K I'm gonna pop this here since the gamers may get where I am going w this.

Part of coming to an understanding for me was signing up for second life. The ability to interact as fully male, even in a VR setting,  felt extremely right.

So here's the issue.  I am well respected and genuinely liked in world. I work as a dancer at a popular club (2 in fact). My personal friends (ones I speak w daily,  talk about RL with etc) include Sim owners,  organizers of several LGBT organizations and multiple well known DJs in the community.  My SL partner knows and we interact both on and offline. He is working on helping me emotionally with my walk to transition and we have genuine feelings for each other. Several other friends know n have been tremendous.

I find myself in a position where I see n hear some very anti trans things. I see blatent gaps in the organizations with regards to how trans folks are treated. I see a lot of fetish behaviors. My partner thinks I should come out and help bring some awareness to the table. He is willing to take any fallout and risk himself after 11 years inworld because he sees the situations n thinks they need to change. Is it worth it. I may be able to do some good, no matter how minor it may be in the greater scheme of things.

I see much to lose but also potential gain. RL will come. I am making gradual changes there but this is something I can do NOW. Thoughts?

Personally, I wouldn't. Much as people try to make games like Second Life and Eve realistic, there are no real world ramifications and people are anonymous, so they tend to let loose their wildest, and often most disgusting fantasies.

I have to say (and this says a lot about the state of the world we are in at the moment), if you were a trans* girl like myself, I'd advise against it.  Because you're a trans* guy though, I think you'd be able to carry a lot more weight with your coming out.  Most ignorant cis-gendered folks only ever hear about MtF's, but never FtM's.  Just the fact that you were born female (I'm assuming?) and transitioning to male will itself be a huge hammer-blow to people who don't even realise that's even "a thing".  If in contrast someone like me were to do that, everyone would automatically brand me as a hyper-flamboiant crazy drag-queen like you see on the Jerry Springer show, and I'd just be laughed off the stage.

What I'm trying to say is - yeh, go for it!  Target the establishment owners and try to get other trans* folk to help put pressure on them.  If they realise that there's legitimate trans* folk who are starting to kick up stink and potentially loose them business in game, it could be enough to pressure them into changing their policies for the better.

I have a Second Life account too - KiraD52 if you want to add me as a friend.  I'll be happy to help out any way I can, although I've only been playing for about a year (and not very regularly for that matter), so i don't have any connections or anything, but I'm happy to lend my voice and possibly financial support to the cause if needed <3

In Eve Online I just joined a Corp ran by another transgirl, and I know of a great deal of trans players in game. I don't know what it is, but Eve seems to attract lots of trans people. I mean people have been for the most part respectful too.

In general though there is a great deal of misogyny in online games