Hiding From Transphobic Bigotry Won't Make It Go Away

I got involved in a discussion today on a friend's Facebook page about the transphobic bigotry Yanel Valenzuela was exposed to at a California LA Fitness location back in October


When one of the participants in that FB discussion stated that these type of incidents are why transwomen who pass go stealth, I responded that this is exactly why transpeople need to be out and proud about who they are.

Being in stealth doesn't help the trans community.  It only helps the individual that is in stealth.

Hiding from the transphobic bigotry and hate doesn't and will never make it go away.  The only thing that will make it go away is increased visibility of trans people, increased education about our lives and the issues we face, and getting laws passed to protect our human rights.

I say that because light skinned people in the African-American community that tried to erase their connections to their Black heritage to acquire pseudo White privilege saw it all come crashing down once their Black heritage was discovered.    

The salient point I'm making here is that you cannot fight for your human rights in hiding.   We have tried that in the trans community at the behest of the medical gatekeepers for the first 30 years post Christine Jorgensen's arrival from Denmark 60 years ago.   It didn't work then and it won't work now.

And yes, the Religious Right is now coming for us, and we better be tough minded enough to stand up to them and punch them in the nose when necessary, not cowering in the shadows hoping they'll go away because they won't.   . 

It's no accident that since more transpeople have come out, are openly living their lives and are being ambassadors for our community, we have made tremendous trans human rights progress. 

But our trans human rights job is not yet complete. We still have much work left to do to eradicate anti-trans bigotry and hatred.   The journey to full acceptance of our community with codified human rights is not done and we have many miles to go before it is finished.  
  

Stealth Doesn't Help The Trans Community

The topic of stealth vs. out blows up in our discussions in Trans World from time to time, and we're currently engaged in another round of debate about it across the Transosphere in the discussions surrounding the jacked up firing from OUTServe-SLDN of Allyson Robinson.
   
My attitude about stealth is well documented throughout the history of this blog.   Being stealth DOESN'T help the trans community. It only helps those who are stealth.  Stealth transpeople can tell themselves that to salve their egos all day long, but the reality is only being out and proud of being trans has led to the major gains we've made in the public policy realm the last few years

Stealth trans people like to claim they are helping the trans rights movement by hiding in plain sight and cite the 6 alleged stealth transgender employees at HRC and GLAAD as an example of that. (They claim there are 4 at HRC and 2 at GLAAD) 

Unfortunately, we have no way of positively verifying that because of the stealth conundrum. For us to positively know, those people would have to declare their trans status.  Stealth means that they aren't revealing that trans status under any circumstances because their desire to maintain the pseudo cis privilege they currently have trumps being open and honest to the world about being trans.

How are they helping the trans community by NOT being out at these two large Gay, Inc orgs?  When push comes to shove, I submit they will be more concerned about hiding their trans status at all costs than being fierce advocates for our community inside those organizations.

If you're not out at your job, and you're not out to friends and others, how is the world going to associate the positive things you do with the trans community as well, who could use more goodwill ambassadors and positive role models?

Some stealth transpeople don't help give back to the community much less want to even associate with other trans people, so it's not a stereotype. Telling that inconvenient truth is not 'demonizing stealth transpeople' as I was accused of doing by one vanillacentric privileged stealth trans woman in a FB comment thread, it's stating a harsh truth she didn't want to deal with.   

The trans narrative since Christine Jorgensen stepped off the plane 60 years ago has been overwhelmingly focused on white transwomen along with the media attention.  So it's no big deal for example, if a white transwoman chooses to go stealth.  Because as she disappears from Trans World you already have other white trans women who have been (and still are) role models, our trans stories are predominately told from your perspective all across the media spectrum and you are held up as the paragons of trans womanhood.

But that's not the case for trans women of color.   We are only beginning in this decade to get the recognition that we exist thanks to Laverne Cox, Isis King, Janet Mock, KOKUMO, Bamby Salcedo, Arianna Inurrtegui Lint being out and proud about who they are that built on my generation of trans women opening those doors in the 90's and us building on Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major, Gloria Allen's and others work. 

