There is an accepting and safe Transgendered community, but it often operates like a ghetto. Stay in the community, stay in the closet and you are safe and secure. The word "discrete" is used a lot.

To come out in public, to let one's broader community and faith community know that one is transgendered is an act of courage -- the scary kind of act that is necessary to move us from oppression to toleration then to acceptance and eventually to understanding and celebration. It is an act of profound risk, for one risks losing everything in life for what may seem only a meager reward: living in honesty about who one is.

~ Starchild