Four black and three white families have a male-to-female transexual member surgically reassigned more than 5 years ago. The black families were more open than the white in declaring the reassignment within the family and community. Thereby they relieved themselves and the transexual member of a need for deception, defiance, or defensiveness, and they were less scheming and manipulative. Without the anxiety of concealment, they could feel more positive about sex reassignment as a form of rehabilitation. A formal public declaration of sex reassignment, analogous to a declared change of citizenship, would be advantageous in transexual rehabilitation.