On Coming Out Trans (+)
by: Autumn Sandeen
Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 17:00:00 PM EDT
http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7505 (http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7505)
There's a real difference between coming out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and coming out as transgender and/or transsexual. When LGB folk come out, it's generally a lifetime thing; it's an outward look at the gender(s) of people that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who are attracted to. With trans people, it's an inward look at gender, and then how gender is expressed externally; the goal of many transsexuals isn't to live as trans, but instead to live seamlessly at one's target sex. That that means for many trans people coming out is a transient thing. The publicly trans subcommunity of the LGBT community is the only community its people graduate from to live as how they see themselves as they really identify -- as a member of their target sex.