Hey guys and girls.

I want advice on having to come out as a transgirl to only certain people. I wanted to be as stealth as possible. I'll even go as far as copying my high school diploma but with my new female name replacing my old male one.

The big problem that impedes my preference to be stealth is the fact that I'm pursuing a career in acting and independent filmmaking. I want to do big- and low-budget movies and i wanna be on shows like General Hospital, some Disney Channel shows and movies, and other stuff like that. And being a Hollywood actress, it will be pretty hard to be stealth and once my cover is blown i'm just... screwed... finished!

I don't want to tell people my trans status because i want the world and the people i come in contact with to treat me with the same regard as a normal cis woman. Is that asking too much? The other reason is that i'm Black and it's just to dangerous to have my cover blown. I hate to make this a race thing but the news articles and statistics say it all -- there are more African American transwomen getting killed than those of any other race.

If anyone, i plan to tell my female friends (whom I've not yet met but want to have in the future) my one male friend whom I've known for years, my aunt whom I'm really close with. That's it. But still, the possibility of one person telling another person to go on to tell the next person and the next person and so on. I don't want people to talk about me and then be like "Oh, so-and-so is a ->-bleeped-<- so she's really a man," and this and that. That prospect really bothers me, especially in the sense that i never identified as a male in general, much less a man. That's not who i am inside. I want absolutely ZERO to do with the male world. I would prefer to be a transwoman over being a cis man but no matter how much i pass as a cis woman in the real world, no matter how much i sound and look like a natural woman, it bothers me that it all has to come to me having to hide who i am! I hate having to hide who i am but it's better if i don't blow my cover and stay stealth for the rest of my life. I'm ready to leave my male life behind once and for all and have the womanhood that Mother Nature ripped away from me!

I want to have a boyfriend (though I'm still attracted to women), i want men to hit on me, i want to wear the clothes i want to wear, i want to go to the women's bathroom and changing room without people looking at me weird, i just want my life back after my first 23 years were wasted being someone I'm not and i will never have these 23 years back!

If (and this is a big "if") i ever decide to get married, i want a man who was born a girl, especially a stealth transman, because then that way there won't be any problems with him knowing i was formerly a boy and my wanting to stay stealth, and something always interests me about a transman and a transwoman being a couple, much more a married couple.

But then again that will pose a problem because transmen can't produce sperm and i want to have a child. If it ever becomes possible i would LOVE to have my female repro organs, xx chromosomes, to menstruate and to conceive my not-yet-existing-daughter to term and breastfeed her.

First, please don't take this the wrong way because it is not to be read as judgment, etc. OK?

You are asking an awful lot here. It sounds like a case of having your cake and eating it too. I do not know of any way to transition and get everything you want. There are just some things we will never have. I understand your safety concerns, seriously, but there is no way really these days to be totally stealth and not at some time to be outed. Technology and databases have taken this from us. 

It is very possible to be deep stealth, as your medical history is very reserved and not something many people have to know. I see no problem with being deep stealth. However, as Jessica said, you gotta stay on the ground with your expectations. There's nothing wrong with hope, but too much of it can cause you to be very disappointed if things don't turn out how you want. My advice is, work towards what you know you can do, you can be a stealth actress and a determination like yours is very VERY useful in pursuing such a career. However, science isn't advanced enough yet to deliver everything a trans* person wants, and even if it did, there's no guarantee we'll be able to afford it or if it'll even be available to the public. Don't construct your perfect future life, just live as you want and pursue what you can. The world has changed and you have a lot of opportunities!

Don't count on being able to maintain stealth, especially now days!

I transitioned in 1974 and tried to live stealth. Within 6 months, someone I had know previously (very casually) saw me and thought I was my sister. He made inquiries in my home town, found out I wasn't my sister, and spread rumours in my new town.

In 1976 I married (before it was legal) and within a year some nosy reporter was on to the story and reported it in the newspaper. How or why he started digging, I don't know but he did. The higher a person's public profile, the more likely for this kind of thing  to happen.

In the mid 1980s, a clerk at a medical clinic (who had access to my medical records) made my ancient medical history a matter of public gossip just because it was "interesting" and nobody suspected.

I gave up trying to maintain any degree of stealth and now all my close friends know my background and I don't care who else suspects.

As nice as it is, stealth is more trouble/stress to maintain than it is worth and WHEN the truth comes out (which it will) many people will feel hurt that you did not trust them with the truth.

Quote from: AnnaiyahStarr on July 01, 2014, 07:06:01 PM
I don't want to tell people my trans status because i want the world and the people i come in contact with to treat me with the same regard as a normal cis woman. Is that asking too much?

