Why?

[Absaroka]

From what I've read the number of FTM transitions is increasing, and there are some who think that eventually it will roughly equal then number of MTF transitions.

There are also those who say this is a product of sexism, that the needs of men who need to become women are given greater weight than the needs of women who need to become men. Others say it's more acceptable for a man to be "downwardly mobile" and become female than it is for women to aspire to manliness. And of course there is the surgical arguement that "it's easier to build a hole than a pole" which begs the question of why was that MTF the pioneering proceedure.

I suspect there is truth to all these arguements, and the fact that our entire society is in the process of "transitioning" in regards to the status of women in our society no doubt affects all these viewpoints.

Zari

[Anthony Simon]

I am more ready to open that door than ever. It may be we would find ourselves over joyed and thrilled when our friends or our family accept us and tell us with a smile of acceptance "It's not a big deal, It doesn't make any difference to us, we love you just the way you are!" Yeah, but many will not but I believe that price may well be worth paying - I did withhold all of this from my parents who have now passed...I will never know if they would have stated "It does not make any difference to us, we will always love you." In reality I never told them because I felt certain that it definitely would have made a difference to them, though I knew that they would always love me and I was and still would be afraid of their response, the psychological consequences. We have to be willing to accept what comes but our parents are probably the most important people in our lives admit it or not. Anne

About letting other people know...I mean my family knows one way or another that I used to dress up, but they don't know how serious it's become. In terms of letting my neighbours know - I think one person would be alright with it, but I'm pretty sure a lot of my other relationships would suffer. And there's one person who's decided to be an enemy - and I'm sure she would use it mercilessly.

Just about the only person who, for me, "got it right" was my aunt. After I'd played Titania in a school play and went over to hers for tea, it was just exactly the same as on any other day.

[Anne Bonny]

Right.... I believe we can judge how certain people would react, and who might be safe to tell our secret to - trouble is there would be many times that our judgement would be wrong meaning some who we believe would be supportive would not be, and vice versa. Tip toeing through a mine field. We have to be careful in choosing what we are going to do, who we might tell. Perhaps hinting to check reactions - Hey did you see that story about that 11 year old child on hormone blockers!? Or something similar, then depending on how they respond go a little further or take that person off your list of potential people to trust. Of course we also need to know if the people we are telling well enough to know if they are a big gossop and or cannot keep a secret. There may be ways to open the door to a network of people - like recruiting for the resistance movement, and some of course we would have to kill! (that's a joke).