Worried about passing

[Northern Jane]

...  if we are out, we can't be compromised...if we are in stealth we can....

I am not so sure about that. I really don't think a person can be outed without their own participation.

I stopped identifying (to myself) as TS after surgery - as far as I was concerned, I was cured. More than 10 years later I was living in a small town when someone who had seen my medical file made it the subject of public gossip. I didn't react to the gossip - I was secure in my own identity - and the gossip faded away. Years later I asked a friend (who did not know about my childhood) what the reaction had been to the rumors.  He said that people had dismissed the rumors as implausible because it just didn't fit what they knew of me. If I had reacted to the rumors I would have confirmed them. By not reacting, people were left to draw their own conclusions and chose to go with what they knew of me.

[Kim6]

hi kim.  you know, at some point you really need to move on past worrying about what you look like...

Hi PennyJane,

Thank you very much for responding and thank you to everyone else who responded also.  I appreciate the genuine concern, the love...

We are all different and we all have different needs as personality tests will reveal, my most recent personality test was on this site, the color code test.  Anyway... I am not worried what I look like unless you mean worried about looking like a man.  That is a concern but to me it isn't as trivial as needing to look pretty or whatever.

The thing is I would rather deal with people who hate me because they know I transitioned than deal with nons who "accept" me.  Women who are just born female never have to worry about being "accepted" as women but it is something I have had to deal with a lot.  And not being considered female (for me) is a lot worse than not being considered pretty or feminine looking.  Not being considered female wrecks any social interaction for me, because I identify as female, I am female.  I need to be able to interact with other human beings as female.

Some people say that [not being "out" = shame of being trans] but that isn't it for me.  I could care less about shame.  Not being considered female and being treated like a male isn't a shame issue for me.  As a comparison it is like being a tomato and having everyone talk about you as if you are a pineapple, it just isn't right and it makes all discussion and interaction into a farce plus none of the other tomatoes will take me seriously and all of the pineapples think I am gay pineapple.

Anyway... I would rather be with people who hate me who are at least being honest with me than be with people who "accept" me as a woman because I can see through it and for me it is less tolerable than hate, at least hate is honest.  All I have to do is hang out with someone who "accepts" me as a "woman" long enough and eventually they will screw up or the situation will become a product of their actual belief or actual disbelief, it even happens among other women who transitioned.  I can't handle that, I can't handle the lies and the deception so if I could become a "liar" or "stealth" or "a woman" in order to protect others from having to lie then I would rather do that, whenever possible.  But personally I have found that at the end of the day we are what we have done.  We are what we do, say...  We are what we admit to.  We are what we settle for. And we are what we accept.

So I would rather spend the rest of my life trying to have the life that is right for me and fail than to lie to anyone here and say I am ashamed to be trans.  Before transition I identified as being female, during transition I identified as being a transsexual female, after transition I identified as being a woman.  It isn't that I am ashamed of being trans, it is just that I am no longer engaged in that process and that process was never an identity for me except while I was engaged in it.  It is like I am not a runner, sure.. if I have to I will run but I am not a runner.  If I tell people I am a runner it gives them the wrong idea, same with telling people I am trans.

[Vexing]

Some people are just hung up on the way they look, regardless of whether or not they are trans.
Of course, if you're one of those people, being trans isn't going to help