Quote from: Northern Jane on February 23, 2014, 07:12:52 PM
As for "the community" it may be just my perception but it seemed that a long time ago when "going stealth" was standard, the general public seemed more understanding, maybe BECAUSE post-ops integrated and disappeared - they were indistinguishable from cis people.

Basically as long as we don't make noise and look and behave like everyone else we're fine. That's not good enough, especially for people who don't pass.

I've had people who know I'm trans ask me about periods and wanting to have kids and pregnancy a number of times. It's kind of hilarious and sad at the same time, since I never expected to want to have kids, but now imagine how a couple of people I've dated would have made really cute babies with me.

Quote from: mandonlym on February 23, 2014, 07:02:31 PM
That's why it's important for us who pass to come out and not just to sell books or self-promote. It's important for us to be seen and heard and recognize ourselves as part of the trans community, so that others can do the same.

Exactly to break the myth society has.

Quote from: stephaniec on February 23, 2014, 12:07:55 PM
Just curious from reading another thread the question came up so I snatched it because its a slow day and I run out of ideas. do you think the trans community itself and society at large gives a different value to the ones who can go unnoticed through life compared to the ones who can't ?

Yes...

Quote from: stephaniec on February 23, 2014, 12:07:55 PM

Do you think the trans community is hurting it self by the different value to individuals who are able to "pass" better?

Yes...

Quote from: stephaniec on February 23, 2014, 12:07:55 PM

Does society judge one transgender better than the other ? or are we just all lumped together? If this is a problem how can we deal with it better?

Yes...No...Through education...

Metta Zenda

Quote from: mandonlym on February 23, 2014, 07:02:31 PM
That's why it's important for us who pass to come out and not just to sell books or self-promote. It's important for us to be seen and heard and recognize ourselves as part of the trans community, so that others can do the same.

I totally disagree with this. Blending in, being seen as just another woman gave me great relief from my dysphoria.  I am not young. I am not pretty.  Nonetheless I have worked very, very hard at becoming an ordinary woman and I have succeeded.  I never get misgendered nor do I have trouble in female spaces like toilets. I finally feel right.

And you want me to give it up. To out myself in the pursuit of an idea that might or might not have effect. You want me to voluntarily subject myself back to dysphoria.

No!

By all means out yourself, but to demand it of others is unfair and unreasonable.  The whole point of transition was to relieve my dysphoria and that has worked.

I have been accused of trans-elitism because of this, because I keep my trans life separate from the rest of my life yet I do it this way because it is the only way I can reconcile the desire to help transwomen with my need to blend in to every day life. So every few weeks I attend support groups and help out there. I take newly transitioning women out in public to trans friendly places. I give them advice on clothing, makeup, deportment and voice but that is as far as my interaction with the trans community goes. I will never be a spokesperson for the community because such a public event would undo all that I have achieved.

I do not even regard myself as stealth. I am not hiding from those who knew me pre-transition. I just want to be unnoticed and unremarkable. I live where I have lived for decades. All my neighbours know who I was so I am not exactly hiding but because I now live as an ordinary woman, that is how I get treated and it is the thing that makes my life liveable and worthwhile.

I did receive support from local groups early in my transition but I have repaid that with interest and the women I helped are now helping other new women as they come through the system. I can now step back somewhat because I have trained my replacements and I am now starting to reduce my involvement with the trans community. 

You start out doing trans "things" but after a while you end up just dong "things". Surely this is the whole point. To embrace an ordinary life. To move on.

Transition is a process, not an objective.  If it becomes a lifestyle then all you are doing is moving to a bigger closet.

Hmmm... well this is a pickle isn't it? I pass 100% of the time. Hell, I skate in clothing so tight that there is *nothing* left to the imagination and still, at least three or four times a year, I have the conversation where someone I've known for years had no freaking clue. It's a thing.

Do we put too much emphasis on it? I don't know. From the perspective of someone who can have the conversation and then go right back to having that person treat me like they always have, I can say that it's a salve for my nerves like no other to just be seen as 'one of the girls' without distraction. I have no idea what a world where non-passable MtF's fully integrated in society would be like. I myself find a non-passing MtF kinda disquieting, despite me knowing exactly what the deal is and having no actual bias against them. There's just an 'otherness' quality about them which can and does disrupt the flow of an all-female space. It's... hard to deal with somehow.

