The usual reaction to a person coming out as transsexual is silence. The reality that a person's initial diagnosis as male or female is subject to change or to radical reinterpretation is so far beyond the comprehension of most people that you might as well tell them you're going to paint yourself purple and live in a cave. (If on top of that news you add that you are queer, well, their eyes just glaze over.)
A person does not choose to come out as transsexual, they decide they must transition from one social male/female (m/f) role to the other and are outed in the process. The goal may be to abandon your past and reach the point where you can live in your new role clear and easy, but there is a period of generally a year or two where there is no way to hide what is going on. Even if you are blessed with the best of attitudes, this transition period can only be described as living hell. Beyond that, unless you move to the other side of the country and leave no forwarding address, little reminders of the way you were forced to live the first part of your life will continue to haunt you for years and years.
Most transsexual people who are successfully past their transition in m/f role do not remain out and do not maintain contact with the transgender community or with other transsexual people (especially those who are out). This path of secrecy was not open to me, and I don't believe I would have chosen it if it were. But I do understand its appeal.
While I am quite out, I don't (usually) carry a sign that says I am a transsexual person, and I also try to be out as queer. So I am never certain just what anyone knows or thinks about me. Transsexuality is such a taboo subject that people never mention it to my face; but what do they say about me after I leave? Do they whisper about me because they think I'm queer? Do they believe they know the whole story? (Only I know the whole story.)
In general I have had no problems as the result of coming out as transsexual or in living my life post-transition. I'm still together with my spouse and our children, live in the same house, work on the campus of the same large Midwestern university, and so on. Many people in the area are aware of my history, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Of course I do have a fair amount of attitude.
Am I queer? If so, what am I? I do not claim to be either male or female, in fact I'm not either one now, kind of a later-life intersexual person. But our society forces each person to live in the role of 'man' or 'woman' and I have chosen the latter as the best fit for me, though I can't say I agree with the current social construction of those roles. So I guess none of the sexual orientation terms apply to me. (I am mostly attracted to 'women', but what am I, and what does that make someone who is attracted to me? Oh, it's all so very difficult.)
I am hopeful that the younger generations of queer people will be truly inclusive of the many transgender people who self-identify as queer. In my generation (I am 45) we have often been treated, well, rather poorly, by the very people we feel ourselves most akin to. All the infighting among LBG&T people seems so silly to me, as does the insistence on narrow goals that denies that so many people are oppressed and marginalized by the same social forces.
What's it like to come out as transsexual? Complicated, lonely, painful, frustrating, expensive, exhilarating, joyful, and dangerous. Many if not most of us who have transitioned have done so as an alternative to suicide, when we reached the point where we had nothing to loose and everything to gain. I pray that we can make this a less desperate path to follow for those who must do so.
[Published in the 1997 "National Coming Out Days" issue of Q*News at Michigan State University.]