Comments on: “Used to be a man?”

By: GallingGalla

GallingGalla — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 05:33:29 +0000

You know, that what is always forgotten in this stealth is good / stealth is not good, is that for some of us, stealth is not a choice. I cannot pass; I’ve been on ‘mones for four years and still get read as male 80% of the time.

I’m middle-class, and even with my income, I can barely manage to save up for GRS - it’s going to take me two more years to do that. There’s no way that I will be able to save for the huge amount of facial surgury that I’d need, probably $50K; even if I could, with all of the physical problems that I have, I’m not sure that I’d survive the surgury (GRS will be hard enough).

So I’m a little tired of those who advocate going stealth and abandoning the community continuing to piss on trans women like me. And, if it’s hard for someone like me, how about the many thousands of poor transwomen of color, many of who are forced into prostitution just to survive? How can we white, middle-class folk possibly expect them to scrape up money for surgury, and them excoriate them for “not trying hard enough?”, when the deck is stacked against them in so many ways?

Passing is a privilege. I don’t have it, and I’m getting sick of being punished by other trans folk because I don’t have it, and I’m getting sick of women like Erica Keel and Nizah Morris getting murdered because they don’t have it (or white-skin privilege, or economic privilege).

By: nexyjo

nexyjo — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:08:24 +0000

“It could just mean not mentioning something that is none of anyone’s business, which is how it is for some people.”
exactly. and this is my life at work. i never talk about my personal experience of being trans, because it isn’t relevant at work. i don’t believe there are very many people who know about my past there.

on the other hand, my husband knows, and has known since we met. and my friends from the trans support group i attend obviously also know.

i don’t consider myself “stealth” - i’m not hiding anything, and if someone at work asked me, i’d be honest about it. it would be pretty easy for someone to find out about my past - it’s not as if there’s a million nexys out there.

By: z

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:08:47 +0000

jay, I wholeheartedly agree with the anti-stealth-bashing, just for the record!

By: Nick Kiddle

Nick Kiddle — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:57:26 +0000

I don’t think I personally will ever be able to live stealth (how to explain my daughter?) but I don’t think stealth necessarily means hiding. It could just mean not mentioning something that is none of anyone’s business, which is how it is for some people.

But really, the choice sucks. On the one hand, there’s being out and having everyone and his brother ask stupid and sometimes insulting questions about your gender, and on the other hand there’s being stealth and never being completely free of the possibility that some circumstance will out you (and the world adds deception to the list of charges because the concept of stealth is too subtle for some people).

I hope that made sense.

By: jayinchicago

jayinchicago — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:45:07 +0000

I feel like a jackass commenting again, but my comment was more defensive-sounding than i intended it. another variable is that some [trans] people are trans-in-identity, and some just aren’t. and from my perspective, it makes much more sense to be out about something if you consider it an identity issue.

By: jayinchicago

jayinchicago — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:30:03 +0000

I should have been more clear that my comment was in response to the first comment here rather than the blog post.
And yeah, we are seeing the end of stealth.

By: dentedbluemercedes

dentedbluemercedes — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:40:55 +0000

Stealth is a perfectly reasonable choice, Jay. My concern is how it can happen that even someone who is 11 years post-op (although I don’t think that GRS surgery is necessarily the “benchmark”) can be subjected to transphobia following some unexpected indiscretion on the part of someone else. We earn stealth — the caution, though, is that sometimes society and circumstance will not always allow us to have it.

By: Lisa Harney

Lisa Harney — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:59:30 +0000

Yeah, the concept of a world where trans doesn’t automatically trump the validity of your gender is purely hypothetical. It’s just not plausible to expect it to exist any time in the near future.

And I agree that stealth is a personal choice and shouldn’t be criticized or scrutinized, which is what I read Mercedes as saying. One of the HBS things is how we should all shut up and be stealth vs. those of us who are willing to be out enough to do activism or what-have-you.

By: jayinchicago

jayinchicago — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:39:59 +0000

I’m just not sure. It’s hard (impossible, actually) for me to imagine a world where having a transsexual life path wouldn’t matter. I just can’t fathom it. Is that a failure of imagination?
Regardless, we don’t live in that world. And the way I interact with the world, I think my being male is much more relevant than the route i took to confirm “maleness” in my body. So until the point where transsexual life path doesn’t trump my maleness–i think i’ll be tending towards stealth.
obviously when partners are involved, the waters get muddied.
anyway, it kind of pains me to see stealth get talked about as if it isn’t a valid choice or as if it’s a politically incorrect choice or something. to get to the point in my working on myself to have the nerve to begin transitioning, i realized i would face a lot of scrutiny for my choices. excruciating scrutiny in some cases. i have no desire to similarly scrutinize other trans people regarding their choices around stealthness.

By: Lisa Harney

Lisa Harney — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:02:39 +0000

Yes, I agree with all of that.