Learning To STFU ... Or, Not
Posted January 14, 2009
http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/learning-to-stfu-or-not/ (http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/learning-to-stfu-or-not/)
The historic way women of transsexed-histories have been told we must deal with our lives after transition has been that we must hide ourselves. Go to ground like a pursued animal and hide. That advice once took care of most problems of who knows and how. Under pain of death, (ok maybe not death, but the results would be terrible anyhow) we were told, we must never reveal ourselves. Sadly, such dicta were prescribed by "mental health professionals." Of course, those mental halth professionals weren't hiding themselves forever from the world. They knew too well the adjustment problems such fear can cause. They'd have never told their children to do what they told others' children to do.
Alienation is a very real danger for human beings. If even a small number of the "sad, lonely and regretful" transitioners that Dr. Paul McHugh claimed to have found in post-op interviews and evaluations at the Johns Hopkins Gender Clinic, is there really any wonder? These women were told very basically that they were to remove themselves from their pasts and make brand-new lives from the ground up. For those who did, it was a feat that begged for adulation and recognition. I suspect though that most who did were running from vilification and dismissal by their families and friends and were overwhelmingly young. Afterall, back then they were required to be evaluated much as horse-flesh might be valued at a sale of thoroughbred colts.