Jenner's new identity highlights transgender issues

[traci_k]

Jenner's new identity highlights transgender issues

http://news.yahoo.com/jenners-identity-highlights-transgender-issues-074455420--oly.html;_ylt=A0LEV7ip5G5VS0wAZOsnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

AFP via Yahoo News
By Robert Macpherson
3 hours ago

Washington (AFP) - Caitlyn Jenner gracing the cover of Vanity Fair is a powerful symbol of how far transgender Americans have come -- and the many challenges they still face.
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Discrimination, poverty, suicide, even murder continue to haunt the trans community, even as it enjoys greater public acceptance and understanding.
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Those of us who are transgender know the issues, discrimination, poverty, violence, suicide, etc.. As Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Gender Equality, points out there may be a million or more transgender people in the US, and perhaps we can use the Caitlyn Jenner story to leverage educating the rest of the world about transgender issues. So I thought I would post this link so we all can think about how we want to share our stories and the stories of others so people can see we're just normal people in an unusual circumstance.

[suzifrommd]

This is the first time the average American has gotten to know a trans person *before* transition. High profile trans women, from Christine Jorgensen and Renee Richards to Laverne Cox and Janet Mock were all introduced to us after transition. True we saw Chaz Bono as a kid, but more as a TV prop than a person we got to know. But we've seen Bruce Jenner through his days as an athlete and on reality TV, so people are getting an idea that we might have been like beforehand. I think that goes a long way to humanizing us.

So many people were in disbelief when I transitioned because they had seen no sign of it from the pre-transition me. The expect pre-transition trans women to be super gay guys, not ordinary seeming folk who were born with a need to inhabit our true genders.

[Dee Marshall]

So many people were in disbelief when I transitioned because they had seen no sign of it from the pre-transition me. The expect pre-transition trans women to be super gay guys, not ordinary seeming folk who were born with a need to inhabit our true genders.

Ugh! I get that from the woman I've lived with for 34 years! Stereotypes are irritating. And I'm sure, Suzi, that there were signs, just not ones they knew to look for. The "usual" (unrealistic) signs weren't there for Caitlyn Jenner, either. Maybe, just maybe, her coming out will be good for us that way.