Pride & Opinions

I tend to think of sexuality in pretty abstract terms, by which I mean that I’ve never really worried about what categories people fall into, and tend to fall in the camp of “let people define themselves however they like and I’ll deal with it,” since it doesn’t seem to affect me one way or the other. I don’t mean that in an apathetic way - I’m devoted to the cause of increasing inclusivity, but as a GLBT Ally who identifies as heterosexual, it’s never seemed to be my place to tell others how they should or shouldn’t define their sexuality.

So I found this article at Ramone’s Fay life Blog about “fearing” bisexuality to be interesting. He asks,

The bisexual man: a confused player that can’t be completely trusted by other men or women since neither can fulfill his complete desires. The bisexual woman: a sexually liberal confidant eager to share her desires with multiple partners of choice. These: perceptions that run rampant among skeptics who consider bisexuality a phase (or as a permission slip for infidelity) and not a position of sexual moderatism.

Ironically, bi misconceptions don’t go both ways (at least not equally). The men are easily seen as hosts of mistrust and the women: mavens of straight male fantasy. Are bisexual women more readily accepted than bi men? Why are bisexual women so often reduced to sex? Why is the bisexual man seen as having an insatiable sexual appetite?

His roundup of different reader reactions to bisexuality and its perceived stereotypes is interesting; I recommend reading the whole thing.

bisexuality, GLBT, stereotypes, bisexuality myths

bisexuality, GLBT, stereotypes, bisexuality myths

I am fascinated by the process through which language operates, especially language related to oppressed groups. Most of the time, I come down on the side of not using words designed to denigrate others - you won’t hear me say the word b**** to describe women, or those who are whiny or subservient or too agressive regardless of their biological sex, because it seems clear to me that the comparison is necessarily steeped in the idea that women, or attributes typically assigned to them, are lesser. Also, as the people I come into contact with change their language, it becomes sort of an interesting thought experiment to try to come up with epithets (to yell at other bad drivers, for instance) that aren’t derogatory to some group, which is actually relatively difficult.

The word “queer” provides an interesting counterpoint to this general proposition of mine, though. For fans of the reclamation of language, it’s the prime example of how language can come to mean different things than originally intended. The GLBT group at my alma mater is ‘Queer Union.’ Almost no one uses the word queer as a derogatory slur any longer, so does that get rid of the historical baggage? Not necessarily. As Ramone Johnson explains in “The Power of the ‘F’ Word,”

In a sense you could claim that the amelioration of the word queer, to opponents’ dismay, hadn’t been a failed experiment at all. At the time of my queer-is-ok spot, the word had been watered down into a sip of insignificance. Although some still find offense to the word, the overall impact is like being struck with a feather boa instead of a leather lash.
Yet, the regurgitation of a historically offensive word has not washed away the original offense (or the offender). Today, the bayonet called queer has just been replaced by another weapon of choice, the semi-automated fag. So, must the F-bomb be ameliorated as well? And what then will the run of the mill bigot conjure up to sling?

The idea that words cause backlash and a race to other, sometimes even more derogatory, terms, gives me pause. I’m not sure what the intrinsic value is to saying derogatory things about others. I understand the problems with censorship, but is it censorship to say that I choose not to use those words, and hope others will do the same? I’m certainly not going to argue for laws to ban them, but that’s not the only option. As Ramone concludes, in response to a question about whether someone should reclaim racial and gay slurs,

But now, as we speak, though not in person and despite our virtual distance as strangers, the possibility of you identifying as a “queer ni**ah” cripples my amiable pen—one that I’ve learned must change, must be an example, a mentor and a role model. My hope is that your identity rests as a “beautiful gay African-American man.” A man that has little use for ameliorated words. A man is so confident and so strong and so incredibly actualized that even the original offense of those ameliorated word have little impact. So, I say don’t ameliorate the words for use as your identity, let them burn in the char of hatred in which they were created.

I like that answer. The whole article is good.

To really understand transgendering/transsexualism, it helps to have an idea of what it really is, and its root cause. The beginnings of transgendering lie in gender dysphoria.

gen·der (jěn’dər), n.:
     1. Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
     2. The condition of being female or male; sex.

dys·pho·ri·a (dɪsˈfɔriə), n:
     1. a state of dissatisfaction, anxiety, restlessness, or fidgeting.

