Assumptions

The one problem people who transistion from one gender to the other have when talking with people, usually because the other person(s) are curious, mystified, angry, and so on through the gamut of emotions known in reactions to transpeople, isn't their knowledge and experience, although some aren't fully aware let alone knowledgeable about being transgender, but the assumptions of the other person(s).

It's why there are so many misperceptions about transpeople, many of which are perpetuated by opponents with blatant lies and misinformation (and why just because it came from a "Dr", usually of religion or theology, and sometimes from a mail-order "university", it must be right escapes me). But everyone has a view of transpeople which they put on anyone they see as transgender or occasionally meet.

It's why transpeople can't get their individual story through to most people, they don't want to listen except to fit the story into their assumptions about transpeople. In most cases, they've already lost the person(s) to understand the truth about transpeople and the reality of their story. And they lost the person(s) to accepting them, unless those people have experience and a postitive view of transgender people.

And try as they have, the transcommunity hasn't overcome these assumptions because in many cases they actually perpetuate those assumptions. It's because many in the transcommunity use the umbrella explanation of transgender people, from drag queens to post-transistion people, without qualifying the subgroups or the individuals. And especially the differences, in ways people see and understand.

The transcommunity loves the umbrella idea while sacrificing the individuals. And it's the individuals who suffer the most. The transcommunity argues against transphobia but can't see how they perpetuate it. When people look at post-transistion women but think of gay drag queens, or heterosexual cross-dresser, it's no wonder they can't accept them as women. And it's no wonder those women can't seem to get accepted.

And the media, sometimes with the transcommunity's help or involvement, perpetuates this problem with their rhetoric and news about "transgender" women, trying to show them as normal women, except any normal woman wouldn't do what the media has transwomen do for the story, but then reinforcing the idea they're not real women, but transgender women.

They isolate them from the rest and the transcommunity not only encourages it but emphasizes it themselves, identifying them as transgender, forgetting to add the explanation where under the umbrella they are, leaving it to the assumption of the people reading, watching or listening to the story. They actually make it worse. Really?

Yes. Look at the press releases about Amanda Simpson, the second political appointee to the government (not one of the firsts in government, just for appointees). It was the transgender community who identified her as transgender, even though she had transistion 10 years earlier. She has a transgender past or history, but she isn't currently transgender, but simply female and a woman.

But the transcommunity did the damage, feeding the opponents to call her every transphonic and degrading description in the book about transgender people. Leaving it to their assumptions than making sure the properly identified Ms. Simpson. And then they argued against those people, except the damage was done to all post-transistion women. They created the fire and were angry when people added more wood to it?

And the transcommunity wonders why the vast majority of post-transistion women, and many in-transistion, don't come out or become public, but simply live quietly as women? Would you help someone who stabs you in the back? Would you want to keep expaining why all the assumptions about transgender women aren't true because the transcommunity won't fight for you?

Anyway, my point is simply that if you meet a transperson, wherever they are in the transistion, don't assume anything unless they tell you, and then remember it only applies to them, and not other transpeople. Every transperson's story and view is different, and many don't fit under the transgender umbrella or in people's assumptions.

So ask with a clear open mind and heart as you would anyone else. You might just meet a really cool person, and maybe a new friend.