Editor,

The following is my response to the Connectivity survey entitled, “Stealth vs. Out.”

I am professionally, medically and publicly trans (an FTM). I am 21. I did not have a choice at first whether to be out as trans or not. That was the label the mental health team at the inpatient unit I received services at labeled me. When I moved to Boston to transition, because that is where the doctors are, part of my program from hospital to the real world was to go to the GLBT Youth group, BAGLY. There, I learned that my feelings were called trans. I don’t live in between. I am male. In my personal life I am honest about my past, but at Church or with my family or at a restaurant I just want to be left alone and be a guy. I hang out in queer space but that is changing, as I feel I have outgrown the gay community and am more comfortable in heterosexual land. I useta go out with men (as a straight tomboy) now I find I like women and am still heterosexual. For me, transitioning was never about the gender of the person I was sleeping with (I was never ok with my body to even get naked and have sex before transition); it has always been about ME and how I relate to my own body. So when am I out? I think that there is a wide spectrum of outness, sometimes based on my safety, my self-esteem, my peers and my health. Yes, I pass as a non-transsexual. But in truth I have a trans body. My mom is a double amputee. She has no legs. That does not mean she cannot walk. She uses artificial limbs; but to her, they are real. They function. She functions as a non-handicapped person. My mom inspires me a lot. Yes, I am born without a penis, but I do not function like a trans person, I function as though I always had one to me the one I have is real. Overcoming a disability is as much a state of mind as it is a state of physical reality and capability. By the way, when I think about Stealth, I think about people who have no connection to the trans community at all. Like, hello. If one is answering this survey, they acknowledge a part of themselves as trans, how else would they know the language or have the resource to respond? Stealth vs. Out is one of those ketch phrases that limits the movement by polarizing the issue. It’s not as if one is either out or they are hiding something. Sometimes I get so frustrated by the petty fractions in the community and the barriers between identities that I want to go back in the closet. However, it on my sad days when I feel like all hope is gone, when I feel I am the only one that is when I need the community and ya know what, the community needs me. Once that door is open, they won’t let you go back in, no matter how hard you try or what town you move to, your past goes with you. My basketball coach once told me that when guarding an opponent who has the ball look at the belly button. They will try to fake you out with their eyes or their feet but if their body moves right, then the mid-section is going with them. The moral here is that being Out for me is a matter of being true to my core self, following my heart and my gut. If I listen to myself then I need not worry about how anyone else is living their life. I need not play the passing game or the outing game, ya know. Bring the mind, and the body will follow.

Written by: Jeff Johnston, (c) January 2002