Breaking down the definitions of those words, gender dysphoria seems like a fairly simple concept: a sense of dissatisfaction or discomfort with one’s gender, whether birth gender or chosen gender. Gender dysphoria is a characteristic of what is referred to as gender identity disorder, though honestly I don’t like that term as ‘disorder’ implies that those who feel gender dysphoria are somehow abnormal.

They’re not.

The feeling of gender dysphoria is often the very beginning of the path towards transition; to make it even simpler, it’s the feeling that one was born in the body of the wrong gender. Your body is male, and yet you feel female. Your body is female, but you feel male - in ways that go beyond mere social identification and rest on a deep psychological level that often cannot be explained but that know, quite firmly, what feels wrong and what feels right.

The sense of wrongness associated with the feeling of being in the wrong body is what can prompt transgendered individuals to begin crossdressing, taking hormones, and pursuing surgical options in order to ease that sense of discomfort and align the physical self more thoroughly with the mental and emotional self.

Because gender can be such a fluid concept defined by more than one’s physical body, it can make transition very complex. More than just modifying or disguising the body to better suit one’s chosen gender, there’s also the matter of filling one’s gender role in society. Male and female gender roles are now more easily blended and interchangeable than they were as little as fifty years ago, but there’s still a matter of perception; people treat you differently based on the gender that they perceive you as, which can either help or hinder in feeling more comfortable with living as one’s chosen gender. It’s as much mental and emotional as it is physical, and yet the three aspects always depend on one another.

Imagine gender dysphoria as wearing a pair of shoes that’s two sizes too small. Talk about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, eh? Only these shoes you can’t take off. They’re always there, always cramping your feet painfully, making it difficult to walk - chafing, blistering, driving you more insane with every day and yet you don’t know what to do about it, or you don’t have access to a way that might be able to remove them.

Not pleasant, is it? Now imagine feeling that way about your entire body. As if your body was an ill-fitting garment thrust upon the body of the self with no choice given to you in the matter.

And imagine that you were given a choice, later in life, once you came to understand your own gender identity and what you wished to do about it, and the options available to you to find something that fits.

Imagine the relief of taking off that ill-fitting shoe and walking free.

Imagine that pain, imagine that relief, and imagine it affecting your entire life, your happiness, and your concept of self-identity. Imagine it making you question everything, to the point where you can’t even allow yourself to become interested in someone for fear that they’ll want you for the wrong gender, will reject you if they find out who you really are under that wrong skin - can’t even comfortably walk into a public bathroom without feeling as if you’re in the wrong place no matter which one you chose.

Imagine looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger to who you really are, and then you may understand gender dysphoria.

Are you a MtF or FtM transgender/transsexual/transvestite/crossdresser, or considering/questioning? Want to share your story or motivational anecdote? E-mail your story to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Transgender Tales” or use the Contact Form to send your story in.

transgender tales, thursday transgender tales, transgender, transvestite, transsexual, crossdresser, crossdressing, mtf, ftm, m2f, f2m, male-to-female, female-to-male, gender identity, gender dysphoria, transition, transitioning, sex change, transamerica, felicity huffman, trans media, trans films

There are days when I find trawling through the news to be wholly depressing. Despite reading the heartening news that New Hampshire’s governor has officially signed into effect legislation establishing same-sex unions, I couldn’t help but be horrified at what I stumbled upon after that:

Four Held In Bizarre HIV Injection Case - 365Gay.com

 
(Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Four men are accused of drugging, raping and then injecting their male victims with their own HIV-infected blood Dutch police have announced.

Remember the other day, when I said that I couldn’t really see gays forming roving gangs to assault people? Okay, I’m eating my words right now. And they taste damned bitter. Granted, the situation isn’t the same as the hypothetical proposed in Monday’s article.

It’s much, much worse.

It’s worse than the stories of needles dipped in HIV-infected blood left in movie theatre seats. It’s even worse than the careless negligence of those who are HIV+ and choose to have unprotected sex with willing partners without informing them (although that ranges pretty closely). It’s a disgusting and immoral violation of another human being, through rape in order to spread a terminal illness.

I thought we, as human beings, were better than that. I thought that we had evolved as a species beyond such behavior save for in isolated individuals. I am aware that many groups (known as “bug chasers“) exist consisting of people who want to infect others and who want to be infected, as an underground sexual + acceptance subculture that borders on fetishism. I can’t say I approve of their choices or their desires, but where there’s consent involved I can’t do more than shake my head and recommend a psychiatric evaluation. Every once in a while they cross the line into malicious misinformation and nonconsent, but I’ve never seen it happen as an organized group committing multiple acts of assault and rape with effects more permanent and deadly than the physical and psychological trauma resulting from rape.

