerd. Im constantly irritated by the lack of technological achievement. But if I take a moment to look around, there have been tremendous changes within my lifetime, just not on the epic scale I have so impatiently awaited. I mean, I expected to have FTL travel, planetary colonies, interstellar & inter-species trade...

So, I do believe in an evolution of our societal acceptance that ultimately considers such personal traits as sexual and gender orientation and expression to be no more controversial than having brown eyes or wearing a blue t-shirt.

All I think I'm trying to say is, we need all of it, on every level. We need to offer and provide awareness, in any way we're comfortable, whether it be outspoken political activism (on any scale), or simply living our lives as we individually see fit, whether fully openly or fully stealthed or at any point between. After-all, we're always talking about the rainbow or the matrix of options that defines us individually, it should also define our individual approach.

[Carrie Liz]

It has to be #2.

As much as I wish it could be #1, because being stealth and passable has tangible benefits on trans people's mental health, is simply not achievable for everyone, and that is just the way it is.

Not everyone has money for FFS, voice training, ANY of these transition-related expenses. Some can't even afford laser or electrolysis, and can barely get access to medical care. And many of those who can't simply don't have the genetics to be passable without it. Promoting the message of "you have to be passable and stealth to be a real member of your identity gender" marginalizes those without access to those procedures, and makes one's very validity dependent on a lottery of genetics, class, and family wealth.

Promoting passability above all else marginalizes a significant sector of the trans community, as well as leaving people who simply wish to express gender-nonconformity without getting any hormones or surgery, out in the cold. The culture needs to change so that people are free to dress as they want, act as they want, identify as they want, and do so without discrimination, harassment, and marginalization. Promoting acceptance helps EVERYONE, while promoting passability only helps those who can achieve it, and actually further hurts anyone who can't.

Sincerely,
Someone who can't afford FFS, was bullied all my life for being gender-nonconforming, was fired from two jobs due to my trans status, and refuses to support the cissexist heteronormative culture that allowed all of that to happen. For months I believed I'd never be able to pass. What if I never did? What if I hadn't by some lucky fluke started passing after 15 months on HRT where I couldn't? I refuse to force ANYONE to go through that, and the self-hatred and feeling of marginalization that comes with it.

[Emmaleigh]

Nice to hear Kate. I just read and hear so much bizarre stuff from weird politicians and strange preachers. It saddens me.

Cindy, it saddens many of us in this country. I have a deep underlying fear that the great Silent Majority of the 60s and 70s in this country will once again remain silent, and allow the religious zealots and the war-mongers and the political right have their way. Fox News and the "Tea Party" (what a joke) and the Republican right have an astounding grip on the fearful and the uncompassionate and the uneducated and the biased and the knee-jerk portions of this country.

I can readily foresee them coming into power in a way that transforms this country into a religious "neo-christian" despotism that plunges us into a fundamentalist government-controlled closed-border dark-ages of epic proportions. I fear that what I see as a generation's lack of political awareness or concern will near certainly guarantee them and their children a fate of oppression and repression for decades to come.

Obviously, this is not the thread for this topic. I apologize to all for the side-track rant.

[ImagineKate]

Cindy, it saddens many of us in this country. I have a deep underlying fear that the great Silent Majority of the 60s and 70s in this country will once again remain silent, and allow the religious zealots and the war-mongers and the political right have their way. Fox News and the "Tea Party" (what a joke) and the Republican right have an astounding grip on the fearful and the uncompassionate and the uneducated and the biased and the knee-jerk portions of this country.

I can readily foresee them coming into power in a way that transforms this country into a religious "neo-christian" despotism that plunges us into a fundamentalist government-controlled closed-border dark-ages of epic proportions. I fear that what I see as a generation's lack of political awareness or concern will near certainly guarantee them and their children a fate of oppression and repression for decades to come.

Obviously, this is not the thread for this topic. I apologize to all for the side-track rant.

I don't want to turn this into a political debate but we have adversaries all over the political spectrum. Just sayin.

[stephaniec]

My personal opinion is that in 5-10 years time we will be where the GL community is. No one will care if you are T or not. We are just human beings who live their lives and to be accepted as such.

That is where TG are in Australia to a very great extent. Fear is in the TG community, not elsewhere.

How you in the USA deal with the fundamental religious minority is a special case.

well. we'll see who wins the next election. to get an idea how the progress goes.

[Obfuskatie]

I think finding a way to start a transgender lobby as well as establishing shelters with accessible healthcare would be more beneficial than anything else.  We don't need for all trans people to rise up, we'd need all our allies to do so as well.  We aren't alone, and can still work in the system to change it for the better, but we still need to have a very public arm representing our body to the public.
Instead of letting the media frame transgender politics, it'd be nice to be organized, and actually choose eloquent spokespeople.  Trans-issues have been traditionally sidelined as a part of negotiations for gay and lesbian rights, although we shouldn't be lumped together in the first place.  We have to rely on our own initiative to achieve palpable progress.


     Hugs,
- Katie
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