Does the trans community put too much emphasis on passable trans women? Mayhaps. I think that there's a cause and effect here that we haven't talked about much. Do passable MtFs (and FtMs for that matter) rise in our political organizations because they're passable or does their passability and thus, increased confidence in society at large give them advantages in confidence and self-worth which translate to better success? Really, it's a damned hard question to answer and a passable person like myself probably doesn't have anything valuable to say in the conversation other than experiences, thoughts, and observations. Conclusions, I will leave to those who don't have an entrenched privilege that clouds their judgement.

I will say this, however. I was having a conversation with my bestie (a GG) today about the privilege of being pretty, white, and young. We both acknowledged that it screws peeps who aren't gifted by the gods to happen to be what society deems valuable in a woman at the current point in time. Her comment, however, really caught me off guard: "Yeah, I wouldn't turn it down. I mean, really, would you change it for anything?"

No. I wouldn't. It sucks, but that's what it is. Privilege. Pure and simple. Society will always privilege some above others. As Seriph said earlier, that's the nature of humanity. I can point out how awesome non-passable trans women can be by pointing to paragons of awesomeness but in the same way that large-bodied GGs can be outstanding in all other aspects of their life, general attractiveness can and will be a factor in their lives. We're changing, very, very slowly as a society but I have no idea how long it will be before there will be a absence of a category that no one would trade out of for anything.

Quote from: provizora on February 23, 2014, 08:29:51 PM
By all means out yourself, but to demand it of others is unfair and unreasonable.  The whole point of transition was to relieve my dysphoria and that has worked.

I'm not demanding anything from anyone. I'm expressing an opinion.

To me, there are two things that are clearly the case:
1. It's harder at a personal level to be out than to be stealth.
2. The more out people exist, the easier it is for society as a whole to understand and accept trans people.

So I'm not saying everyone should come out. I've said elsewhere that I respect people's right to not do so. But I don't think it somehow denigrates stealth women to say that being out helps other trans women, because it clearly does. And much like you, I live my life with people aware that I'm trans and by and large, I don't see them thinking of me as not a woman because of it.

Quote from: mandonlym on February 24, 2014, 02:58:47 PM
I'm not demanding anything from anyone. I'm expressing an opinion.

To me, there are two things that are clearly the case:
1. It's harder at a personal level to be out than to be stealth.
2. The more out people exist, the easier it is for society as a whole to understand and accept trans people.

So I'm not saying everyone should come out. I've said elsewhere that I respect people's right to not do so. But I don't think it somehow denigrates stealth women to say that being out helps other trans women, because it clearly does. And much like you, I live my life with people aware that I'm trans and by and large, I don't see them thinking of me as not a woman because of it.

the sad truth is that right or wrong or neither when the eye pleasers go invisible the community is force to bare the full weight of misunderstanding and misconception. I can't say any thing about a persons personal free choice , but the effects of that choice are not invisible

Quote from: stephaniec on February 24, 2014, 03:24:21 PM
the sad truth is that right or wrong or neither when the eye pleasers go invisible the community is force to bare the full weight of misunderstanding and misconception. I can't say any thing about a persons personal free choice , but the effects of that choice are not invisible

So if much of society considers non-passable Trans people to be "other", unlike themselves, what good does it do for a passable Trans to make their past known? They simply get reclassified from "one of us" to "one of them". Zero net benefit.

Quote from: Northern Jane on February 24, 2014, 03:30:59 PM
So if much of society considers non-passable Trans people to be "other", unlike themselves, what good does it do for a passable Trans to make their past known? They simply get reclassified from "one of us" to "one of them". Zero net benefit.

There are an incredible number of benefits to other transwomen to have transwomen who pass be out, not the least of which is that we're able to defend transwomen who don't pass rather than keep quiet for fear that we would be outed.

Also, defying those expectations is precisely what makes it hard for people to classify and turn the dynamic into us vs. them. I know from experience that people who are close to me have become much stronger trans allies since I transitioned, and many of those people wouldn't have developed that awareness without me being out and able to talk to them about various issues and questions that come up in relation to trans identity.

Quote from: Northern Jane on February 24, 2014, 03:30:59 PM
So if much of society considers non-passable Trans people to be "other", unlike themselves, what good does it do for a passable Trans to make their past known? They simply get reclassified from "one of us" to "one of them". Zero net benefit.

that's true ,but that's assuming a negative reclassification

Quote from: Northern Jane on February 24, 2014, 03:30:59 PM
So if much of society considers non-passable Trans people to be "other", unlike themselves, what good does it do for a passable Trans to make their past known? They simply get reclassified from "one of us" to "one of them". Zero net benefit.

