By XXXX
Kerri EdwardsForeword:
I would like to offer a response to the TGForum BB question of whether support groups are beneficial to transgendered people. While it is certainly true that my views and opinions are largely shaped by my own experiences, I have seen first-hand the good that a group can do for others. It would not be too large an exaggeration to say that lives have been saved because of the acceptance, understanding and love found through the group.
I know, too, that it is possible for a group to fail in its mission of providing the very thing it is its "business" to do - supporting. As evidence, look at Robyn Smith's TGForum BB message. And, as good as I think my own Tri-Ess group (Sigma Epsilon) normally is, I have known us to fail in exactly the ways Robyn described. For that matter, I have known myself to fail...
One of our Sigma Epsilon members who does not often attend the monthly group meetings wrote me recently to explain her absence. I made my reply a more-or-less open letter to the membership and used it as the basis for my monthly Southern Belle art icle. It is presented here as a reminder that we do, indeed, owe something more than "how to dress" tips to new members and visitors to our support group meetings.
Reprinted from The Southern Belle, the Sigma Epsion Tri-Ess Chapter Newsletter:
Well, here I am, trying to think of something witty to say in this, my second Southern Belle column. Stephanie Simmons (our new editor) never told me I was going to have to work at this thing!
I have, though, just completed a reply to a letter sent to me by one of our members who, like many others, does not often attend our Sigma Epsilon functions. I have decided to make my correspondence a more or less open letter and have used parts of it in this month's article. How's that for efficiency? Well, OK, call it lazy, then...
Thank you very much for the kind comments in your letter to me! Yes, I remember you from the meeting this past January and the one in December, 1994. I apologize for not spending more time with you.
I understand your reluctance to participate in our Sigma Epsilon group meetings. Nearly all of us suffer, even the toughest of us, from some degree of stage fright when we place ourselves on public display. Some of us, like you and, yes, me, hide that n ervousness very well most of the time. (In your case, though, you look so believable that it's hard to understand why!) True, I have become bolder in my "outings" over the past several years, but the butterflies are still very much with me and doubtless always will be. We fear many things (some justifiably) but the main one, I think, is that of ridicule. I am not a psychoanalyst, but, Lord knows, I have given this subject a great deal of thought!
I remember very well my first attempts to visit a Tri-Ess group - the Kappa Beta chapter in Charlotte, North Carolina - about 5 years ago. Twice I went to the motel where the meetings are held, dressed in my room - and stayed in it. I was too fearful to even walk out the door and no one from the group knew that I had come! On the third trip, I parked my car directly in front of the room I had rented and managed to make myself scurry to it so that I could drive the two or three hundred feet to the meeti ng suite.
I often reflect on my own "progress" over the past few years and think back to those not-so-long-ago days. Many of us who regularly attend the Sigma Epsilon meetings - myself included - sometimes forget that time in which we, too, were so paralyzed by fe ar that we could not seek out the help we so desperately needed to overcome it. It is a classic "Catch-22," isn't it?
Sigma Epsilon, Kappa Beta - all Tri-Ess chapters, I suppose - are so much more than the superficiality of "going out" in public while dressed en femme. In truth, it is almost immaterial whether we ever leave the friendly confines of the hospitality room, or, for that matter, whether we even go to it while wearing women's clothes. What matters is that we leave with a renewed sense of self, an understanding that we are not alone, the knowledge that we are not freaks, the peace that comes from self-acceptan ce of who and what we are.
Oh, don't get me wrong...going out with the group or by myself is certainly fun and I look forward to it very much. It is, in fact, about the only opportunity I have to do it. But that is not my real reason for going to chapter meetings. I go to partic ipate in the companionship, to be accepted, to feel better about myself.
Sigma Epsilon is a very active chapter and, as you know, we have visitors and gain new members nearly every month. Those of us who have been the beneficiaries of what Sigma Epsilon can do owe it to those new, often fearful faces to offer our support to them. We should remember why we first came and how we felt. Speaking bluntly, we, in the general membership, need to do a better job of making our newcomers feel welcome and part of the group. Like yourself, we have many members - most, in fact - who s eldom attend any Sigma Epsilon function. And that is a shame. I realize that some simply cannot, for whatever reason, come to the meetings but I can't help believing that for many we are not providing what they expect or need from being with us. If thi s is so, it is as much my fault as anyone elses.
Thinking back to my first Sigma Epsilon meeting some 2 1/2 years ago, the thing I remember most was the friendliness of the group. I came away knowing that I was accepted and that I had found, for lack of a better word, sanctuary. I remember being take n under another member's wing, listening to her laughter, hearing her say that if you are a cd, you'd better develop a sense of humor and watching her live that belief. I clung to her that Saturday as though I had been glued to her skirt and, perhaps for the first time in my life, had fun being a crossdresser!
That "big sister" is now a member of another Tri-Ess chapter closer to her home. I still miss having her with us. But all of us can do some of what she did for me. We can be friendly, spend time with our new members and visitors, make them feel welcome , invite them to join us in our activities, remember their names, talk to them, let them know that we want them there, and not abandon them to the fears they are almost certainly feeling.
I, for one, promise to do better!
We'd love to have you join us!