(GayWebSource.com – Gay Media & Press Network) – Posted by Doug Magditch – HisBigD.com

Oliver Blumer has been an active member of the Dallas LGBT community since he moved here decades ago. For much of that time, he participated as an ‘L,’ not a ‘T.’ The ‘T’ part of his life is relatively new. Blumer decided to begin transitioning into his authentic self five years ago.

“I didn’t know much about ‘transgender’ at all. I had to educate myself. I didn’t know a transgender person,” said Blumer.

He had three big struggles with his decision to leave behind Melanie Blumer and become Oliver Blumer:

1. He worried he’d lose his wife.
2. He worried he’d lose his singing voice.
3. He worried he’d lose his hair.

“People say, ‘you’re very courageous.’ Well, in the moment, you don’t think about that. You think about other things that define who you are,” said Blumer.

Five years later, he hasn’t only transitioned, he’s become an educator and a leader.

“I said ‘I feel I need to teach people about difference.’ So, all my work I’ve been involved in for the past five years is to educate,” said Blumer.

In 2013, Blumer became the chair of the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), a statewide organization that works to educate the public about gender diversity. This comes after a lengthy resume of non-profit work in the transgender community over the past half-decade.

“If it wasn’t for my loving, incredibly beautiful wife, I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do,” said Blumer.

Blumer says he grew up trying to conform to what he thought his parents wanted him to be. He’s committed his life to his non-profit work in the hopes that transgender youth don’t go through what he went through.

“Growing up in the 50s and into the 60s, there wasn’t a lot of awareness of being transgender. The word ‘transgender’ is a very contemporary word. One was known as a ‘transexual.’ ‘Transexual’ was a very medical term. I didn’t know, you know, that anything could be done. You kind of catch your life on, what I call ‘asleep at the wheel,’” said Blumer.

Now he’s wide awake, and he takes every possible opportunity to educate. For instance, I began my interview with Blumer by asking when he decided to go through gender reassignment surgery.

He stopped me to explain: “When one encounters an individual who you might think is transgendered, by whatever kinds of facial, or how they dress, or, what we say, their ‘gender expression’ is. We can’t make assumptions in a social setting that you can ask questions that are so personal.”

Just because Blumer identifies as a man doesn’t mean he’s necessarily transitioned with surgery.

“There are many, many, many people who are okay with their authentic self without having hormones and surgery,” explained Blumer.

By the way, I never got an answer to that question. Through my embarrassment, I couldn’t bring myself to ask again.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter what kind of physical changes he’s gone through. Blumer is a man. He always has been, he just didn’t always know it.

Now that he does, he’s become one of the loudest voices in the Texas transgender community.

“It was when this happened in my life that I knew transgender individuals were not… They were just tacked on to LGBT and the ‘T’ was just silent,” said Blumer.

As his awareness of trans issues grows, he’ll continue his fight to make everyone else is aware of them, too.

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