It’s exciting to participate in a rally for LGBT equality. There is a sense of solidarity. What do we want? Equality! When do we want it? Now! The shouting, the cheering, the handmade signs, even jeering at the counter-protesters. It’s a roller coaster of emotion.

Since coming out in 1995, I’ve participated in countless rallies and marches. Last spring, I attended the Transgender Leadership Summit in San Diego. I’m giving a workshop at the TransformAZ conference in Phoenix. This, on top of my journalistic and literary efforts on the gay and gender-variant experience.

But most of my activism doesn’t involve waving banners or marching through cordoned off streets. It doesn’t involve writing essays or giving advice to the lesbian lovelorn. My primary form of activism is quieter. It’s subtle. And yet, it is as powerful as any form of activism I engage in.

I live in a retirement community. Most of my neighbors are senior citizens who have no idea what the rainbow squiggle on the back of my car means. I’ve only lived here a couple years, so I’m always meeting new people. It is an opportunity to change minds.

When I meet someone new, I don’t introduce myself with, “Hi, I’m Dharma and I’m transgender.” I’m more likely to tell where in the neighborhood I live, or explain that I quit my job to take care of my mother-in-law. I ask questions about the other person and discuss items of commonality. Hometowns. Professions. Books. Music. Concerns over healthcare, the war or the economy.

It’s only when I’ve gotten to know someone that I share that I’m gay or transgender. By this time, they know me as a giving person and an aspiring novelist with a good sense of humor. When they learn that I’m gay or transgender, it forces them to contrast the caring person they’ve come to know with the gross stereotype they have been warned against by their church or friends.

They see that I’m not trying to “recruit” them to be gay. They see that I don’t hate men. They see I’m not a pervert and that I’m not crazy. And then they start to wonder if the people who warned them about “the Gay” or “the Transgender” had any clue what they were talking about. It’s the softer side of activism.

To be sure, some people are so firmly attached to their prejudices that they may not want to be my friends after that. But many remain my friends. As a result, a social alchemy takes place. Fears and misconceptions are dismantled. Opponents become allies.

Traditional activism can be scary to outsiders. There is an instinctive pushback. And too often, we are left preaching to the converted.

But softer activism is less threatening. It makes no demands. It issues no ultimatums. It is simply a hand extended in friendship.