“The motive to do this was the ‘kick,’ and the feeling that unsafe sex is ‘pure.’”

I think I’m going to be sick.

What thrill is worth this?

Not only the sacrifice of your life, but the lives of others - and of your own basic human decency?

I weep for the men whose lives have been forever altered by these acts.

And I weep for the knowledge that we, as human beings, could behave so atrociously towards one another.

Update, 9:37 a.m. CST: Samantha has provided several links containing more information on the issue (see comments), but most notable is the story of the investigation into a subsection of the Netherlands HIV Foundation and whether or not they’ve been encouraging unsafe sex by organizing Poz & Proud sex parties.

This just gets worse with each new possibility.

hiv, aids, bug chasers, infection, human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, new hampshire, civil unions, same-sex unions, netherlands hiv foundation, hvn

That’s right, today I’m choosing to spotlight a film and not a person. Why? Because if you haven’t seen this, you should.

TransAmerica stars Felicity Huffman as Bree, a pre-operative MtF transwoman, and the chronicles the adventure she faces in reconciling both her past life as a man and the inclusion of a son into her life. It covers a difficult cross-country journey in which Bree first appears to her son, Toby, as a stranger with a yen for helping troubled individuals - only for Toby to eventually discover, over the course of the trip, that not only is Bree M2F…but also his father.

The film does a very good job of covering complex issues that face the trans population of the world when dealing with society, family, and life in general, while handling them in a humorous-but-not-indelicate fashion. Beyond Huffman’s stellar performance, the film also offers a chance to combine education with entertainment and broaden the scope of those unfamiliar with trans issues in a way that makes it easier for them to accept and understand.

What I love the most about it is that it feels very real. There may be humor, but it’s real humor at the drollness of life rather than a slapstick attempt at comedy that would undermine the message underneath an evocative tale of companionship and self-discovery - not just for Bree, but for her son as well, and anyone who can identify with the search to be comfortable with one’s own life and one’s own choices.

Though don’t get me wrong, it is damned funny. And heartwarming, and tearjerking, and…

Oh, just go watch it. You won’t regret it.

My favorite quote from the film: “My body may be a work in progress, but there is nothing wrong with my soul.”

Amen.

transgender tales, thursday transgender tales, transgender, transvestite, transsexual, crossdresser, crossdressing, mtf, ftm, m2f, f2m, male-to-female, female-to-male, gender identity, gender dysphoria, transition, transitioning, sex change, transamerica, felicity huffman, trans media, trans films

Today’s Ask Adri question isn’t the usual request for advice, but I feel strongly compelled to post and answer it anyway, because the question asked simply staggers me and I can’t help but think that even if this person doesn’t need situational advice, they do need guidance and information. Someone’s got to flip the other side of the coin. So here goes.

Hey, Adri.

I’m not gay or anything, but a couple of my friends are. I brought one friend to Church with me the past weekend and he met my pastor. I guess he’s kind of out there, because my pastor figured out he was gay without asking. He was really nice to him and invited him to come back, but later he asked to talk to me and started asking me weird questions about my friend’s family life. It made me really uncomfortable because he was asking if his parents did things to him. I know his parents and they’re great people. They’d never do anything to him.

I asked my pastor why he was asking me this, and he said that he is worried for my friend. He said that homosexuality happens because people are sexually abused as children, and then they grow up to abuse children. Is this true? I don’t know much about gays, my friends are just my friends and I don’t ask them that much about it. I don’t think my friend is a child molester. Is that really how it happens?

No. Gods no. I’m going to ignore the fact that it was your pastor who told you this, as that fact is somewhat irrelevant and it could have been any misinformed individual regardless of their role in the community, religious or otherwise. The urge to go off on a rant about Christian bigots making decent Christians look bad is very strong, but it would be unfair of me. So we’re going to talk about the real issue at hand here: a little basic education.