As others have said, no one is 100% "undiscoverably" stealth and it simply isn't reasonable to hope or expect that "no one will ever know".  Nevertheless, it's wonderful to have high standards and to accept nothing less than the very best life you can cultivate for yourself.  That's  certainly how I've led my life.  After I got past the reckless & awkward early days of my transition, I legally changed my documentation nearly 40 years ago and my original birth record was sealed under a court order and a replacement birth certificate was issued indicating female and my legally changed name.  I eventually settled into a great life as a relatively ordinary young woman but even so despite the careful planning and my outward appearance, a couple of times along the way my history has been discerned or discovered by others.  Good news ...  my life went on just fine thank you very much! 

Regardless of how naturally female you may appear or how consistently you are perceived as a cis female by the world at large, there is always the possibility that historic data from the first 23 years of your life (or from the first 19 years of mine) may be discovered by someone somewhere. 

Personally, I prefer not to expend any energy or time worrying about someone finding out my history.  Many of the people in my life who really matter (family, old friends, physicians) already know and frankly there is just no reason for anyone else to know or suspect.  And I'm beginning to suspect that it simply isn't as big of a deal these days as it was back in the 1970s when I and others here were first starting out.

I recommend that you go out and live your life!

All I can say is that if you've told even one person, it's no longer "deep stealth." As someone once told me, "Every best friend has another best friend."

Well for everyone you tell, they will tell another few people or so. Which makes that kind of hard unless you get a genie lamp. If you do, you could be fem!aladdin.

In the end, talent trumps gossip. Talent and hardware earn respect, not gossip. And besides, isn't Jamie Lee Curtis intersex? We may never know, but it's no one else's business anyway, and who really cares?

Being discreet about who knows and who you discuss it with are the best you can do.

Be whatever you are and do what you're good at, and I think that eventually you'll find a way to stop thinking and worrying about it. Sure, the day might come when your darkest nightmare and biggest secret comes to light - Everyone knows! A gossip columnist, other professionals in your industry, who knows... Yes, that's a possibility, but afterwards it probably wouldn't be so bad as you think. If it was, you might have to find a different career, but many people have changed careers.

If you hanging around people who would kill you for that, I'd find a different crowd to hang with.

A post by someone here on this forum once remarked that it's too bad a TS's couldn't do something truly great, such as win a Nobel Price, or something. I think they wanted to say that we each have the potential to be shining examples of what we can be, not of what we are limited to by what we are. Don't remain focused on something that's going to impede your success in life, such as what other people might think or say.

As for the danger of being killed, yes, that's a really possibility for anyone in your situation, but it goes with the territory. If people who know you, and know, understand, they are less likely to make it public. There were plenty of famous actors who were gay, but never confirmed it, even though there were always these certain rumors...

In my experience, the greatest potential problem to being deep stealth is that the more invested we become in being stealth and keeping our history private, the greater the emotional suffering we experience when our "secret" gets used against us.

I've lived mostly stealth for the past 14 or so years.  There have been times that some person that I may be close to has mentioned my gender "secret" to someone else that they trusted, only to have that other person gossip and spread rumors.  It just happens.  And there have been times when mean people have found out about my past and deliberately spread the word in malice.

I can tell you this for sure.  The more high profile you become within your social circle or profession, the more you will find people digging up dirt about your history.  I don't know why people are this way, but the more we stand out and rise to the top of our social circle or profession, the more some people will feel justified in trying to discredit our accomplishments and status. 

In other words, if you want to live a very stealth life, then you'd best plan on keeping a low profile, anonymous sort of life.

It's not the whole getting killed thing I'm worried about, it's that cis people -- especially ignorant and transphobic cis people -- insist on addressing post-op trans people as their original gender. Example, "Laverne Cox is really a man," "Janet Mock is still a man," etc. and frankly i could not be more sick and tired of it all. That stuff gets to me when those kind of comments are made to transwomen, much more if it ever happens to me. That -- you guys -- is the biggest reason why i wanna be as stealth as possible.

Least we forget that especially because trans women are treated differently than cis women, i would prefer to be considered cis woman so i will act as such! Especially when everything inside of me wants nothing more than to be a naturally-born cis female.

Man or woman, i would rather walk into a room full of strangers bare naked and tell them my social security number than to comeout to the world as trans.

I -- honest to God -- would rather put a gun in my mouth and kill myself that to live in a society where I'm still considered a man despite my transformation; and i kid you guys not, i want to do just that anyway only so i can reincarnate and be born reincarnated as a human female and have back the 23-24 years of my life that was so unfairly thrown away.

I'm not suicidal or anything and i don't condone suicide by any means, but if i have to live my life being someone or something I'm not, and be seen by the world as the man that I'm not and never was, the i prefer not to live period. So in that case, kill me! Please! Put me out of my misery.

