It Is Both

Both? What? Well, a transition is both personal and public. No matter how a woman transitions, she is on her own personal journey to a goal not known beyond tomorrow and hope. She is also on a public one because of not who she is as person or human being but what she is as a "transwoman", which doesn't really mean anything to her.

That's because the vast majority of women in transition don't consider themselves transgender or transsexual, or any term for that matter, but it leaves a vacuum which the public wants to know about them, "What are they." Not who are they as women, but what kind of woman, and more specifically, what kind of transwoman.

This doesn't happen with gay people. Everyone generally agrees what a gay man or lesbian is, it's common knowledge. But transgender or transsexual raises the whole spectrum of expressions and presentations where people generally pick one to apply to everyone, no matter if it's true or right. But it's not good.

So when any transwoman goes out the front door, they're always on that, the personal and public journey. Gay and lesbian people can be anyone, express or present themselves anyway they want, and we all seem to accommodate them to some degree, or most do as hate crimes persist.