Visible Man: Out or in closets, trans lives are at risk

Jamison Green offers a man's POV on life in the trans lane. Opinion, advice, and information from an internationally respected leader of the FTM community.

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I always try to remain conscious of the fact that life is different for trans people outside the San Francisco Bay Area. Not that everything is always rosy in this particular Mecca: We still have trans people who are homeless, under- or unemployed, living in ways that put them at very high risk for HIV infection, who are struggling with depression, loneliness, illness or abusive situations. But at least we have openness. We have protective ordinances, we have education programs, we have a collective sense of greater safety here in the Bay Area (and in a few other pockets of civilization around the world). It is easy to become lulled into a sense of progress and community here that doesn't exist for people elsewhere. Sometimes it doesn't really exist here, either.

I received a phone call recently from a 65-year-old trans man (I'll call him Joe) who had his sex reassignment surgery so long ago (over 40 years ago!) that he no longer remembers his surgeon's name. In those days, he really was alone. There were no support groups; there was virtually no literature available, certainly nothing from a positive consumer point of view. Joe, like many others through the latter half of the 20th century, believed he was the only person in the world like himself, the only person born with a female body who needed to live his life in a male body. People then figured themselves out, found endocrinologists and surgeons, got through surgery, and moved on with their lives without any detailed information or social support at all. You'd think those days were over now, but I'm afraid they're not.

Joe called because he needed medical assistance, and he didn't know where to go to find it. He had never met another trans man, and he didn't know who to talk to about his situation. A lesbian friend of Joe's who had been exposed to trans literature referred him to me because he told her he was worried: The stent that had been installed as a permanent stiffener inside his penis was broken, and he was afraid the jagged edge was going to puncture the shaft. He didn't have access to the Internet, so he didn't know how many resources were available. He had never spoken to another trans man; he had never seen one, and he didn't imagine there would be anyone who could understand.

What he needed was a referral to a selection of surgeons who might be able to help him, and a little emotional support for the effort it would take to make the call to the surgeons' receptionists to explain the problem. This is relatively simple stuff, but for someone who had lived with the secret of his transness for over 40 years, someone who believed that he was completely alone, it was a revelation to find out he was wrong.

I try to imagine what it would be like for a person to live day in and day out for over 40 years thinking he is the only transsexual man in the world, thinking he can't ask for medical help, worrying that his children or friends might find out that he was not born male in the common, expected way. Rationally, I know many people do live like that all over the world. Still, the level of energy that people need to expend protecting themselves from the shame of discovery under those conditions must be extreme. I am reminded of a friend who transitioned in the mid-1970s without genital reconstruction, who told me in the mid-1980s that every single time he goes into the men's room he summons up a force field around himself to protect himself from discovery. He told me he keeps other men out of the restroom by sheer willpower, and that way he is able to use a toilet stall instead of the urinal without having his manhood called into question.

I don't think I could live like that. I don't want to spend my energy that way. And yet I lived most of my life unable to discuss my own transness with anyone before I found the language to express my feelings, before I met others who shared my experience, who forged the path for me. It is so easy to forget what it was like before we knew the who, the why, the how of transness.

Joe is on his way now to having the necessary repairs done so he can enjoy sex again with his partner. And now he knows he's not alone in this world. But it was not such a happy ending for transgender activist Terrianne Summers, who was shot to death in Jacksonville, Florida, on December 12, 2001, two days after a transgender town hall meeting in St. Petersburg where 25 people discussed the discrimination they have faced because of their gender.

According to an Equality Florida media release, "Terrianne was a human rights activist who worked closely with local and state human rights organizations and who helped to organize and empower the transgender community in the Jacksonville area. Her sudden and violent death is a great loss for her family and friends as well as for the transgender community long ravaged by hate-based violence."

"Terrianne was always quick with a smile and eager to help others," said Jessica Archer, fellow transgender activist and friend who works for Equality Florida. "She showed tremendous courage to be out and active in a part of the state where transgender people are highly misunderstood and are generally afraid of being visible." Gunned down execution style with a bullet in the back of her head on her own front lawn, Terrianne Summers is survived by a spouse and two children.

This outrageous and deplorable murder may have been intended as a message for the people like Joe and for the rest of us who struggle, as Terrianne did, to live a decent life and leave the world a better place, that we don't deserve to live, that our difference is downright unacceptable to some people, that we're better off if we don't show our trans faces in public and don't risk offending those who can't abide sharing this earth with people who aren't exactly like themselves. But we can't let violence and hatred control our lives any more than we can allow ignorance and bigotry to write our laws.

With tears in our eyes for Terrianne and her family, we'll welcome Joe into the fold, and we'll grow stronger in our resolve to fight for justice and equality.