When I was growing up in the 70's I didn't realize until well into the early 2K's when she talked about it that the smiling sistah I saw in a Clairol ad campaign and on five ESSENCE magazine covers was girl like us Tracy Africa Norman.   JET Beauty of the Week from August 1981, actress Ajita Wilson was a girl like us.  I didn't know that the first person to go through the Johns Hopkins Gender Program was a Black trans woman named Avon Wilson.

If Janet Mock hadn't come out two years ago, we would have never known the former editor of People.com was a girl like us and our community wouldn't have the benefits of her story, her talents or her eloquent voice on our issues. You cannot fight for your human rights from a self imposed closet. It's why the call to come out as trans people has been ongoing since the 90's, and it's no accident that when we stopped hiding, started calling out the anti-trans bigotry and started agitating for our rights the legislative victories and greater understanding of our community followed.

Stealth has been detrimental to our community in general because it has seriously inhibited building community amongst girls and guys like us. It plays into that 'deception' meme we constantly fight, and has robbed us of our history, potential role models and mentors.

Stealth has had a particularly negative effect on transpeople of color because we haven't had until recently positive trans role models who look like us.  African-American transwomen have also labored under the burden of being considered the trans 'unwoman' vis a vis our white counterparts due to the lack of positive out role models.

Stealth unless it is done for security and safety reasons is an inherently selfish act.  It not only doesn't help the trans community, it doesn't help the stealth trans person either, especially when it is only done to hide from your trans history and chase pseudo cis privilege. It reinforces the messaging from our opponents there's something 'wrong' about being trans.

And it's spitting on the blood of all those transpeople who have died to be themselves.  It's also disrespectful to the work of all the people like Christine Jorgensen, Sylvia Rivera, Phyllis Frye and countless others who took the early slings and arrows of publicity, hardship and discrimination to help advance the cause of trans human rights and knowledge of our community handicapped by the stealth issue.
And who said being out and proud about being trans and being considered a man or woman in cis society are irreconcilable?  I hear that excuse far too often to justify being in stealth status and that's exactly what it is, an excuse.

We're not saying you have to be an activist, wear a t-shirt announcing your trans status or introduce yourself as such to every person you meet, but you have an obligation to help advance the human rights of the trans community you belong to.

And for those who try to bring up the 'gays and lesbians' don't out themselves excuse to justify their stealth status, Harvey Milk was advising gay and lesbian people to come out back in the 1970's

Harvey Milk was right about the value of coming out then.  Phyllis Frye echoed the same message to the trans community in the early 90's and we in the trans community should heed that message now. especially when the benefits of coming out will eventually break down the reasons we need to consider going stealth in the first place. 

As Jessica Wicks said on my page, "My rationale is much simpler. I've nothing to hide. Why would I want to be keeping a secret a part of my life that was so important to me. Not only is being out helpful for the community, but it's more honest I think. It's all part of being true to self."

The history of my African-American people has proven that when you are out and proud about who you are, you openly fight for your humanity and self determination, and you eliminate the negative societal conditions that cause you to want to hide from your heritage, then the perceived need for stealth will wither away.

Stealth doesn't help the trans community, and we need all trans hands on deck so that we can do the societal work necessary to make it as obsolete as passing is in my African-American community.  

Yes Stealth People, You DO Have A Responsibility To The Trans Community

'I believe that the old WPATH, then HBIGDA requirement that transgender people fade away into society is a major factor in causing many of the acceptance problems that we are grappling with now.'   TransGriot  September 9, 2008   'Stealth Was A Mistake' 



Once again the old Stealth vs Out argument cropped up in an unexpected place   It surfaced in the middle of a GLAAD website comment thread discussing the media coverage of a May 8 story concerning ABC News producer Dawn Ennis coming out as trans. 

One of the comments in that thread led Jillian Page to write a blog post entitled 'Why Most Transitioned People Don't Carry The Transgender Torch.'.  The thrust of that post I respectfully disagree with because I have seen this selfish 'I don't have any obligation or responsibility to the trans community' sentiment expressed far too often by predominately white and late transitioning trans women.  

