No, this is not the latest Tom Clancy thriller. I am not a secret agent telling all from an age gone by. However, I do have a secret life. One that, perhaps, should be a little less secret. Like many, I have lived with one foot in the masculine world and one heel in the feminine. This reality is tempered though with the need to present an acceptable image to the world. To fullfill my desires for home, family, and career, I've played the game as a high pressure, responsible man.
I often wonder if it would be a surprise to know the man presiding over a business meeting is wearing silk panties. Would many would suspect the police officer of putting on pantyhose with his 9mm? Would it shock anyone to know of the camisole and manicured nails hidden under a flight suit of a pilot entrusted with a 100 millon dollar aircraft?
Perhaps... The game has, as most of us are gratefully aware, begun to change. Young people are expanding the boundries of culture, gender and sexuality. I can only smile at the signs of open expressions of gay love,
boys in nail polish and ear rings, and even the re-emergance of the dress; on both genders. This is in part due, at least in part, to the many pioneers of the Transgender world. Who can say how much is owed to these brave individuals. The names Victoria Prince, Renee Richards, Ricki Wilchens, and JoAnn Roberts, among others who will live on forever.
In this, I am reminded of those famous words by Winston Churchill: "So much is owed by so many to so few." This battle is half a century later, but in my estimation one no less important than that long ago Battle of Britain. I am sure history will confirm this in time. Still the battle is not yet won and there lies many more battles as yet fought in our war for personal freedom and equality. These battles will continue after you and I are long gone and forgotten. So what can we do to in the struggle?
For some, the answer is simply to wait for the world to come to us. This is a valid response for many who have much to loose and little to gain over the short term. Perhaps the risk to innocent bystanders, like our children, is reason enough for inaction. Fair enough. Let me suggest an other course of action. Instead of covert action and living life in the closet perhaps, we should as a community engage in "overt action." I am not suggesting that we proclaim ourselves to be individuals of an alternate gender to the general public. What I am suggesting is a number of small actions, if taken by the many TG people, will have an impact on the general public. For as the Chinese saying goes, "with many hands a mountain can be moved." Chinese hands have without the benefit of high Comments, corrections, rebuttals?
Please feel free to let loose. Otherwise I am just muttering in the dark and as such am liable to be given a rear lacing suit and be hauled off to a quiet and dark place.
Eh!!! (Old Canadian Anachronism)