Quote from: AnnaiyahStarr on July 01, 2014, 07:06:01 PM
Hey guys and girls.

I want advice on having to come out as a transgirl to only certain people. I wanted to be as stealth as possible. I'll even go as far as copying my high school diploma but with my new female name replacing my old male one.

The big problem that impedes my preference to be stealth is the fact that I'm pursuing a career in acting and independent filmmaking. I want to do big- and low-budget movies and i wanna be on shows like General Hospital, some Disney Channel shows and movies, and other stuff like that. And being a Hollywood actress, it will be pretty hard to be stealth and once my cover is blown i'm just... screwed... finished!

I don't want to tell people my trans status because i want the world and the people i come in contact with to treat me with the same regard as a normal cis woman. Is that asking too much? The other reason is that i'm Black and it's just to dangerous to have my cover blown. I hate to make this a race thing but the news articles and statistics say it all -- there are more African American transwomen getting killed than those of any other race.

If anyone, i plan to tell my female friends (whom I've not yet met but want to have in the future) my one male friend whom I've known for years, my aunt whom I'm really close with. That's it. But still, the possibility of one person telling another person to go on to tell the next person and the next person and so on. I don't want people to talk about me and then be like "Oh, so-and-so is a ->-bleeped-<- so she's really a man," and this and that. That prospect really bothers me, especially in the sense that i never identified as a male in general, much less a man. That's not who i am inside. I want absolutely ZERO to do with the male world. I would prefer to be a transwoman over being a cis man but no matter how much i pass as a cis woman in the real world, no matter how much i sound and look like a natural woman, it bothers me that it all has to come to me having to hide who i am! I hate having to hide who i am but it's better if i don't blow my cover and stay stealth for the rest of my life. I'm ready to leave my male life behind once and for all and have the womanhood that Mother Nature ripped away from me!

I want to have a boyfriend (though I'm still attracted to women), i want men to hit on me, i want to wear the clothes i want to wear, i want to go to the women's bathroom and changing room without people looking at me weird, i just want my life back after my first 23 years were wasted being someone I'm not and i will never have these 23 years back!

If (and this is a big "if") i ever decide to get married, i want a man who was born a girl, especially a stealth transman, because then that way there won't be any problems with him knowing i was formerly a boy and my wanting to stay stealth, and something always interests me about a transman and a transwoman being a couple, much more a married couple.

But then again that will pose a problem because transmen can't produce sperm and i want to have a child. If it ever becomes possible i would LOVE to have my female repro organs, xx chromosomes, to menstruate and to conceive my not-yet-existing-daughter to term and breastfeed her.

OMG WOW.

I agree with Jessica and others.

Yes you can be deep stealth but its hard if you tell anyone. Thats the key. The more you tell the more chances of stealth goes south.

Lots of luck with your dream list.

Isabell

Quote from: AnnaiyahStarr on July 03, 2014, 06:48:50 PM
It's not the whole getting killed thing I'm worried about, it's that cis people -- especially ignorant and transphobic cis people -- insist on addressing post-op trans people as their original gender. Example, "Laverne Cox is really a man," "Janet Mock is still a man," etc. and frankly i could not be more sick and tired of it all. That stuff gets to me when those kind of comments are made to transwomen, much more if it ever happens to me. That -- you guys -- is the biggest reason why i wanna be as stealth as possible.

Least we forget that especially because trans women are treated differently than cis women, i would prefer to be considered cis woman so i will act as such! Especially when everything inside of me wants nothing more than to be a naturally-born cis female.

Man or woman, i would rather walk into a room full of strangers bare naked and tell them my social security number than to comeout to the world as trans.

I -- honest to God -- would rather put a gun in my mouth and kill myself that to live in a society where I'm still considered a man despite my transformation; and i kid you guys not, i want to do just that anyway only so i can reincarnate and be born reincarnated as a human female and have back the 23-24 years of my life that was so unfairly thrown away.

I'm not suicidal or anything and i don't condone suicide by any means, but if i have to live my life being someone or something I'm not, and be seen by the world as the man that I'm not and never was, the i prefer not to live period. So in that case, kill me! Please! Put me out of my misery.

I'm kind of in a weird situation. I live in a very active area in a small suburb. I've lived here for 15 years with no plans of moving. I'm 9 months on HRT and showing some what even though it's hard to see yourself . People react to me curiously . I know  or seen the same people for quite awhile , but I don't know them personally. They see me changing and I'll hear strange comments once in a while ,but I've never had a problem with any one. It's a challenge I guess ,but it's not really a problem just being who you are and people seeing you as trans.

I think it is harder to live deep stealth as a younger person then as someone older.

