So I've been meaning to write this post for a while. My opinion has changed slightly since I wrote the post "Lesbians, Pretendbians, and the rest of us." It's my most read post so I wanted to write an update. Also a friend had an attack of trans panic, and that has me re-evaluating that post further, and just a few conversations I've had over the last few days that makes me realize how little non trans* people, even within the LGBT community, actually know about trans* culture and reality.
I wrote about trans panic recently in my post All about trans panic: what is it? and love. I think all trans* people experience it. (I just want to clarify that this is different from the legal defense of the same name) I told my friend that the thing to remember is that there isn't anything wrong with us, it's the society that we live in that is wrong.
Honestly, given our situations, we react as any boy or girl/man or woman would react. I realized this when I allowed myself to ask the question: "Hypthetically, if I really am a girl [as in my mind is wired (for lack of a better term) to have a female anatomy] how am I any different from how any other girl would be in my situation?" The answer: I'm not.
Suddenly, everything I've done and thought my entire life, (eg: all the times when my pre-teen self put on a bra and stuffed it to see what I would look like with breasts, etc.) and my sexuality, became uncomplicated and basically normal.
It took me a long time to reach the point where I was willing to ask that question. I think I always knew what my answer would be, just like I think I always knew that if I ever allowed myself to go out in public as a trans-feminine person (not going out as a woman--I'd done that a few times--but admitting that my dressing as a woman wasn't just something I did but an integral part of who I am) there would be no stopping my transition.
So really, if you accept trans* people as what we say we are, we aren't that weird, or different. We're just dealing with a circumstance most people don't have to deal with, and can't hardly even imagine.
Really, a lot of the time, I don't think it's that cis people can't understand, it's that they don't want to understand. In a weird way, the insistence of some cis people that our genitals determine our gender is proof that trans* people do exist.
Here's that logic:
-If we look around and human culture we can observe just how important one's sense of gender is to their sense of self. One's gender, (a trans* person I know), is an unchangeable, immutable fact (and I'm not arguing for a binary, or even against bi-gender people). Expressing our gender is apparently incredibly important to the human psyche. Just look at all the tools (makeup, clothing, voice intonation, body language etc.) that we use to express and categorize ourselves (largely) into one of two categories, male or female. Also there is a very fine between a "male" appearing body, and a "female" appearing body, I know, I've crossed it. It amazes me how seemingly blind most people are to that, or for that matter how blind I was to it for so many years. Proportionately I am average for woman, and my actual size is well within common averages.
-But we aren't actually that blind. For our entire lives we've encountered large muscular women, and small dainty men.
-So there is a conflict between the physical reality that men and women aren't actually all that different--we're actually talking slight differences in averages, not polar opposite sexes--and how important our internal sense of gender is.
-The proof is just how willing people are to think their entire identity and sense of self is determined by our sexual reproductive organs.
-It's absurd, really: Oh, this baby has a penis. He'll grow up and like sports, and cars, not have any desire to express himself through makeup or clothing...
-But gender is for some reason something that is primary for most people, whereas gender stereotypes rarely fit anyone perfectly. So instead of being able to say "I'm this because I like these things." we say "I am this because I have a (insert genitalia here)"
-And it scares people that maybe (insert genitalia here) is not what makes you a (insert gender pronoun). It really scares people because it is SO important to our sense of self.
-And the importance of gender to our sense of self is exactly why trans* people exist.
Convoluted, hard to follow argument?
A trans* person's sense of self must be self-justified, or unfortunately they rely on stereotypes and make the rest of us look bad.
But people need to categorize.
And constantly we hear that a man is "x" and a woman is "y."
You know every once in a while I start thinking: what if everyone was right? What if I am really just some sort of extreme cross-dresser living a fantasy? Because that it what a lot of people think, whether they know it or not.
No, I'm not. For one, cis-gender people (even cross-dressers) can't live for extended amounts of time as someone they are not. Norah Vincent, in Self Made Man lived for a year as a man as research for a book--it caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Living as a man nearly caused me to have a nervous breakdown. It's been four years since I went anywhere as a man and the very idea of doing it again makes my skin crawl. No, this is what I got. My experience as a man was similar to Norah Vincent's. I felt it confining, and inauthentic.
I have to go through this whenever I get trans panic.
Here's where I changed my opinion from "Lesbians, Pretendbians, and the rest of us:" I could date a pre-op trans* woman, and it's hard for me to defend someone (attracted to women) who couldn't. I would have to be attracted to her (which for me means she'd have to have a lot of cis feminine features) and she'd have to have the same attitude towards her penis that I have towards mine--I'm not into dicks and it wouldn't work with anyone who expected me do anything with one. But just the fact that she had one wouldn't rule her out.