When Jillian 'I'm A Woman' Page and her like minded ilk find themselves being discriminated against in their zeal to keep chasing that pseudo cis privilege, how fast do you think they'll come running to the same trans community they diss for support in fighting the anti-trans discrimination aimed at them?  

I'll tell you.  Faster than the late Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner ran the 100 meters. 

The point is yes, transwomen are women and I agree with Jillian on that point.  But where I part company with her and the stealth crowd is acknowledging the reality that we're also women with a trans history that never goes away no matter how long it has been since we transitioned. 

To remix what my shero Rep Barbara Jordan once said for trans consumption, 'It is a burden of Black transpeople that we have to do more than just talk."

Transpeople have attempted the futile chase for pseudo cisprivilege by hiding in stealth ever since Christine Jorgensen stepped off the airplane from Denmark 60 years ago. Where did that get us as a community?

I grew up as a teen in the 70's not knowing our trans history, who our role models were, much less as a person of color whether there were transpeople who shared my ethnic heritage until I was in early adulthood.  

Stealth robbed me, the transkids of my generation and those who grew up in the 80's of all that and the secure knowledge that we are part of something greater than ourselves in terms of membership in a worldwide trans community.

You cannot fight for your human rights as a community from the closet or if far too many members of it are selfishly sitting on the sidelines unwilling to push back against your oppressors or the injustice shoveled your way.


It's not an accident that when transpeople started becoming out, proud, visible, open about their lives and the issues that plague this community, and organized to fight for justice and trans equality the legislative and legal wins followed.

Carrie Hirsch said this in the discussion we had on my Facebook page about that page blog post that triggered my response to it. 

Our history does not go away. It may be less of a focus in our day to day, but being Trans will always be there. Nothing to be ashamed of. To be proud of one's past, one must be proud of themselves.

Yeah, you do have a responsibility to the trans community to do what you can to help move trans rights forward.  I guess you'd feel differently about the subject if you'd come out of your mother's wombs as marginalized persons and experienced the micro and macroaggressions of bigotry and discrimination in your everyday lives.  

To me it's a disgraceful spitting on the graves of Christine Jorgensen, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson and the long list of trans people who were out there on the front lines doing the education and taking the slings and arrows so you stealth 'I'm a woman now' trans people can deny you ever were trans.  

May I remind you the societal space you have in your lives to be able to sit comfortably on your couches and not care about the trans community is paid for with the shed blood of Black and Latina trans women who died trying to live their lives and be the women they were meant to be.

If trans kids like Jazz are stepping up, showing up and showing out  as they do their part to push the trans rights envelope forward, you selfish stealth trans adults have no excuse not to do so.

Yes, everyone who transitions is obligated to uphold and honor the trans legacy of struggle by doing something to advance the cause of trans human rights in their locales, their nations and around the world.  

How you do that is your choice.   But sitting on your behinds and doing nothing is the wrong course of action.

TransGriot Note: Photo is of Ajita Wilson, a trans movie actress of the 70's and 80's and August 1981 JET Beauty of the Week whose trans status was undisclosed until her 1987 death

Pam's Interesting Holiday Season

TransGriot Note: Y'all asked for her, and here she is again, author Pamela Hayes

I've been super busy lately.  I baked several batches of cookies--chocolate chip, peanut butter, shortbreads, butter cookies, Heath bar crunch, sugar cookies, which I sprinkled with red and green sugar. After they cooled, I lined several canisters with parchment paper and filled Christmas-themed paper muffin cups with four cookies each. Each canister contains three tiers of cookies.

I give them out to select neighbors, elderly people, a gay couple who last year gave me a pair of diamond hoop earrings (wow) and some folks in my age group.

Look, don’t go thinking I’m materialistic, because I’m not, but I enjoy receiving gifts and recently, I cleaned up at the dialysis center, where I‘m a patient. Nate gave me Beyonce’s perfume gift set. His mother is a patient and sometimes his work schedule precludes him from picking her up. And he doesn’t like her using medical transportation, so I give her rides home. Sometimes, she has dinner with us.

Also, I received gift cards to restaurants, supermarkets and department stores. Miss Branch, another patient, a healthy-looking septuagenarian baked me a sweet potato pie. “I ain’t got no money to buy you nothin‘,” she said. “But you’re such a sweet lady. I said, ’I got to do something for her.’ So, I made you a potato pie.”