First, you need to understand that homosexuality is not a disease, disorder, or post-traumatic effect. Nor is it a sin. Nor, really, is it a choice. It’s a naturally occurring trait that is gaining more and more scientific backing as perfectly ordinary within nature, developing as a result of hormonal effects on the brain and body. (I know, I know, it’s a Wikipedia link, not the most reliable, but it’s got a few dozen decent cited external sources.) It’s as ingrained as the color of your eyes or the tendency for high blood pressure. Before you believe everything you’re told, find your answers for yourself. I think you’ve already got a firm handle on that concept, though, considering that rather than blindly accepting your pastor’s assumptions you instead found me and decided to question this at the source.

The sad thing is, this isn’t such an uncommon assumption. It’s linked to the unfortunate lumping in of homosexuality with perversions such as incest and pedophilia, spreading the idea that homosexuality is unnatural and must be stamped out and even cured. The best way to combat such an assumption? By education, and by positive example.

So to answer your question concretely? No, homosexuality is neither a cause nor an effect of abuse. I can name a number of homosexuals that I know personally who weren’t molested or abused as children or adults, and who have never committed said acts or felt the urge to. I’m on that list; I may not have gotten along well with my family, but they would never have done anything like that to me, and they educated me quite well on how to protect myself from people with those intents. I had a safe childhood, and lead a safe adult life. The same can be said for my gay best friend, the ex-boyfriend I was angsting over a few posts ago, my lesbian cousin. We are all well-adjusted individuals with no abuse-related trauma in our pasts, no desire to enforce abuse on another, and yet we are all comfortably and openly homosexual.

If you’re comfortable enough talking to your friend about these things and think he can hear this without being offended, direct him to this article and I’ll bet he’ll tell you the same thing - that he’s not hiding any secrets, his parents are as great as you first thought they were, and nothing untoward or deviant has happened to him in the past. He’s not a secret child molester dwelling under the skin of some guy you thought was pretty cool. He’s just an ordinary guy who happens to be gay.

People who spread ideas like this are becoming a real problem; they promote misinformation as truth, and blindly think that they are doing good. I know that your pastor meant well and was actually expressing concern for your friend’s well-being, but if you can, please guide him towards resources that educate on the nature of homosexuality and encourage him - gently, not aggressively - to broaden his scope and make a better effort to understand these things before he spreads such assumptions.

The only way to stop the spread of misinformation is to counter with healthy, valid information.

We are not an abnormality. We are not a byproduct of perversion. We are normal, and we lead happy, stable lives in which instances of personal trauma and abuse are no higher or lower than instances among heterosexuals. The two are wholly unrelated, and to tie them together not only demonizes homosexuality, but trivializes what real abuse victims suffer.

So now that you have your answer, go forth and spread the good word.

Your friendly gay elucidator,
~Adri

ask adri, sexuality, homosexuality, abuse, sexual abuse, pedophilia, counseling, scientific sexuality, dispelling homosexual myths

I’m still sorting through some submissions for TTT (Thursday’s Transgender Tales) and don’t have an appropriate one for today…so today, it’ll be me telling you a story. I hope you don’t mind.

Before I ever knew her as Kelly, I knew her as Keith. Keith and I worked together at my first job out of university, suit and tie all the way, a corporate hellhole that killed a little piece of me every day that I walked in and plastered on that false smile and listened to the little buzzwords thrown about like sticky, saccharine candy.

Keith and I were comrades in arms, the office queers. Corporate life is a world of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, military secrecy in fine-knit Italian suits, encrypted code and sexual espionage. We’d talk in our off-hours, sleeves rolled up and elbows on the bar at the nearest place to get a good drink, unwind, and gripe about what the weasels on upper decks had passed down to the lowly slums that day. Drinks after work became weekend hangouts, late-night phone calls, inside jokes shared in the office simply by exchanged glances, raised brows, and secretive smiles. After hours we’d be bursting, waiting to laugh, brimming with a dozen “Did you see–?”-s. Camraderie had become friendship, over the course of a few short months. We were brothers, in a way, stationed deep in enemy territory with only each other for support.

It was a few months before he trusted me enough to confide in me, however. A few months of Mai Tais and cigarettes and working weekends meeting deadlines screwed by managerial oversight, a few months of enduring company barbeques and picnics and griping about boyfriends and the local scene before he said, “I’ve got a secret. And you can’t tell anyone at work, Adri. You can’t. Promise.”

I promised, and that was when Keith introduced me to Kelly.

