By Gwendolyn Ann Smith
In 1952, Christine Jorgensen made banner headlines on newspapers across the country. She pushed nuclear bomb tests off the front page simply by getting sexual reassignment surgery. She wasn't the first transsexual in history, nor was she even the first to have surgery: her story was just at the right place, and the right time.
I was not even a glimmer in my parent's eyes in 1952, so I can only speculate what some other transgender people might have felt about all the publicity that Ms. Jorgensen received. Nevertheless, I can't help but imagine that some complained about her being – as we might say today – out and proud.
More than a half-century after Christine Jorgensen stepped off an airplane in New York, these remains animosity towards transgender people who are somehow perceived as being "too out." As you can imagine, I am one of those who knows of this all too well.
When I was just starting in my own transition, I wanted little more than a quiet life out in the suburbs, where no-one need know my history. I even spent a period of time during the early years of my transition living some of that life, quietly living and working in an environment where I simply did not divulge my history. No one brought it up, either.
Perhaps the universe had different plans for me, as things didn't work out that way. I found it confining to not be able to be public about my history, and felt that I was hiding myself just as much as I had before I came to terms with being transgender. More than this, I felt there was more I could do by being out.
That said, I have yet to introduce myself as "Gwen Smith, transgender." I don't tend to bring up being transgender in some circles, mostly because it is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Further, I do retain the right to choose my battles, and to know when it may be best to hold my tongue.
Those times seem to be fewer and fewer.
One of the biggest challenges for the transgender comes from within, straight out of being silent about our own existence. You see, this is a community that is often too quiet for our own good.
We seem to be at an important juncture, where those who would seek to oppose the basic rights of transgender people are already working hard to paint us as the worst of the worst.
In a recent press release by the American Family Association, the reinstatement of transgender rights in Allentown, Pennsylvania was painted as opening the door for men to use women's public shower facilities. This is, of course, a straw-man argument at best, avoiding the issue of gender identity altogether.
Indeed, it would seem that our opponents are well aware of the presence of transgender people no matter how quiet we try to be. By remaining hidden, we allow others to paint the picture of what a transgender person is. As a result, we are painted as perverse.
It is people like the American Family Association that would rather we remained quiet. The goal is to shut us up, and more than ever, this is the time we need to find our voice.
Christine Jorgensen, at least at first, did not want to be out. She was outed. It wasn't long before she realized that there was a value to being thrust into the limelight. In a letter she wrote in July of 1953, she said, "As you know I have been avoiding publicity. I find now that this is perhaps the wrong approach for now. I shall seek publicity so that Christine will become such an average thing in the minds of the public that when the next Christine comes along the public will consider it an old story and the sensation will be decreased."
I didn't want to be out either, but I had my own reasons for being so. Like Ms. Jorgensen, I hope that in my own way I can help affect change, making for an easier road for the next Gwen than comes along.
