In Search of Truth Amongst the myths and misinformation

To be transgender is to be among a minority that challenges the status quo simply by their very existence.  In the last ten years, the Internet changed everything: it opened a whole new world of communication to transgender people who thought they were alone in the world.

Like many of you, I belong to several online forums: places where people exchange ideas, have discussions, and to some extent make friends. What astounds me, no, startles me, is that I've heard statements "as fact" about a broad range of topics, from what motivates gays, transsexuals, drag queens, women, and CDs, to what a trans person can come to expect at different levels of their evolution. And most of it is stereotypical rhetoric, failing to realize that there is a wide spectrum to the word transgender and that not every experience is or will be the same.

Because someone has a compulsion as a child to wear mom's clothes -- and in later life buys their own and continues that practice --doesn't mean they actually understand it. What it does mean is that they understand how it makes THEM feel, no more, no less.  It isn't fact, it isn't truth; it is merely an opinion subject to change based on future life experience. Still, many search for headlines and theories to support pre-adopted positions rather than gathering information and experience first, then forming an opinion later. And anyone who challenges their adopted truth is quickly dismissed: "You just don't get it." In fact, many times some of us do get it because we've been there. We don't happen to agree.  

Some have not explored their own transgender behavior (or others') beyond the bedroom door or perhaps an annual transgender social outing, yet continue to make careless statements that they defend with the veracity of a lioness protecting her Pride -- all based on experiences they have never had. This is neither helpful to the individual or the community, and further confuses an already confused mainstream that we should be educating.

Some are too quick to latch onto party lines, someone else's story, and repeat it as their own. And you have to wonder whether this comes from impatience to learn the truth of oneself, or from how they want to be perceived.

While some may in fact be "A woman trapped in a man's body," or "A man that has a feminine side," there are others that use it as a shield to protect them from being categorized in some other way less attractive in their own mind. But to adopt a false truth and then sprinkle it with your own experience inhibits any legitimate effort to unravel the transgender puzzle.