Writing for gayrva, and a little more about the "trans spectrum"

     I am writing for GAYRVA. My first opinion piece is currently pending. The editors still need to do whatever before they post it. So....hopefully this will lead to something else. I think my next opinion piece might be on the "double standard" that transwomen face. It really is kind of interesting especially in the gay community.
     Trans really is something entirely different from gay. Not too many gay people really understand trans people and that is a shame. Of course, I don't know that trans people really understand trans people. It really is a hard thing to understand. I mean, quite honestly it is hard to believe in. I struggled with that. It just doesn't seem possible that someone could be born into the "wrong" body. Especially since the current theory is a "trans spectrum" with cross dressers on one end and true transexuals on the other.
     I think the "spectrum" hurts how people understand transsexuals and how we understand ourselves. People think that we are men who somehow love dressing like women so much that we decide we want to live like women, or that cross-dressers necessarily must feel like they are partially women. First I think cross-dressing doesn't need to be validated. Whether it is sexual, a psychological escape, fun, thrilling or a combination doesn't matter. It should still be respected. I found that I absolutely could not understand myself when I tried to think of myself as an "extreme cross-dresser." I don't think anyone else can understand me that way either. Honestly the best way to understand me is to totally forget the trans thing and think of me like any other woman. That seems hard for people to do. Especially since the spectrum makes it seems that I am somehow different from any other woman.
      The thing about gender identity is there are plenty of very masculine women who aren't trans, and there are plenty of trans women who are also very masculine. If you accept that a trans woman is a woman than you have to expect the same diversity in women that you would find in any other group of women. Even the most masculine woman still wants to be identified as a woman.
      Growing up I read all sorts of anti-trans feminist writings, and some of the more conservative women's groups don't accept trans women as members. The argument went that transsexual women are actually the most chauvinistic of all men. That we are psychologically disturbed and make ourselves into the most stereotypical women possible and then dominate women's groups. These writers probably hadn't met too many trans women or they hadn't been able to "read" them. Also had they maybe have accepted even just hypothetically what all trans women say, that we really are women, then maybe they could have seen what it actually says about our society that a lot of trans women have had to become stereotypes to be accepted as women.
      We all know that being born with a vagina does not mean you will grow up an love manicures, and high heel shoes. Why should being a trans woman mean that? The thing about thinking about trans people in terms of a spectrum is that you end up thinking about gender in the same terms that feminists have fought so hard to move our society beyond.
      Transsexuals teach us that gender identity is much deeper than genitals. A woman is more than her vagina. I would think that most people would like that lesson. Really probably the best thing for everyone involved is that we take transsexuals at their word, try not to place us in separate categories that we don't belong in.
     For example; I'm kind of limited as to the homosexual activity I am physically capable of, but when I describe myself as a lesbian I am saying more than "I am attracted to women." I'm also describing the type of sexual activity I am interested in. Having my male parts seen or touched is something that makes me really uncomfortable. Physically I might be a bisexuals dream but psychologically I'm not.