This is what I get as an out trans* woman. I'll be talking to a lesbian and I sense her initial attraction, and then almost immediately afterwards I sense her fear, and whatever attraction she felt she suppresses--I'm sorry, but I'm now more apt to blame that on prejudice or ignorance. Except for one body part (that I am not comfortable exposing or sharing with a partner) my body is a woman's, an attractive woman's, and I wouldn't be comfortable doing anything sexually that would be like being with a man--worse is when it's her friends. It doesn't happen so much anymore because everyone knows me and I'm really out, but when I'm making out with a girl and her friends pull her aside to tell her about me and she's no longer interested.
It's the idea of something they haven't seen and wouldn't see that kills my chances. It isn't what I look like, or who I am, it's just an abstract idea of something people think I am that I don't identify with.
Still, some people are attracted vagina and not women, or rather vagina first and women second. I don't think that's necessarily wrong, but I also don't think that's the majority of people.
No, really it's a problem with our culture and the ideas people have about trans*women.
When I got my second letter of support for my Gender Confirmation Surgery it almost felt like the therapist was trying to talk me into dating men. "You know," she said, "as a trans* woman it will be really hard to find women to date. Men, men don't really care, but it's really hard for trans* women who like women."
I wrote a status on Facebook once that said "You know, to me all you LGB people are straight." It didn't go over well. "What do you mean by that?" was the common response.
Okay.
My sexuality is not entirely compatible with my body (and won't be until I have a surgery) so I've had to work around that. Even talking masturbation any sex I have/any sex I am capable of having is queer. TMI, but I don't masturbate like a man (and never have), and because of my anatomy I don't masturbate entirely like a woman.
I've talked masturbation with my trans guy friends and it's a similar situation. But beyond that...
It's every once in a while I'm talking something trans* with another member of the community and I have to explain just so much that for me is just common knowledge and experience. So I thought it would be fun to make a list:
Tucking, and techniques for tucking. One technique is to tuck you pop your testicles back up into your body (where your ovaries would be) and then secure your penis between your legs It is actually possible to make a penis look like a vagina. It's a bit of work and still can't be penetrated so I haven't really done it in a while but it is possible.
For that matter there is the vee-string which can be penetrated, but they look kinda gnarly, and are a little expensive. Also it seems they're geared more to cross-dressers than to trans*women.
Trans* men DO have penises. T (testosterone) makes them grow. I've seen them they're legit, but small. Most trans* guys I know wear and use packers and refer to them as their penises. They're good for peeing, penetrating, and packing. I don't know a whole lot about them because I've never used one.
Some abbreviations I'm familiar with. TV, CD, TS, TG, MTF or MtF, FTM FtM, M2F, F2M, T2M, T2F, (I've even seen) M2M and F2F (the idea that we were always men and women to begin with)
There's top surgery, and bottom surgery and a lot of different techniques.
As far a vaginoplasty goes Thailand is probably the best, Trinadad Colorado was the world capital for a while, I don't know if it still is. The results are good, near perfect. Gynecologists can't always tell the difference between a natal vagina and a reconstructed vagina.
I will have to dilate though, and that will be painful for the first month or two. Oh and also I'll be bleeding, and my hormones will be all out of wack because I'll have to stop taking them for a bit. So I'll never have a period, but recovery from surgery will be no walk in the park.
"Tranny" is now considered by most to be offensive. As is "She-male," and "He-She, Chicks with dicks" etc. Oh and for that matter. We shrink when we start hormones, so the likelyhood of finding a trans*woman with a huge dick isn't very likely, and we (I for one) don't like it up the ass.
Tranny chasers do exist. They're usually creepy men and feel they have the right to say really nasty things to trans*women. I've been asked (more than a few times) if I liked it up the ass (see above) and usually this is how they introduce themselves. Women chasers aren't as rude, but still I don't want to be anyone's fetish. I'm not the best of both worlds.
Oh and hormones are really effective. My hips are five inches wider, my waist is four inches narrower, my breasts are pushing double d cups and it's all natural. I've also lost a lot of muscle mass, and do not have body hair like I used to. I can go a couple weeks without shaving my legs and it not really being noticeable, vs like two or three days, and I haven't shaved my chest in like three years. Oh and softer skin, softer hair, my face shape has changed, and a whole bunch of other things. Also if you're wondering, my testicles are probably about 1/4 the size they used to be, my penis is smaller also (I'm not sure how much) I rarely have a full erection or ejaculate anymore. If I do it's a very small amount and clear.
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