In this post I will further discuss motives for staying hidden as a transgenderist.  The companion post will focus on motives of staying hidden as a psychopath.  I have touched upon these before, briefly.  However, they merit more discussion.

Why is it that if I hide my transgenderism, people can be understanding, but few are sympathetic if I hide my psychopathy.  There is stigma associated with both.  I used to be quite open with my gender identity in LGBT circles, but quickly learned that such was a waste of energy.  Not only was it a waste of energy, it led to knee-jerk thoughts of strangling people on several occasions. No matter what the modern thoughts are behind multi-culturalism and LGBT awareness, one simply cannot understand what it means to be marginalized without walking a mile in their shoes.  One can dream up words of morality to explain why we should be sensitive to marginalized groups that behave well, but these are often merely rationalizations by a population disgusted by the alternative (discriminatory thoughts and actions toward the marginalized).  Few examine their own morality to justify the beliefs they hold.

Even marginalized groups can be disdainful of other marginalized groups.  I saw this all the time in various LGBT circles.  This is why removing my cloak was a waste of energy.  Gays and lesbians (not so much the bisexuals) would treat transgenderists as some sort of freak show in which they (gays and lesbians) could ascertain a more ‘normal’ status.  Misinformation, misconception, and gut reactions of disgust abounded when dealing with those people.  Hell, I even had people ask if I was homosexual but just changing my body in order to make any relationship more tasteful in western society.  Others would ask if I was in drag and would use the pronoun I hate even after being corrected innumerable times.  Needless to say, my rage would boil over at times and I quickly distanced myself from that community and even from their struggles.  Why would I waste my energy championing them when they cannot be arsed to understand, much less defend, mine?

So that is one motive of staying hidden as a transgenderist:  to remove the bullshit / freakshow aspect of others gawking in my life.  There are other motives as well.  Some simple ones are to avoid physical violence from the unhinged as well as to avoid changing perceptions of yourself by others.  Oh my god you have facial hair and muscles but you have a vagina down there!?  What kind of pervert are you?  Given that I recently posted about privilege, we might have another avenue to discuss reasons of staying hidden.

Privilege is the latent elevation in success due to the feelings of society based on characteristics unrelated to effort exuded.  As I theorized (and do believe) in that post, transgender males gain privilege after transitioning from one body or presentation to another.  Transgender females lose it in spades.  Everything would go to hell for either gender if transgender status was found out as cisgendered (in actuality or appearance) individuals hold privilege as well.  The inequity between transgender males and females on this front is not upsetting to me, merely interesting.  The power of privilege is possibly the most powerful reason to stay cloaked: to shed that cloak is to open one’s self up to failure due to a lack of privilege and the ill-will of society.  If people do not know that I am transgender, then I can either take that male privilege by the horns or at the very least have the fighting, although unfair, chance that females have in western society.  The malice of society can simply be avoided if one is not discovered to be transgender.  Cloaking one’s incongruence between gender and sex is merely capitalizing on ‘membership’ of a majority group: in this case, the cisgendered.  Maybe it isn’t being completely true to myself, but the advantages of acceptance are simply too great to pass up.

I would love to hear the motivation of a non-psychopathic transgenderist that chooses not to cloak themselves.  I suspect it would revolve around integrity and the questionable (through the lens of the body count, not the greater movement) practice of disclosure by many leading to acceptance by many.  As a psychopath, both of these are irrelevant as the advantage of being hidden and being part of that majority is simply too alluring.

I remain cloaked because the cisgender privilege it imparts is too welcome.  I even remain cloaked within the LGBT community as incongruences of the mind and body are treated as a freakshow.  I wear my cloak and do not look back as life is an optimization problem for me.  Maximize the rewards and minimize the efforts.  Being known as a freak (transgender or psychopathic) minimizes the reward while maximizing the effort.  Why on earth would I expose myself under such conditions?