What Does "Going Stealth" Mean?

Never telling anyone you're trans, never admitting it (and hopefully never being asked).

Basically if you pass well enough that nobody thinks twice about your gender.

 

It means that you pass all the time as your preferred gender and that you don't tell anyone you are trans*.

 

It can have various meanings, but basically it is assuming a cis-identity (while being trans). Of course that is just a very basic and probably flawed explanation. It is quite open to interpretation however.

 

Chameleon mode.

I use that term depending...

 

being a ninja in the shadows in the community

 

Stealth can also mean that if dress as the gender you identify with and you look the part and every responds to you in the you want to and people don't call you on it means you're stealth. For instance when I go out as female and I look the part as everyone has seen for far. Its no longer considered stealth if someone had called me sir.

 

Yeah, from what little I've learned from the one trans*-woman I know it means you can't be "clocked".

---------- Post added 6th Feb 2014 at 10:23 AM ----------

Edit: The one trans*-woman I know IRL. Although I'm not sure if the trans* tag is still appropriate because she has been physically a woman for years now.

 

Perfectly passing, completely 100% abandoning your former identity and cutting off all ties with your past. Never ever ever telling anyone ever about your medical history as a transsexual person (Even your doctor).

I've only ever spoken to one woman ever who managed to do this. Even her OBGYN was in the dark. He assumed she had had a hysterectomy, and she let him make that assumption,

In my opinion, this is basically equivalent to coming out of one closet and right into another. I am "stealth" in the sense that I having passing privilege and keep my medical history to myself unless I am close to someone and feel safe in revealing my past to them. To hide from your past, imo, seems to imply that shame in the journey you had to take. I'd rather embrace the life I have led, share it with those I trust, and live my life confident in myself, my body, and my past.

 

Going stealth and living the life I should have gotten is my ultimate goal.
I would also like the full "body cure" to become available, so everyone can be happy with their bodies.
Telling too many people is a terrible idea. The better you pass (the less you get clocked as the wrong gender), the better. Being trans is not your entire identity-your most important value is you, not your gender.

 

Are you prepared to cut off all ties with you family, friends, classmates, former co-workers, former colleagues, etc.? Are you ready to bite your tongue and lie to future lovers and friends? Have you prepared the many tiny details of your childhood? Have you made up a past believable enough that should someone ask you are prepared?

This kind of life would absolutely exhaust me, both physically and emotionally.

I live my life like any other woman my age, but if someone finds out or knows about my past I don't let it haunt me. I may not have been lucky enough to "live the life I should have" but it doesn't mean I need to forget the life I have lived.

 

^I don't need to give up that much, do I? I would, if I needed to. I never had that many friends. Still, there needs to be a solution that doesn't involve me telling people private stuff.
I'm 14. Secondly, I think this might be a subjective thing. People should do what suits them...

 

I don't think you have to cut off any ties or forget your past or anything like that. "Stealth" is relative, and the implications have different reachings. You could be stealth at work, but not around your family. You could be stealth to strangers, or the grocery store clerk, or the bank teller, if you pass enough and you don't feel like they need to know. You might not be stealth to your doctor, since it's important to disclose medical history.

For some people, it's exhausting having to censor themselves. For others, it's exhausting to explain, and sometimes easier when you don't. It's all a matter of what you feel comfortable doing.

 

I dont going stealth means your cutting all ties with family I plan to be out with my family but im still going to consider myself stealth even though I will tell certain people that I cant leave behind.

 

its kinda of going into "witness protection" abandon your entire former life and have to have a credible background about yourself incase anyone asks or inquires. Pretty hard and as Dhamma states very exhausting.

 

You are comparing stealth to passing. Lots of people pass. They go about their lives and most people are non-the-wiser. Stealth is a lifestyle. The reason a stealth person cuts off ties with family and whatnot is because as long as there is a single person in their life who knows about their past, they are unable to achieve the type of complete transition that stealth offers.

A friend of mine was living stealth for years in a city in colorado. One day one of her co-workers, someone she barely knew, sends out a mass email to everyone she works with showing a picture of her in local newspaper from her hometown. He found the image because her middle name was the same as her former last name. She was forced to quit her job and move to a new state to start all over again, this time with further difficulties since she couldn't use any of her former co-workers as references because they all now knew about her past.

With the advent of social media and the internet it is almost impossible to disappear into a stealth lifestyle without 100% completely leaving your former life behind. I have a facebook and there are friends of mine who do not know about my trans status. But my dad has a BUNCH of old pictures of me on his facebook, and anyone could at any time pop on over to check them out. I've obviously removed all tags from the images, but they are not going away. If I cancelled my facebook, people could still find the images by looking up my father online, because I still have his last name. Even worse someone could simply type my last name in google and get a picture of me on the front page of my local gazette. It never ends

If you can manage it though, and are comfortable with the cost associated with that lifestyle, I think it can still be considered commendable. It's no easy feat taking control of your life in that way. Stealth is not easy. For most people, myself included, passing is enough.

 

Wow, that's terrible about your friend. Colorado has a lot of laws against that. The person could've been in big trouble.

 

I guess a compromise could work for me.
Be open to those who already know, don't tell anyone else, and live life how I see fit.
I see this as the least stressful option for me.
Then again, I do live in CA. But as medicine advances, trans people won't need to worry nearly as much.

 

Passing is not enough for me I want to go mostly stealth in a way. Also sucky situation your friend got in.