Kelly was a tall woman, redheaded, strong-shouldered, with the softest brown eyes you’d ever see. She carried herself awkwardly, uncomfortable in her skin; under her off-color foundation hints of stubble peeked out, and her clothes never sat quite right, bunched oddly in all the wrong places. Kelly had Keith’s pouting lips, and could have been his sister if Kelly wasn’t Keith peeking out from behind a face that didn’t quite belong to him.

To her.

She was nervous, the first time she showed me. Nervous and shy as a virgin, and even then she was pretty when she blushed, lowering her eyes and afraid to meet my gaze. I don’t know what she thought I’d do. Laugh, maybe. Recoil in disgust. Walk out, refuse to talk to her anymore. All I did was hug her; I didn’t know what else to do, or say. Just because he was now she didn’t change that she was still the same friend I’d known; I was a little confused, yes, trying to reconcile one identity with the other, but over time she taught me to understand, explained to me in the same honest and frank way that she always had.

At first I didn’t understand that she was turning to me for support, and shelter. At first I didn’t know what to do, once she made that fact clear. She wanted to transition fully, and hadn’t the faintest idea where to start – though she was willing to quit her job and start somewhere else anew, to avoid the awkwardness of coming out in the office. That, I knew how to help with. I helped her with her job hunts and dressing for interviews, helped her with looking for transgender resources, went with her to her first meeting of a local transgender organization. I went with her to local trans-friendly bars, made an ass out of myself shaking it on the dance floor with her, made an even bigger ass of myself snarling at the “tranny-chasers” who went after her looking to satisfy a few sexual kinks and use her as a fetish object.

I’ll admit I had no damned clue what I was doing. I’d never seen anyone transition before, and here she was asking me for help – but in the end, she didn’t need my help so much; just the support of a friend. She found her own way, forged her own path, and even when she curled her hand tight in mine while she waited nervously for her first meeting with a doctor about hormone therapy, I knew that despite her shaking fingers she was braver and stronger than I’d ever be.

She was brave enough and strong enough to openly proclaim that she would live her life as she chose to, and unashamedly step from the role that she was born into and into the role that she was meant for. I’ve never seen anyone fight so hard, or bear it so stoically. Over years I watched her change – watched as the estrogen affected her body structure and she softened and curved, watched as she struggled with adapting to feminine behavior, with changing social perceptions towards her, with dressing to flatter her body type, with disappointment on the days when she couldn’t pass convincingly to the general public, joy on the days when she could. Sometimes she was resolute, unwavering.

Sometimes, she was all too understandably human, and fragile. Sometimes she almost broke, almost gave up.

But she never did.

And yet she’d ask me some days, on the verge of tears, “Adrien, am I a freak?”

A freak…she was anything but. Every time I held her and stroked her hair, I told her that she was beautiful, told her that she’d made the right choice, that she was doing what made her happy. I never knew if my words really helped her, if she needed that or just needed someone to hold her while she spent her tears.

But I do know that in time, she stopped asking, stopped needing to be told. In time she began to smile more, began to bud, then blossom, until she was nearly giddy with the relief of discovering life as Kelly, discovering life where Keith no longer existed. Now she’s one of the brightest, most vivacious people that I know, and being in her presence can lift even my dour and humorless spirits. Sometimes I tell her she’s gorgeous just to see her smile, but the best part is that she doesn’t need me to say it for her to know it.

Yet I don’t think even she knows how lovely she really is, or what a triumph her personal struggle has been. To her it’s become normal, as it should be. To her every day is just like any other, a new life and a new world for her to explore, wonderful and yet no less acceptable than hetero life or queer life. I don’t think I even know the words to tell her how much I admire her for that.

But I do know that she’s a beautiful woman, one of the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen. I know that standard conventions of beauty don’t matter when I look at her, because she is every inch what a woman is supposed to be, no matter how she was born, no matter how she looks now. She is a woman’s strength, she is a woman’s resilience, she is a woman’s softness and warmth and dynamic versatility.

But most importantly she is a woman - and to me, Kelly is every inch a goddess.

