Sadly, once we venture out into the world, it doesn't matter what any one of us individually wants to be called or how we see ourselves. The world will see you as it deems fit and call you what it wants. And the labels it attaches to people it sees as different sometimes carry a stigma.
Inside our community, we will get a lot more acceptance than outside it. But there's a faction within the gay and lesbian community who views TGs negatively. And once you venture out into that great big world, the numbers increase dramatically.
Like it or not, transgender, transsexual, crossdresser, intersex, androgyne, genderqueer and every other terminology we use has a negative stigma attached to it. And once your birth gender is known, that stigma will be attached to you and there's little you can do about it. It could be an employer, your local politician, a religious leader or your neighbor, and when that stigma is attached to you, it could result in an having adverse effect on your life. Too many of that have experienced that first hand.
Look at the resistance there's been against same sex marriage, DADT, and ENDA. That's because of the negative stigma. And the TG stigma is so bad ENDA proponents initially wanted to leave it out of the bill because they feared TG would kill it. And they're supposed to be our friends!
When the opponents of same sex marriage, DADT and ENDA speak, they use the term "homosexual agenda", not "gay agenda". They like "homosexual" because it has a more negative stigma and, for their followers, creates a higher level of fear. The gay community recognized the negative stigma was not going away anytime soon so they came up with the term gay to identify people who were sexually attracted to those of their own gender. And, as far as lessening the stigma, it worked.
"Gay" had nothing to do with same sex attraction. The word was chosen because it meant happy and carefree. They were sending a message, "We're not flawed, we're not miserable, we don't want to be changed, we're happy being just the way we are." And most people got it. Along with that movement came pride. I don't ever remember hearing "Homo Pride" or "Homo Pride Parade" back before the term gay was used. But we see "Gay Pride" a lot today and now, practically every big city has a Gay Pride Parade.
And that's why I feel we need to find a word that has nothing to do with gender, changing or sex. The word simply has to send the message we are happy with who we are, at peace with who we are and we don't want to be changed or fixed. The reason I like the word halcyon is because it conjures up images of peaceful, happiness, content, serene, non-violent, non-aggressive and it's not a commonly used word that wouldn't get as much resistance as more commonly words would. It is a lot like "gay" in those respects.
Along the way we can educate those who will listen that the gender binary is a myth, it's a gender spectrum, and it's harmless. It is simply a fact of life. We can let them know sex isn't why we are who we are. It's all in the marketing.
Sure, there will be those who will resist, say it's stupid, etc. I'm sure there were plenty, both within and without the gay community who reacted that way. Change always brings about resistance. But as long as there's perseverance and a positive marketing campaign, it will eventually take hold.
The question is, "Is there enough of us out there who have what it takes to make it happen?"
