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

another tactic which transgenderists use to make themselves less vulnerable to transphobic violence,
rather than mobilizing to create a less violent sphere in which transgenderists can peacefully exist.
Benefits of a Transgender Community
―We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been- a place, half-remembered, and
half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community.‖ (Bornstein 1994).
Because transgenderists are not represented in the media in an accurate or relatable way, most
trans people develop their perspectives in solitude (Bornstein 1994). By finding peers whom they could
relate to because of shared experience, members who were new to the trans community were able to
alleviate their feelings of isolation (Gagne et al. 1997). Many transgendered people find a new sense of
self-recognition when they become aware of the existence of a transgendered community: This
community gives them safe space to experiment with potential identities (Gagne et al. 1997).
Transgendered individuals seek out the validation of both significant others and a community of similar
people in order to find stability in their identity (Gagne et al. 1997).
Many transgenderists find their first experience in a support group of transgendered people to be
highly gratifying. It is common for new participants to report a feeling of freedom and
complete acceptance within the group unlike any they had previously known (Gagne et al. 1997).
―Interacting with other differently-gendered people allowed newcomers to feel like they were born into a
new kind of family where it was safe to be themselves‖ (Schrock et al. 2004). Sandra, a participant in a
study of community building among transgendered individuals, said this of her first experience attending
a community support group:
I told [the support group] my story. I was honest with myself and with the people in the
room, and it was very cleansing. I felt really good…. I was amazed, it was like I broke
through a shell; an underground society that had before been out of reach. And all of a
sudden there I was in touch with it. It was right in front of me. It‘s almost like I had come
home (Schrock et al. 2004).
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