Actually, I'll reiterate what I said earlier. The simple genetic advantage of being passable under any circumstances is that, unless you're dealing with a whack-job, it becomes a part of your back-story but doesn't reclassify you. It's unfair but it's the truth. I'm seen by my friends as a woman, not a trans chick. This is whether they know my history or not.

In short, my dear, you're wrong.

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on February 24, 2014, 04:10:21 PM
Actually, I'll reiterate what I said earlier. The simple genetic advantage of being passable under any circumstances is that, unless you're dealing with a whack-job, it becomes a part of your back-story but doesn't reclassify you. It's unfair but it's the truth. I'm seen by my friends as a woman, not a trans chick. This is whether they know my history or not.

In short, my dear, you're wrong.

So how does that benefit 'the rest of the community'?

Quote from: mandonlym on February 23, 2014, 07:02:31 PM
That's why it's important for us who pass to come out and not just to sell books or self-promote. It's important for us to be seen and heard and recognize ourselves as part of the trans community, so that others can do the same.

Maybe in a perfect world...

Quote from: mandonlym on February 24, 2014, 02:58:47 PM
I'm not demanding anything from anyone. I'm expressing an opinion.

To me, there are two things that are clearly the case:
1. It's harder at a personal level to be out than to be stealth.
2. The more out people exist, the easier it is for society as a whole to understand and accept trans people.

If we could all just close our eyes, wish, and dream. Unfortunately the real world does not work that way. Maybe 50 years in the future... perhaps.

People do lose jobs simply for being trans, people will not get a second interview for being gay, some get looked over for a promotion simply due to a rumor of being a lesbian. This stuff happens everyday. It's hard enough to find and keep a job in today's economic environment, let alone bringing your gender identity and/or sexual preferences in the mix.

And as someone mentioned earlier... even if you pass, are young, have a perfectly cis-female sounding voice, are white and educated... guess what, you can still be discriminated against. The ignorance of discrimination knows no bounds... be they related to color, age, creed, sexual preference or gender identity.

So if you choose to, and can economically function and support yourself as being out and proud... go for it. I applaud you. But beware the possible pitfalls. Me... I'm sticking to passing, blending in, mouth shut and paying my bills for the time I have left... and simply trying to enjoy every minute of my life. Life has been hard enough... and not many employers are looking for the word "transgender" on a resume or during an interview. Especially when compared to a young, white, good looking, cis-female... yep, better chance there. Sad, but true.

Quote from: mandonlym on February 23, 2014, 07:02:31 PM
That's why it's important for us who pass to come out and not just to sell books or self-promote. It's important for us to be seen and heard and recognize ourselves as part of the trans community, so that others can do the same.

Quote from: provizora on February 23, 2014, 08:29:51 PM
I totally disagree with this. Blending in, being seen as just another woman gave me great relief from my dysphoria.  I am not young. I am not pretty.  Nonetheless I have worked very, very hard at becoming an ordinary woman and I have succeeded.  I never get misgendered nor do I have trouble in female spaces like toilets. I finally feel right.
And you want me to give it up. To out myself in the pursuit of an idea that might or might not have effect. You want me to voluntarily subject myself back to dysphoria. No!
By all means out yourself, but to demand it of others is unfair and unreasonable.  The whole point of transition was to relieve my dysphoria and that has worked.
I do not even regard myself as stealth. I am not hiding from those who knew me pre-transition. I just want to be unnoticed and unremarkable. I live where I have lived for decades. All my neighbours know who I was so I am not exactly hiding but because I now live as an ordinary woman, that is how I get treated and it is the thing that makes my life liveable and worthwhile.
You start out doing trans "things" but after a while you end up just dong "things". Surely this is the whole point. To embrace an ordinary life. To move on.
Transition is a process, not an objective.  If it becomes a lifestyle then all you are doing is moving to a bigger closet.