Not sweet potato pie, mind you, but potato pie. “Thank you, Miss Branch. I really appreciate it,” I said honestly.

“You welcome, baby. You and your family have a Merry Christmas.” We hugged and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. She’s going out of town for the holidays. “Have a safe trip,” I said.

Also, because of my presence on the Internet, namely Black Planet and Face Book, I believe I’m losing a friend of over twenty years. We’ll call her Diana. Well, Diana is trans. Years ago, she and I met in a gay bar and I was like a role model for her. We had long conversations about being a transsexual, respecting yourself and achieving a good life as a female.

Diana is twelve years younger than I am and her husband is a wildly successful medical specialist. She and I would go to lunch; go shopping. She’s 5’11 and many times, we took trips to a city, seventy five miles away and shopped for tall clothes. Sometimes, we’d buy one another outfits.

She has severed all ties with her family. She lives in the same town as her parents, siblings and other family members and she shuns them all. She said they treated her horrendously when she was young, that they did not accept her new persona. She said they refer to her by her old name and use inappropriate pronouns and intentionally try to embarrass her. So, she wants nothing to do with them.

I’m beginning to think she feels the same about me because I mentioned my gender status online. She told me that she is against me going online and discussing my trans status. Because of my online presence, the staff at my favorite supermarket knows that I’m trans. Diana is not on board with it. “I can’t believe what you’ve done,” she exclaimed. “Girl, you look authentic. You sound female. Those people knew nothing about you and then you put it out there like that.” She shook her head.

I sighed. “I seriously doubt if everybody in that store thought I was female without question. Somebody thought something, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, but thinking something and knowing it for a fact are two different things. You’ve confirmed it. Girl, as crazy as people are, somebody might kill you because of that stuff you posted online.”

I suggested that we brave the Christmas rush and go to Colonial Williamsburg tomorrow and have an early lunch in one of the restaurants with fireplaces. She pooh-poohed the suggestion and bluntly said that she had to chill with me. Ouch!

She and I go back a long ways. We spent many afternoons together, eating, gabbing and watching the soaps, when they were enjoyable. So, I don’t want to lose her friendship, but I’m beginning to wonder just how much of a friend she is if she’s prepared to wash her hands of me because I simply chose to be open about who I am.

I vehemently deny ever living in stealth, but being upfront about who I am has been extraordinarily liberating. My husband is supportive and when he and I were dating, he told his parents and siblings, right out of the gate, that I was a transsexual. In the beginning, his parents found it unsettling. I remember his mother would send Christmas cards and address them to just him. He told her that I was his wife and he wanted her to address the cards to Mr. and Mrs.

My husband told me to forget Diana, that because I’m online, she feels by making public appearances with me, that her stealth status is compromised. “Her friendship has conditions,” he said.

Stealth Was A Mistake

One of the ongoing arguments in the transgender community that's guaranteed to generate heated debate one way or the other is the stealth vs out one.

Basically, stealth is the transgender equivalent of what we call in the African-American community 'passing'. Back during the bad old days African-Americans who had features and skin tones light enough to be mistaken for white would just cut ties with the African-American community and fade away into white society so they could access opportunities for a better life. It's how Anita Hemmings in 1897 became the first African-American graduate of Vassar College 40 years before they even began admitting African-Americans.

Even though they became part of white society, they always lived in fear that someone, someday and somehow would discover their Black heritage.

The late FBI head J. Edgar Hoover's legendary hatred of African-Americans was fueled by the fact that he was himself Black and hated his African roots.

Hmm, the self-hatred part of that sounds like Clarence Thomas and a certain group of Caucasian transwomen I've had run ins with.

Basically, that's a snapshot of what living as a stealth transperson is like. They cut ties to the transgender community. If they don't return home they'll sometimes move hundreds or thousands of miles from their hometown to start a new life where nobody knew them in their old gender role.

Up until the early 90's, as part of the Standards of Care, HBIGDA (the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association now called WPATH (the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) used to require that after surgery, a transgender person go stealth and fade into the background never to emerge.

