Quote from: CallApril on September 08, 2016, 04:00:23 AM
Not going to lie I think I will be one of these women.
. . .
I want to learn and share throughout my transition, however long it lasts, and benefit from others experiences as much as they may benefit from mine. I think this way the knowledge and learning is passed from generation to generation. Though I am not at a stage to share a whole lot right now admittedly.
I get the idea that the more vocal and "out and proud" a community is then the easier the learning, healing and public acceptance for that group becomes. Many trans women, speaking for myself admittedly, are not ready or willing to get involved in that fight, nor do they feel they have a dog in it simply because of who they are. Many may just want to be regarded as women and vanishing into society once all their surgeries and passing is complete is the best option for them.
Speaking of Chicago trans community, when I was younger and transitioning for the first time I read a blog by a transgirl who went by the online handle Authentikate. Her website was an absolute revelation for me at the time and really opened my eyes to who I was and that this was okay.
She detailed her hormone regimen, her SRS, her FFS surgery with Ousterhout and documented her life with work, family and social life learning how to have fun and enjoy herself in the world as a young woman. It was an emotional but expertly written account and a really valuable insight into translife not just for me but for so many young women like me.
Ultimately Kate nuked her site and vanished into a life of stealth and whilst that repository is lost her experiences and knowledge was shared with thousands.
I agree with you that lots of repositories have been lost. That site you cite was active about 15 years ago. However, there were long-time transitioners at the time who tried to dissuade her, and others, from being quite so open. But what did we "old ducks" know, anyway? Blech! Paradise had just opened up and those old closet days were behind us. "I'm not coming out of one closet just to be going to go back into another one. I'm too tired for that," several of them at that time said--but in my experience that was not the nature of the T-closet.
One of Dr. Spack's college-age HRT patients explained it thus: Sexual preference is who you go to bed with. Sexual identity is who you go to bed as.
The LGB closet is one where sexual preference is in the closet. The T-closet is one where gender identity is in the closet. An LGB person comes out of the closet, but their identity remains relatively the same. When coming out of the closet a T-person's identity-markers change, even if it is to blur them or to live fluid.
In the case above, as I recall, although she was attractive and men would hit on her, her story dogged her. And one of the things we give up if we are "out" as T is control over our own stories. It is tough to negate an LGB narrative. The whole point is to put that out as "realness." No one seriously says to an LGB person, "You can't love same sex people. Your chromosomes are against it. You are delusional. You don't belong in our bathrooms. You're just mixed up about who you actually love. A person is born straight because of their genitalia." However, for a T-person "realness" can be withheld. A T-person can be aggressively misgendered while an LGB person usually would not be, save for using a slur. Every misgendering is a slur, intentionally said or not. And this goes to the heart of closets and the difference between LGB vs T closets.
The T-closet is suppressing identity, not sexuality. Sexualities are different from identities. An identity is
lived 24/7/365. Sexuality? a lot, maybe, but not quit that.
After a while, one by one, those glamor sites came down. We are no longer the hot chicks we once were. New sites with videos, no less, give more recent information. No one goes to Dr. O anymore anyway. He's busy with a winery and another doctor has taken over his medical practice.
The people from back then have finally come out of the closet and lived the lives they wanted, without a shadow back-story, by disappearing off the radar. It's coming "out" by going dark. That's why it's called stealth.
