Not to follow a trend or anything

[randolph]

From Lynn Conway at lynnconway.com

Originally Posted by Lynn Conway

Approximately 30,000 to 40,000 postoperative transsexual women live in the United States, and many thousands more are now in the process of gender transition here. These numbers are much larger than commonly assumed by the public because a veil of invisibility hides the true nature and extent of the transsexual condition. Especially hidden are large numbers of highly successful women who have fully transitioned. The reason is that most successful women live in "stealth mode" or are "woodworked". They leave their pasts behind and hide in plain sight in order to avoid social stigmatization and get on with their new lives. Their personal successes insure that they assimilate and blend right into society.

The social invisibility of successful women who have undergone gender corrections supports the notion that male-to-female transsexualism is extremely rare. However, intense transsexualism is not all that uncommon. Recent calculations indicate that the condition occurs in about 1 out of every 250 to 500 children born as boys, and that about 1 in every 2500 males in the U.S. has already undergone surgical sex reassignment*. Transsexualism is thus more than twice as prevalent as multiple sclerosis (MS), cerebral palsy or cleft lip/palate conditions.

The invisibility of these successes supports notions that gender transitions often have rather sad outcomes. At present, the media only spotlights transsexual people on two occasions, namely when "someone well-known changes sex" and when someone is a victim of discrimination, harassment or attack. Media stories about someone's "sex change" are never followed-up to find out what happened years later. Instead stories always focus on pre-transition life and struggles during transition and never on their life afterwards. This lack of balance in exposure shapes society's notion that transition leads to social marginalization or worse, because we "never hear about them again". Only stories of occasional social failures and victims of harassment and attacks remain visible longer term.

[Bionca]

Lynn pretty much has it there, and I've always loved her site. Part of being a successful transition was your ability to simply disappear. It's caused a serious generational rift as the women who transitioned before 1980's just weren't there.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by Bionca

Lynn pretty much has it there, and I've always loved her site. Part of being a successful transition was your ability to simply disappear. It's caused a serious generational rift as the women who transitioned before 1980's just weren't there.

In reading the brief comments under the pictures of the women on Lynn's site I wondered if any of them date or got married. It seems from your comments that dating is rather problematic for a transsexual. Gays seem to be able to develop long term relationships. Why is it harder for transsexuals?

[Bionca]

Originally Posted by randolph

In reading the brief comments under the pictures of the women on Lynn's site I wondered if any of them date or got married. It seems from your comments that dating is rather problematic for a transsexual. Gays seem to be able to develop long term relationships. Why is it harder for transsexuals?

I know Lynn is married. I'm sure many of them date and still others retained their pre-transition relationships.

Why is it harder for trans women to date? Because hetero men take a potential social "hit" by dating us and that's hard to deal with. Gay guys don't really have an out, they have to deal with homophobia or be alone. Hetero guys have an obvious and less complicated "out" - non-trans women. The fear of being seen as gay seems to be a recurring theme and social stigma can be a powerful motivator.