Many did, but recent cases like Christie Lee Littleton's illustrate, like Anita Hemmings some of the unpleasant complications that can arise when your secret is discovered.

Contrary to the misguided opinions of some stealth peeps we out and proud folks would love nothing better than for transpeople of all stripes to simply be considered as men or women irregardless of the genitalia we arrived with on our birthday.

The reality is that we still have a long road to travel to get to that day. To get to that point requires us to educate the public on transgender issues. Some of that education comes from simply openly living our lives.

But you can't do that education effectively if you're hiding from the general public or won't step up and claim that you are.

I believe that the old WPATH, then HBIGDA requirement that transgender people fade away into society is a major factor in causing many of the acceptance problems that we are grappling with now.

Those acceptance problems are especially acute in the African-American transgender community. We have to overcome not only shame and guilt issues but intolerance and transphobia from inside and outside the African-American community while also grappling with the issues that African-Americans face just living our lives.

To illustrate my belief that stealth was a hindrance to the African-American community, time to drop some more knowledge on you.

The first patient of the now closed Johns Hopkins gender program back in 1966 was an African-American transwoman from New York named Avon Wilson.

Now, instead of her fading into the woodwork and being accidentally discovered by a New York Daily News gossip columnist in October 1966, what if she had become our Christine Jorgenson instead?

Avon Wilson would have probably been covered in JET and EBONY. It's not as far fetched as you think. EBONY until 1953 covered Chicago's Finnie's ball and similar events in New York. JET respectfully covered Justina Williams' story 20 years before the AP Stylebook rules on covering transgender people were written.

We'd have a record of her existence beyond a small mention in a gossip column and she could have become the role model and icon for the next generation of African-American transpeople.

Most importantly, it would have also begun the education and discussion about transgender issues in the African-American community in the more politically friendly climate of the late 60's-70s instead of us having to do the education in the more conservative 90's and 2000's.

Also, the urban legend that African-American transpeople didn't exist would have never gained credibility because we'd have irrefutable proof we do decades earlier.

An Avon Wilson or someone else to point to as an African-American transkid would have helped me sort through some of the issues I had as a 70's era teen and given me the courage to transition early, with the corresponding improvement in my life.

Instead, I didn't find out that African-American transpeople existed and wasn't a white only thang until this JET story on Justina Williams appeared in 1979.

I believe that earlier out role models would have resulted in and facilitated the earlier building of an African-American transgender community and more people would have had the incentive and courage to come out. You would have not only had the core group of transgender elders kicking knowledge to us younglings, we'd also have a better grasp of our history as well with more out transgender people of African descent telling their stories.

We also would have had a community that could have survived the initial onslaught of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80's instead of nearly being eviscerated by it.

Now, just because I believe that being stealth in an Internet age is a futile stress inducing endeavor doesn't mean that I have personal animosity or contempt for people who attempt it.

While I personally believe we need more equivalents to actress Fredi Washington in the African-American transgender community or people exhibiting the courage that Isis has shown while competing on this current cycle of America's Next Top Model, I understand and have no problem accepting the fact that some people do it for security or various reasons.

Just as I ask that you respect myself and others for being out and proud, I respect the decision that you've made for your life.

I have classy girlfriends who are stealth transwomen of African descent who are beautiful inside and out, are proud of being transgender and unlike some of the WWBT's, want all transgender people to have civil rights coverage.

But at the same time I get a little sick of the shade that comes from some stealth transpeople (predominately WWBT's) who are quick to holler that their exclusionary, racist, surgery-only mantra is the only true path to manhood or womanhood if your body doesn't match your gender identity. They also erroneously assert that anyone who proudly embraces their transgender status isn't in their eyes a man or woman, or their bullshit lie reminiscent of the nasty crap radical feminists say about transwomen, that we're 'oppressing' them.

Yes, you can claim both. You can have degrees of disclosure up to and including keeping your T-business and surgical status to yourself. You can be proud of being a transperson. Being transgender doesn't make you any less a man or woman.

But looking at my people's history in terms of passing, I still think pushing stealth was a mistake.