I know I'm part of the trans community, but as far as I know I pass 100% of the time, and there's no way I'm going to out myself either. I know we get more privileges by passing, but I waited decades before I finally ran out of options and now live in the gender I've always felt right in and really belonged. I'll be sixty in August and I'm too injured and too sick to give up being to others what I've known since my earliest memory I am inside, female. I know we, as transgendered are all women, but I'm talking about the public's perception of us IF they know. Once in awhile when I read some posts I feel like I should have survivor's guilt for passing. I feel so bad for the transwomen who don't pass, but for someone to try to make those of us who pass feel guilty for living stealth is pretty angering. Why in the world would I tell anyone who doesn't know I'm trans when all I've ever wanted in my life was to be a woman? I also recently read on another thread a TS saying only about 5% of us pass all the time, but I think the percentages are much higher, though I can't even guesstimate what those percentages are. But I think those kinds of posts are both wrong and upsetting to women who may pass but who don't have much confidence yet that they do. I can practically see a new girl read "Only 5% of us pass," then ask herself, "Am I one of the 5 or the 95%?" And I think that's wrong to put doubt into anyone's mind. A woman who's transitioned will have a whole population decide whether she's passable or not, but it shouldn't be here unless she asks if she does!

Hey it's also frustrating for people to imply that trans activism has no actual effect in the world, even as people who have direct experience with said activism has seen its effects.

I take responsibility for how other people's words make me feel. No group of people can ever agree with each other completely, so some opinions that will read will bother you. Just as you're expressing an opinion I disagree with, I think it's important for you to know that me advocating for a more visible trans presence is not primarily designed to make you feel guilty, but rather to make people aware of the larger effects of their actions.

And yes, I agree that there's probably a generational factor here, and I can see it being easier for older women who are not subject to as much scrutiny to pass. It's just one of those social realities that younger women get more attention, so their gender can become more subject to scrutiny.

I think there is also another factor to consider, a factor I noticed years ago when my stealth was blown.

When someone is 'fully integrated' in voice, mannerisms, carriage, disposition, etc., they are viewed differently (by John Q Public) than those who clearly don't pass. It is like they (the public) have a much easier time accepting the passable TS as being their chosen gender than those who don't obviously fit.

When my stealth was compromised (many years ago) some people were in disbelief and some were only momentarily flustered and then went back to treating me as cis and they keep forgetting that I wasn't born cis - even my doctor keeps forgetting.

I'm sorry if this is going to ruffle some feathers, but the big problem with being transgender is that people don't come out in the open. That status quo of the transgender will never change. Society only sees that ones that don't fit the perfect idea of beauty as deemed by the Donald Trump's Absolutely no stigma attached to being transgender will ever change with that attitude of passing acceptability. I'm just starting my transition and I'm pre op. I don't know how far my journey will go I can only speak for my self. the more the transgender community stays in the dark the more it will forever stay in the dark and be looked at as food for the Jerry Springer's of the world. Sorry there will always be discrimination  on the job as long as this condition persists. Sorry.

I think it might help the trans community if more of us come out, rather than going stealth. The pretty ones will often be more accepted. The less passable ones will generally having a harder time being accepted. But, there are many exceptions. It depends on the individual. If she isn't exactly passable but has confidence and an amazing personality, many people will treat her with respect, admiration, and friendship. If she is beautiful and constantly worries about passing, that self-conscious quality might override other good qualities. Nobody likes a beautiful psychotic bitch. If you're a lovely woman and you tell a new friend that you were born with male genitals, she might view you as a lovely likable girl with an unusual past, or she might view you as the 'other', a freak. It can go either way. In the world of trans it is probably a mistake to be worried about everyone's opinion. It might be healthiest to see yourself as an individualist with good qualities, even if you do have big shoulders or something. There's something beautiful about honesty.

Call it passing. Call it acceptance.  Whatever .....

Once you have it you do not willingly give it up. It is all very well saying that those of us who have worked very hard at fitting in should throw it away for those who either do not blend in or do not care about it.

Like everyone else I have been through the "stick out like a sore thumb" stage which then progressed to the "looking a bit strange" stage on my way to where I am now. I did not get to where I am now by luck. I have worked hard at it, observing women and how they move, talk and interact. I join in when I can and let myself be guided by other women. It has been hard but the result is worth it.

I am comfortable for the first time in my life.  I am not going to give that up by outing myself.

After 50 years I finally have some peace, some inner harmony and it has only been for a year or two. Is that it?  Is that what  "the community" has decided I am allowed? And now it is back to uncertainty and misery for me for the good of all?

Sorry. It is not going to happen.

Quote from: provizora on February 25, 2014, 06:20:35 PMOnce you have it you do not willingly give it up.

That's the truth!

Though I was only 24, life before that had kept me on the verge of suicide for years. I was a freak before transition. When SRS suddenly became available, life was great! I fit in, I could be myself, and I could live a normal life. By the time my past became the subject of gossip, I had 10 good years, years that reassured me who and what I am - that made it less traumatic loosing stealth. Would I have stayed "out" when I transitioned, NO WAY!