TRIGGER WARNING: Going stealth? Woodworking?
I was asked an odd question recently, by a therapist I see regularly. I see a therapist because this helps me to clarify my thoughts, reach better decisions about the path my life may take going forward.
My therapist asked me if I have considered 'going stealth'.
I'm a transgender person, who has essentially completed her medical and social transitions. Back in the 'bad old days' on completing transition a trans person was supposed to relocate and set up a new identity, in a new community, and sort of disappear into the woodwork. This was called 'woodworking'.
The modern equivalent would be 'going stealth', just living my life and not disclosing my origins to anyone. To be honest, this has a certain appeal to it.
Living stealth neither says I'm ashamed of being trans nor forsaking my fellow trans folks. There are usually good reasons for going stealth:
1) they may be sick of or exhausted from being treated like a zoo animal in everyday society,
2) They may feel threatened if they were to make their body history public
3) they just know that living stealth makes them the most mentally comfortable.
These are all extremely valid reasons to live stealth.
A stealth person has done nothing wrong by protecting themselves physically and/or emotionally.
NOT going stealth, for the sake of 'helping the cause' or similar arguments sounds an awful lot like a demand for self-sacrifice, the exact same thing that led myself and many others to pretend we were members of the opposite gender, self-sacrifice demanded by our culture to make others less uncomfortable. That doesn't end well.
Going stealth may be the best way to survive the next decade in this culture, as the hatred ramps up, the religious fervor for our destruction continues to grow, and the LGB community continues to turn against us.
It's on my mind.
I do not want to go back to living a lie. There is also a very real risk of becoming integrated into a community, and then having someone discover one's nature and blabbing! Even a routine dental cleaning can out us, as dentition is a strongly assigned-sex-at-birth linked trait.
The topic percolated up largely because the TDoV is approaching, and I am helping to put together the local event. I caught Miss Major's message this year, about our ALLIES being visible, and honestly think that is far more important.
We are a tiny fraction of the population, viewed as disposable, unlikely to be missed and easy to rally people against, by various extremists who need a convenient boogyperson to wave for political and fundraising purposes. That they put our lives in danger by doing this is viewed as a huge plus by them.
We need our allies to be visible, rather than stand by the sidelines and mumble "thoughts and prayers", "so sad", and so on when they see us being harassed, further marginalized, beaten, or murdered.
Without active allies, our population is so tiny that hiding, "going stealth", may be the safest path to take these days.
I am extremely privileged among our trans community to be able to pull off something like this. I know what others have had to resort to in funding their transitions, or even for simple survival.
I haven't decided yet. It is on my mind.
My terminology is likely out of date. I've always gone with 'in the closet' to refer to not transitioning and trying to live publically as our assigned at birth sex, and 'stealth' as trying to live in our gender identity while not being open about being trans.
Recently I have heard 'stealth' as a version of 'in the closet', being aware of ones transgender nature but continuing to present in public as the assigned at birth sex.
Maybe I should just go with 'woodworking', the really old term of transitioning and then vanishing from any visibility, living life in accordance with our gender identity.
