it is completely your call. No way is the right way or the wrong way.

If you go stealth just have a backup "emotional" preparedness in case you get outed (through a medical examination, etc etc)

If you do go stealth, don't let people make you feel bad for doing so. One of the biggest attacks against people going stealth is "it's an injustice to the trans community" or "you are damaging trans awareness by hiding" or something similar. Those are grave misconceptions.

I am very much stealth but I still participate in transgender rights. My church denomination is a social justice-centered denomination and we always have been fighting for the rights of the entire LGBT spectrum as well as racial and cultural spectrum.

I chose stealth not because of animosity (like someone earlier suggested in this thread) but i chose stealth because I am a woman. I am a woman without a label attached to me. I don't make excuses like I was stung by a bee, hit by a bus, took the wrong head hair growth formula, etc etc. I accept I am transgender. But more on a deeper philosophical level of know thyself: I am a woman.

If you feel stealth is in your future and if you feel comfortable about that, do not let anyone make you feel bad (I bring this up because I have seen those kind of attacks way too many times).

On the other hand, if you wish to remain a transgender to the community to press your own way of TG awareness, then that is just as much admirable.

The truth of things are, Its Your Life.

You need to live according to what is right for you, not for someone else.

Stealth to me just means you don't go around advertising your situation.  Its just living one day at a time the best way you can.

you can ask yourself the question ...what am I? male or female?
I think you will say female isn't it>
Why would you do the whole journey of transition if you weren't female?

basically you're a woman, a woman with a birth defect, well there is a solution for it, and than when you have had that solution you are complete.
That's nice, now you're done, and when you're done you should tell people about the time that you were not complete.
So, you were a woman all that time and than you will say....I wasn't born this way but I'm a woman now.

What woman will tell she is a woman?
It doesn't make sense to me.

You don't fool anyone, they see a woman and you always have been a woman.
So, what's there to tell?

But, of course, you're the one who has to live with it and has to do what you're comfortable with, it's only my two eurocents.

Wishing you wisdom with it.
as always
love
Annette

First, I want to thank you all soooo much for all of your replies. I have had several people tell me like I said before that it wasn't fair for me to not tell people, but as several of you said I was born female, but just in the wrong body. If I could have it my way, I would just go back and be born a girl the first time, but unfortunately that isn't going to happen, so my only choice is to transition. I would like more than anything to live a normal life as any other female. When I think of people in general, even regarding a close romantic relationship, you don't tell that person you were born biologically male or female...it is sort of a given, so I think if I do my very best to live life as a female, then there shouldn't be an issue. I want to be a female and not a transgender individual and I know that may bother some people, but I truly have always felt that I was a female born in the wrong body and so I really want to live in stealth besides the few people pre-transition that know. You all have been so kind and helpful and have given me a lot of insight concerning this.

<3 Emma

There really is no Stealth Stealth, but eventually and hopefully family will slowly understand.

If I am post-op, I feel there is no reason to say I was born with something else.  By saying you are a woman you are not lying, and by having female genitals no one should question it.  As far as infertility goes, you can simply say you have been like that since birth.  He or she doesn't need to know the specifics.

For ME that is the meaning of transition.  To be seen, and treated as your own gender as per Male to Female without any mental hangups.

If you are pre-op you really don't have much a choice, and if you choose to remain pre-op forever you might have no choice.  But even there coming out could be dangerous for your emotions. It is not something I would do unless I was getting romanticaly involved.