In which clan/side are you?

I've noticed many here decide to reveal OPENLY they are trans, may I know why and what's your reason?

Me I decide NOT TO REVEAL and DENY TO DEATH for my own sake as max as I can. 1. Main reason is NOT TO BE REJECTED by strict straight men. 2. To be accepted by the society as a real WOMAN and not as a 3rd gender or dunno what crap else and 3. Not to be discriminated in all forms as job etc...

So please tell us which side are you and WHY did you decide to REVEAL or NOT TO REVEAL.

I'm not exactly open, but not exactly stealth. I only tell people whom need to know for one reason or another. I see no reason people I don't know, or are just friends with to know my complete medical history. If the subject matter comes up, depending on the person I may or may not tell them. Personally I believe it's no ones business but my own. 

I can't answer points 1 and 3, SG, but as for point 2 you are a woman. And Tyler is completely right.

I'm FTM, so I have to tell potential sexual partners and will for the foreseeable future - they'll find out eventually, and it's less humiliating to be rejected with your pants on than with your pants off.

As for other people...well, I don't go around broadcasting that I'm trans. It's not the end of the world if someone finds out or guesses, though. At some point, I won't even have to think about it anymore.

At first I was rather open about it but after some of the responses I've gotten, now I just don't talk about it. 

Full stealth to the end, definitely. I haven't spent my life living as a "girl" only to have to spend it being "the ->-bleeped-<-" to everyone I meet. I didn't even tell most of my friends/family when I started medically transitioning.

The important people in my life know. As for the rest, I really don't care one way or the other.

Honesty is really an essential part of life really.

But I think it was Ben Franklin who drew a distinction between honesty and not saying what isn't strickly relevant.

There will come a time, with any of our relationships, when we need to give information that is relevant. But I can't see why we need to say things about ourselves, which aren't. When you first meet someone, you don't know everything about them. As you get to know them, you learn more, but a little mystery keeps relationships interesting.

As others have said though, as for your medical history, when it becomes relevant, you can discuss it. If someone, after getting to know you as an individual and developing a relationship with you, changes because of something that is past, then they probably weren't worth it in the first place.

kyril makes reference to an interpersonal relationship. This is a good case in point. If your relationship has deveoped to the extent that you feel comfortable about being intimate, then what you have is surely superficial.

In the case of casual sex, what you have is quite important. But equally, the whole point about casual sex is the pot luck element. Sometimes, you pull out a bar of chocolate, sometimes a steak dinner. But if you're not ready to take the chance, (the other person as well of course), then don't try the pot luck.

I really do understand your position SadGirl. I might have the same approach, in a similar situation. Though it seems to me that we have nothing to apologise for, no reason to ask for permission. I will keep those aspects of my life private that I choose to, because they are my business. But I have no reason to feel any shame for being me.

I'm not hiding anything.  My past is just a part of me as my present and I'm not ashamed of it.  Will it limit me in terms of who I can be involved with?  Yes.  But something tells me those to whom it would make a difference wouldn't have been worth the time anyway.  I'm not an open book by any means.  And if I try to fill in the details, it usually takes some convincing.  But I like educating people.  I let them ask questions and hopefully I have good answers. 

My body is my own my surgeon gave me something to behold

I do no buy no in to I am somehow dishonest I except no cv in return and my past is wiped clean.

I fully understand why some of you do though but it is not high in my agendas I had a defect it was corrected

The way I see it I'm just living my life, and there are numerous situations where it's just not relevent to revel about my past. The same goes for other things that I've done in my past and indeed do now (not everyone wants to hear my warble on about longboarding for example). If talking about my history is relevent to a conversation I will, but i'm not going to tell everyone I meet. However with relationships I would disclose, because for a relationship to last it needs to be built on trust.

What Helena said... unless relevant, I keep my mouth shut.  And I can't wait until my name change gets finalized so the subject will become a bit less relevant than it's been lately. 

I never tell anyone I don't think it's anyone's business really & I don't want it to define who I am, I told my husband after we got serious, but I never tell any of my friends & don't intend to ever. But I guess it's all about personal choice.

im in the NOT REVEAL CLAN

Why?

1.because it comes very easy to me, I have always been a private person, i do not give out any personal information, unless i have to. The one time I revealed was when I came out to my family & friends, strictly because i wanted them to respect my new name and use male pronouns.

