Umbrellas are for rain

If an umbrella becomes too wide you might as well say you are covering a slice of humanity and leave it at that. It seemed to make more sense as we were first letting go of gender binary restrictions, but as it got increasingly expansive the transgender umbrella just became gender variance as a whole which is multi-faceted and where motivations vary. 

Some people only cosplay at Comicon, some dress up like Lolitas, some only do photoshoots or go to fetish night events, some dress up at home or perhaps only do drag on stage. 

At the other end you have various states of transition from social to medical and so we are confused about where to draw the line on this umbrella and who fails to be covered by it. 

Imagine how much more the general public is confounded and I cannot count how many times I have had to do an abbreviated Coles Notes summary of gender variance as a whole for people unaware of the subtleties.

But if we are concerned about umbrellas we are missing the point because we just need to worry about ourselves and our quality of life. In other words, the less you focus on everyone else, the better. 

I watch transition and detransition content to get a pulse of where people are these days and while I greatly applaud the freedom I didn't have I also see much fear, confusion and trepidation regarding what to do. People want guidance, firm definitions and shopping lists where no solid concrete footings exist. Instead, it is our internal work which will provide unique solutions.

Harry Benjamin was first to rightly categorize male to female gender variance and recognize its spectrum like qualities but then this was during a time before we opened up the playing field and sex and gender were contained ostensibly within two solid monoliths.