From: w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Lorraine Lee)
Subject: Re: Support, and anonymity
Reply-To: w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 23:34:53 GMT

In article <1in6k2INNdok@im4u.cs.utexas.edu>, russw@cs.utexas.edu (Russ Williams) writes:

>No offense, but I'm struck by the irony of this in an anonymous post!
>:-)
>This newsgroup has the highest proportion of anonymous posts I've
>ever seen.  Is this topic more volatile than alt.sex.bondage, for
>instance?  It's curious that there's apparently more social stigma
>to crossdressing than consensual flogging, for example.  (Not
>that either should have a stigma, of course...)  I'm not criticising,
>but I am curious: folks who do public crossdressing, what
>motivates you to post anonymously?  I can understand people who
>are not "out", even to friends or lovers, but if you're already
>"out", why use an anonymous service?  The more "real" people who
>visibly discuss these issues, the sooner the political change of
>which Gwen wrote so eloquently may come about, right?
>
>Russ

Here's another irony... I've posted non-anonymously  here since the creation of
this newsgroup.  I've never been en femme outside of my home, and aside from
people I met thru this newsgroup and a similarly-themed electronic mailing
list, only six people (which includes 2 shrinks and an electrologist) on God's
earth know me to be anything other than a man.

My motivation in introducing myself to this community "non-anonymously" from
the start was something like "If I can't come THIS far out of the closet how
can I even BEGIN to do all the things I'll have to do, like explaining this to
my close family and friends, looking for a job with gender-inconsistent
documents etc etc etc?".  Whatever my second step out of the closet is, I
haven't taken it yet.

Also... maybe Gwen is posting anonymously in order to facilitate anonymous
followups by mail (which is probably the easiest way to "register" with the
Finnish Anonymizer).

I think everyone should know that I have received VIRTUALLY NO harrassment on
campus, online or anywhere else.  I had braced myself for a mailbox overflowing
with messages from "concerned" conservative Xtian types pleading with me to see
the error in my chosen path and, to my pleasant surprise, nada. Should be noted
that my social and net.people circles generally don't intersect, and there are
other reasons why "your mileage may vary".  Now to get me convinced that
transitioning on the job isn't as potentially unpleasant (even dangerous) as I
imagine it to be...

I'm tempted to say "jump on in, the water's fine", but non-anonymous posting
could have very real unpleasant consequences for some people.

Some advantages in posting anonymously...

1. If you don't have the abilityh to change the personal name you post under,
non-anonymous posting implies presenting yourself under the name you were born
with, which can compromise the message communicated in subtle but important
ways.

2. If you do have the above mentioned ability and you are not living full-time
under your chosen name, you might not want to take advantage of that system
feature because if you do, every time you email something to a professor, a
friend you're not "out" to, a misc.jobs.offered poster etc. etc. etc. you will
go through that routine..."I DID set it to my 'homme name' before I sent that,
DIDN'T I???"  And of course, sooner or later you will "slip".  Maybe that will
be my second step out of the closet:)

3. AS FAR AS I KNOW, you have to have an anon-id to be able to receive
anon-email.  (sysnerds: Please correct me if I'm wrong.)  A lot of non-anon
participants have anonymous email addresses in their signatures, I would
assume, as a service to those who would like to talk anonymously about these
things.

Some advantages in posting non-anonymously...

1. It's more personal...people don't just know who you are, but where you're
posting from.  Could make the difference between someone in your home town
knowing/not knowing that there is a local gender community of two or more... 
To me this outweighs the potential to make enemies in my local community. 
Alt.transgen participation hasn't made me any of either, yet.

2. For whatever it may be worth, those participants who have Internet access
can "talk" to you if they know your Internet address (assuming you have one). 
I haven't tried initiating any such talks because I don't know what rules of
etiquette apply, if any.  As for me, I'm usually willing to talk whenever I'm
online, and if not, I don't mind being interrupted by daemons.  Etiquette
question...Is the default assumption that those who don't want to take calls
have the feature disabled a safe one?

3. It feels good.  Really.



Hugs,
Lorraine

w2lee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
an822@anon.penet.fi

Newsgroups: alt.transgendered