Blurred Texture on Transparent Shader?

Is it the intended behavior of the Transparent shader to make a blurred object look opaque? For example, suppose that you have an object that you want that you want to add a "glow" to. To achieve that effect, you can select the silhouette of the object, extend the selection beyond the edges of the silhouette, color it your chosen "glow" hue and use Gaussian Blur on it. As a standalone image, it looks like what it should. However, if you use it as a texture (or Legacy GUI) for the Transparent shader or any custom shader based on the Transparent shader, the opacity which makes the "glow" look like a "glow" disappears and the entire "glow" looks like a giant opaque wall. Is that an intended behavior?