Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

The fear of exposure leads some transgenderists to shy away from community building (Roen 2002).
There is a common assumption that if one transgendered person (who might otherwise pass) is
accompanied by a detectable transgenderist, that they are more likely to be read as transgender as well.
For this reason, non-passable transgenderists are often seen as a liability (Gagne et al. 1997). ―Two or
more transexxuals together, goes the myth, can be read more easily as transsexual- so they don‘t pass‖
(Bornstein 1994).
There are transgenderists who are beginning to express discontent at the culturally imposed
standard of silence. Kate Bornstein, a famous transsexual gender radical asserts that the best way for trans
people to liberate themselves is to open up dialogue amongst themselves; to start asking sincere
questions, and intently listening to each other (Bornstein 1994). Bornstein often participates in talk-shows
where she is criminalized and ridiculed for being a transsexual, but finds that these outlets are the best
way to educate masses of people about the plight of transgendered people. Of one talk-show
experience she said, ―I was a freak all right, but I was only a freak to the degree that I remained silent.
When I spoke, I had a chance to educate, and, paradoxically, I became less of a freak‖ (Bornstein 1994).
Emotional Impact of Trans Erasure
The societal standard of silence imposed on transgenderists deeply effects the emotional lives of
trans people. Trans people are told by society that they should not exist, or worse, that they already are
non-existent. In a study by Schrock and colleagues, they found that suicide was more commonly
discussed in transgender support groups than transgender politics (Schrock et al. 2004). These kinds of
emotional reactions to societal oppression and discrimination are common throughout the trans
community. In the journal article entitled Coming Out and Crossing Over, the sample included many
transgenderists that battled with drug and alcohol addictions as a reaction to the pain of being forced to
enact a gender that they did not relate to (Gagne et al. 1997). A small portion of the sample even reported
that they had mutilated their genitals in their youth in a puerile attempt to change their gender (Gagne et
al. 1997). Because most of the participants in Schrock‘s study had contemplated or attempted suicide, it
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