2. the moment you tell people who know you as a guy (FTM), at that moment everything changes, all of a sudden they begin to imagine you as a girl , start using the wrong pronouns, feel uncomfortable, exclude you in guys only event. To cut the story short, they start seeing you as you were before transition and the relationship changes. I dont want to deal with this, if i don't have to.

3. I have a way of dismissing history, to me what happened in the past stays there, its no longer relevant. I start on a new clean slate everyday.

* With intimate partners though, revealing is a must IMO.

I am open about my past, but in the same breath I don't reveal unless I have to.  Will I be stealth after SRS?  At this point I really don't know. 

I feel that not revealing is just keeping family secrets.  I will cross that bright when I get there.  For now, I am basically stealth.

It is only mentioned when in an intimate relationship or with doctors. Otherwise, I don't talk about it nor do I bring it up. So more, non-revealing than anything else.

After transition/SRS in 1974 I went 'deep stealth' simply because I didn't see my medical history as being relevant to anything.

My first husband found out after we separated and was very angry that  I "didn't trust him enough to tell him" (his words) so I realized that even though it wasn't important  to me, it was to him.

I told my second husband while we were dating (actually after the first time we made love - NOT the best time but things got away from me LOL!) and he was very supportive and we moved in together. It turned out to be a good thing I said something because six years later an employee at a medical facility made my medical history the subject of common gossip and my husband was my greatest defender and protector. He kept the crap away from me so effectively that I didn't even know about the rumours until years later. I learned that:

#1 - stealth is never 100% secure, and

#2 - forewarned is also forearmed

Though it has cost me a few promising relationships in the years I have been single again I would never consider an intimate relationship with someone who didn't know. It is a fact and because it matters to some people, my lover should know.

P.S. With so many years behind me and being totally secure in my own womanhood, I have shared the details of my early life with a number of my close friends. I particularly like the reaction - TOTAL disbelief! The look of incredulity and their inability to reconcile 'the me they know' from my beginnings is very gratifying LOL! Some of them simply refuse to believe me.

I think the difficult thing here is, that going stealth makes things quite much easier for yourself. There is a lot of discrimination and hostility around against transpeople. You'll be able to live a pretty normal life and only have to explaim things to people that are close to you. But the downside: if we all hide this and don't make a scene and put up a fight nothing will change and future generations will have to face the exact same problems as the ones we are facing now. It is something people will have to consider.

Quote from: Kaisa on April 25, 2011, 08:46:17 AM
I think the difficult thing here is, that going stealth makes things quite much easier for yourself. There is a lot of discrimination and hostility around against transpeople. You'll be able to live a pretty normal life and only have to explaim things to people that are close to you. But the downside: if we all hide this and don't make a scene and put up a fight nothing will change and future generations will have to face the exact same problems as the ones we are facing now. It is something people will have to consider.

I feel like this. I feel that instead of being ashamed of our past we are pretty well allowed to be proud of succeeding under conditions like ours. I feel that my past gives me an insight and life experience which not many people are allowed to have. I also feel that if people only accepted me for *not* knowing I'm transgendered they are only showing skin accept. I feel that by hiding my status I would fall victim of internalized transphobia - I feel I conquered it instead. Claiming the right to be who I am!

I hid a vision impairment for too many years only to discover that the hide resulted in me not getting the necessary support and not developing my full potential. I am not going to do that regarding my gender.

However I am required to stealth at work to avoid shifting focus away from my patients. This, however, turned out to be very good to me too, because this meant that I'm fully confident in my femininity and passability now making me more confident both when stealthing and not.

Quote from: Kaisa on April 25, 2011, 08:46:17 AMBut the downside: if we all hide this and don't make a scene and put up a fight nothing will change and future generations will have to face the exact same problems as the ones we are facing now.

The point you are missing is that as soon as you publicly identify as transsexual (even if you are post-op) the general public no longer sees you as "just a woman" and your point is therefore considered biased.

I transitioned in 1974 and in the first year or two I was outed a couple of times. People who had known me as a woman were astounded and found it (my medical history) hard to believe - they really understood the idea of always being a girl but in a different body.

I believe a whole lot of damage was done by the media - parading "men in dresses", acting like men and demanding to be treated as women. But that opens another nastier debate ....