The social circle is way larger in the younger transition person.

So ya some draw backs of being able to transition earlier in life.

Can be done but its hard.

Isabell

Quote from: AnnaiyahStarr on July 03, 2014, 06:48:50 PM
It's not the whole getting killed thing I'm worried about, it's that cis people -- especially ignorant and transphobic cis people -- insist on addressing post-op trans people as their original gender. Example, "Laverne Cox is really a man," "Janet Mock is still a man," etc. and frankly i could not be more sick and tired of it all. That stuff gets to me when those kind of comments are made to transwomen, much more if it ever happens to me. That -- you guys -- is the biggest reason why i wanna be as stealth as possible.

Least we forget that especially because trans women are treated differently than cis women, i would prefer to be considered cis woman so i will act as such! Especially when everything inside of me wants nothing more than to be a naturally-born cis female.

The problem is, this is NOT how people are in real life. What you're seeing there are the dregs of society, the opinions of a bunch of lowlife bigots with nothing better to do than sit on the internet from their safe little bubble of anonymity and troll the trans community with their half-assed opinions. They've probably never actually even met a trans woman in real life.

In real life, even people who do know that you're trans really don't care. They'll still gender you female, still accept you as a woman, and even if they do have a problem with you, they'll never say it to your face. People are cowards in real life. Their convictions don't last long when they're face to face with someone. It's easy to say "she's a man" when all they have to go on is a still picture and a story sensationalizing her transition on the internet. It's near impossible when that same person in real life walks like a woman, talks like a woman, acts like a woman, and is completely socially accepted as a woman.

Illegitimi non Carborundum. Don't let the bastards grind you down. These people's opinions don't matter. And you don't have to be completely unclockable, or even completely stealth, to be completely accepted as who you are.

And I'll just tell you right off the bat, very few trans women can be deep stealth. Almost all of us can make it to a point where we're passable enough that most people won't care even if they can tell, but being completely 100% able to go through life without a single person ever questioning whether you might be trans is very rare.

I'll say the same thing that my friend Arianna said on the matter, though. "You're not transitioning for them. You're transitioning for you."

Quote from: Carrie Liz on July 03, 2014, 07:07:06 PM
The problem is, this is NOT how people are in real life. What you're seeing there are the dregs of society, the opinions of a bunch of lowlife bigots with nothing better to do than sit on the internet from their safe little bubble of anonymity and troll the trans community with their half-assed opinions. They've probably never actually even met a trans woman in real life.

In real life, even people who do know that you're trans really don't care. They'll still gender you female, still accept you as a woman, and even if they do have a problem with you, they'll never say it to your face. People are cowards in real life. Their convictions don't last long when they're face to face with someone. It's easy to say "she's a man" when all they have to go on is a still picture and a story sensationalizing her transition on the internet. It's near impossible when that same person in real life walks like a woman, talks like a woman, acts like a woman, and is completely socially accepted as a woman.

Illegitimi non Carborundum. Don't let the bastards grind you down. You don't have to be completely unclockable, or even completely stealth, to be completely accepted as who you are.

And I'll just tell you right off the bat, very few trans women can be deep stealth. Almost all of us can make it to a point where we're passable enough that most people won't care even if they can tell, but being completely 100% able to go through life without a single person ever questioning whether you might be trans is very rare.

ditto

Quote from: Northern Jane on July 02, 2014, 07:25:17 AM
As nice as it is, stealth is more trouble/stress to maintain than it is worth and WHEN the truth comes out (which it will) many people will feel hurt that you did not trust them with the truth.

This ^ is what you may call: "The Truth of at All"

I read somewhere that "when only you know a secret you are the Master of the secret but if you tell anyone the secret then the Secret becomes you Master"

Quote from: Carrie Liz on July 03, 2014, 07:07:06 PMIn real life, even people who do know that you're trans really don't care. They'll still gender you female, still accept you as a woman ........

There is a bit more to it than that. Based on my 40 years 'on this side of the fence' people who have only known you as a woman will never really be able to imagine you any other way (assuming your appearance, mannerisms, etc., are in the normal female range). The old adage "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ....." is totally true. People can not hold on to a concept that doesn't agree with what they see and hear.

Whether you like it or not, you have a past, you have a history. Someone, somewhere can / will pop up and out you, even if you are a nobody. I know all too well how that is with someone very close to me who went deep stealth in 1976 when one needed to be that way to have any semblance of a normal life. In her case the son of a man her mom was dating many years before her transition.

And then there is the ole saying of "Loose lips sink ships" Telling ANYONE of your real past is a risk of exposure. You may trust them today, tomorrow who knows what that will bring. THis even applies to family members. In the words of Agent Moulder - "Trust no one"