Ask Matt: Picking Out the 'Trans Group' in the Middle of a Crowd

September 29, 2011 by Matt Kailey

http://tranifesto.com/2011/09/29/ask-matt-picking-out-the-trans-group-in-the-middle-of-a-crowd/

A reader writes: "At the LGBT centre yesterday I saw an announcement for a picnic run by the Gender Identity Project, effectively for folks like us, male and female and anyone else, plus families.

"I memorised the address in a park near my home, and finally found it. There were several picnics on the go. I asked one group about the GIP picnic and it was not them. Now, the other groups I did not ask – one looked ethnically so consistent that they might have been a family group (though my own family is very ethnically mixed these days), and another had, I felt, too many quite young children. My stereotype of a group for us would have included tall women, shorter men, and maybe some families with older children who were struggling through the thing themselves.

"So how does one spot a group containing folks like us (male and/or female) without asking too many questions or staring? (At the LGBT centre I did see some very obviously trans women.)"