During Bree and
Toby's road trip in the movie Transamerica,
Bree arranges for both of them to stay at a
friend's home in Dallas on the evening they
pass through. Upon arrival, Bree is positively shocked to
find her friend's living room filled with her
transgender friends gathered for a social evening.
Bree looks to her hostess in panic and whispers,
"My friend told me you were stealth!"
"Stealth": It essentially means living fully
and completely in your true gender but never, ever
admitting to be transgender. Think of it as the
transgender version of "covering," which is
the subject and title of Kenji Yoshino's
thought-provoking recent book. In our case, it usually
requires leaving your past behind. Your previous
distinguished service as an F-4 Phantom pilot in
Vietnam might be a tad difficult to explain as a
woman, as was undoubtedly the case for American Airlines
pilot Sara Weston. Similarly, talk of your experience
as a mother seems puzzling coming from you if you are
a man. Living stealth can also require leaving behind
family, friends, colleagues, and anyone else who might out
you.
So, why come out
of one closet only to step into another?
The dangers
facing "out" trans people were once so severe
that stealth used to be part of the standard treatment
protocol prescribed by professionals for those needing
to transition genders. In fact, I have a friend who
was forced 12 years ago to divorce from her spouse to
accomplish her transition, in spite of having a healthy
relationship and two children. Fortunately, stealth is
optional these days. Yet many still actively choose
stealth to avoid the societal stigma, prejudice, and
safety concerns that come with being an out transgender
person.
Stealth is
essentially a second closet, with all of the issues
associated with being in a closet. Stealth is much
harder to maintain when you are with other transgender
people, because very slight gender incongruities in a
single person can be overlooked, but in two or more
gender-variant people in the same space, such details
easily arouse suspicion. Bree had assumed that her
friend had broken all ties with her trans friends in
order to remain stealth, and when that was clearly not the
case, she panicked, thinking Toby would quickly figure
her out. He did.
Most people who
are stealth are just so happy to be finally living in
their true gender that all of the hassle is tolerated. But
for a few, the difficulty and loneliness of
essentially starting over, without a personal history
and connections with the trans community, leaves them
depressed and despondent. Outsiders may interpret this
heartache as meaning that transitioning genders had
been a mistake for the person, when actually stealth
was the mistake, albeit forced by the former treatment
standards, stigma avoidance, and/or very real safety
concerns.
It's also
much harder to succeed at being stealth if you lack
"privilege," which comes in many forms. It
includes having the economic means to afford the
surgeries that make your body and face appear more
traditionally feminine or masculine. Or having bodily size
and features that are not out of normal range for the
new gender. In this aspect I am privileged. For
example, at 5 foot 9, I am right at the level of tall
non-transgender women. But many of my transwomen friends are
considerably taller!
Privilege also
includes being heterosexual in the new gender, as you can
imagine. Here I am not privileged, although I did have
mitigating circumstances. I transitioned from straight
male to transgender lesbian female. However, my late
wife Barbara willingly and lovingly stayed with me
through my transition until her death, essentially delaying
my assimilation of my lesbian status until now.
And, of course,
privilege includes being a white person in a racist
society. People of color face discrimination whether
transgender or not, and that makes going
stealth--finding a new job, securing housing, and
accessing services--all the more difficult. Trans
people unable to get medical care might buy hormones
on the street, increasing the likelihood of sharing
needles and greatly increasing the risk of contracting
hepatitis C or HIV.
People of color
also unfairly face greater police scrutiny whether
transgender or not, which increases the likelihood of being
incarcerated. Many prisons provide neither hormones
nor any other aspects of transgender health care, and
that can trigger severe depression in trans prisoners.
When transgender health care is provided in prison, the
media like to report it as a frivolous waste of
taxpayer dollars.
Furthermore,
because the laws remain hung up on whether one has had
surgery, a transgender prisoner is far more likely to be put
into a cell based upon anatomical sex without regard
to gender identity or presentation. For those who are
pre-op and don't desire or can't afford
surgery, this housing policy is extremely dangerous. There
have been many, many stories of trans prisoners who
have been beaten and raped by other inmates or,
incredibly, by prison guards themselves.
Because of all of
these institutionalized oppressions, and because of the
media's fondness for stories of the downtrodden, your
image of the transgender population may be rather
skewed. Varying degrees of stealth have allowed a lot
of trans people to be successful in spite of these
challenges, while being fairly invisible to you. A few of us
have even been successful while being out as trans.
I'll introduce you to some of the success
stories in a future column. It will expand your image of us!