Improving the Trans "Community" on an Individual Basis

Over the past few weeks I have been very outspoken. I challenged others in "activist" roles to make things better, so in the spirit of fairness I wanted to share the ways I think each person can do their part to making the trans world a better place for everyone, be they trans or not.

This advice took the form of a personal pledge to help take the transgender movement into a new generation. The overarching philosophy of this pledge is matching self perception with external perception, thus enabling a person to truly be themselves and convey that sense of identity effectively to others. This is a universal endeavor of everyone, but decidedly difficult for a transgender person because of the initial disparity between our self view and how the world views us. This goal of perfect unity in perception is unattainable, accept that, but work towards it nonetheless. Since we are constantly evolving our own self views throughout our lives, this is a lifelong endeavor.

To accomplish this, one must pledge to:

1. Be responsible for defining yourself to you.

• Refuse to take your identity from labels, they represent only imperfect points or ranges in a world of spectrums. Define your own.
• You must first learn yourself before you can teach yourself to others. Challenge yourself to go through this process personally rather than simply joining a group or accepting a label of similar traits. Be unique, define yourself as such.

2. Refuse to attempt to define or alter another’s self identity. You get to have your perception of them, but only they can form their self view.

3. Realize that you, as a person in the world, are a combination of your self perception and how others see you. This combination is who you are and not all of it is within your control. You are not entitled to have others see you the way you see yourself, that must be earned with each individual.

4. Commit to honestly perceiving others, learning how they view themselves, and identifying the space inbetween. Don’t be afraid to share this space with them in a mature and constructive dialog. This information is essential for them to work towards the goal of unity of perceptions.

5. Know that you cannot simply tell others how to view you. You must convince them through your actions, values, and appearance. Ultimately, they get to decide... be ok with that. If you don’t like what they decide but feel their assessment is genuine, then work to change how you communicate your self view. The more effectively you communicate yourself, be it through words, creativity, or appearance, the closer their view of you will be to who you feel you are.

6. Connect with others, see how they perceive you, then decide whose perceptions you care about and whose you are content with simply dismissing. Not everyone matters. Learn how you can better convey your self identity to those that do. Repeat this process again, and again to narrow the gap between your perception and theirs.

7. Side with realism instead of idealism. Work with how the world is instead of how it should be. Accept that life is not fair. Many times, especially with circumstances beyond your control, other’s will simply never be able to see you the way you view yourself. There is nothing wrong with that. Be willing to learn to change your self perception in a positive way so you can be happy. Learn to find a beauty in what you are, in how others perceive you.

8. Constantly develop the art of expressing yourself. Listen to and watch others, see how they describe themselves, present themselves, what they value... take the ideas you identify with, dismiss those that aren’t you.

By striving to do these fundamental things, we are able to maintain perspective on the world around us and truly appreciate our place in that world. With this understanding we are then able to go about changing our place in the world and reconciling where we want to be with where we are.