Are you a MtF or FtM transgender/transsexual/transvestite/crossdresser, or considering/questioning? Want to share your story or motivational anecdote? E-mail your story to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Transgender Tales” or use the Contact Form to send your story in.

transgender tales, thursday transgender tales, transgender, transvestite, transsexual, crossdresser, crossdressing, mtf, ftm, m2f, f2m, male-to-female, female-to-male, gender identity, gender dysphoria, transition, transitioning, sex change

It is so time to lighten the mood around here a little bit. Let’s see who needs a little sarcasm advice today:

Adrien,

I’ve comfortably identified as a lesbian for years now, but now I have a crush on a man and it is FREAKING ME OUT and completely screwing with my sense of self-identity. It wouldn’t be a big deal if I was just attracted to his personality as we get along really well and I like everything about him, but I’m also attracted to him physically when normally I have to be really REALLY drunk to even think about doing the kind of stuff with a man that I want to do with him.

Does this mean I’m not a lesbian anymore?

Yes. Fork over your flannel, cut up your membership card in the Dyke Club of America, and turn in your Diva Cup.

…actually, keep the latter. Um.

Seriously, though? No. You’re fine. Calm down, have a Valium, and sit down; Papa Adri’s gonna have a little talk with you about human sexuality.

…that sounds so, so wrong.

Anyway. Despite what our more hardcore, intolerant brothers and sisters might tell you, labels like “gay” and “lesbian” are just that: labels, things that we choose to adopt in order to identify ourselves but that don’t dictate our modus operandum any more than we allow them to, and certainly don’t guarantee 100% attraction to the same sex. Now, you shouldn’t be running around boinking everything male and female and still calling yourself a homosexual; you’re either bisexual or a nymphomaniac in need of a little counseling. But attraction to one member of the opposite sex should not be enough to destroy the sense of identity you’ve built over the years, because you know as well as I do that there’s a lot more to that identity, and who you are, than the label of “lesbian” you’ve applied atop it to make it neatly comprehensible.

Human sexuality really isn’t a hard and fast thing. You’ll rarely find anyone who’s 100% hetero or homo, hence all the jokes straight people make about the person they’d go gay for - and sometimes, they’re even serious under that. (Why do straight men pick some of the scariest-looking blokes I’ve ever seen, though?) Sometimes attraction simply happens, regardless of gender; the way our bodies respond to people isn’t something wholly within our control, and despite studies we still don’t fully understand the chemical processes involved. For the most part your body may respond to the presence of a woman: the sight of her, her scent, that intangible whiff of pheromones that says female and just gets your blood hot and sets a few other things tingling. Every once in a while you may stumble across a man who hits that same chemical trigger-point, but it’s simply much more rare for that right combination to be there.

You’ve probably heard of the Kinsey Scale, and probably thought you were firmly ensconced in the deep end of the pool. If you’re easing a tiny bit towards the shallows, don’t worry about it. It’s normal, even if I may face a lesbian lynch mob for saying so. Your identity as a lesbian isn’t threatened because the only one who can really define that identity is you, and it’s going to take more than attraction to one man to shake that. (When you’re getting more towards four or five, then you can have an identity crisis.) Once every few thousand years or so, I run across a woman that I’m attracted to (mmm, Milla Jovovich…) but that doesn’t stop me from identifying myself as gay. I’m just not 100% gay. 99.99999% works for me.

The truth is that recognizing this attraction has not changed who you are at all; it just changes what you know about yourself, and what you know about yourself is that your sexuality is just as fluid as any other human being’s. The potential for that attraction has been there all through the years of your comfortable self-identity, and the only difference is that now you’re aware that it exists. So really, if nothing’s changed at all, why worry about changing your identity?

There could be other factors involved, anyway. It’s no secret that women form attachments, including sexual attraction, differently from men. For some men all it takes is the right endowments on either sex for us to decide we’re in love, and the scary thing is that sometimes we actually mean it. Women can be a bit more complex, and while they may not feel sexual attraction towards someone at first, that attraction can develop as a result of an emotional attachment. You’ve said that you like everything about this guy, right? It’s quite possible that you developed an emotional attraction to his personality without consideration of gender and then, as a result of natural female pair-bonding tendencies, progressed to a physical attraction. This isn’t a 100% hard-and-fast rule on how women work (do you really want to trust a fag to know how women work?), but it may help to ease your mind as to how this happened if you’ve been quite secure in your “no men, no way” status for so long.

The bottom line is this: stop worrying. If you like the guy, enjoy it. Attraction and flirtation feel good no matter the gender or we wouldn’t do it so much. And if it turns out you’re not fully a lesbian? That’s perfectly all right. In the GBLTQ community we tend to be a little (hypocritically) intolerant, as if the labels we wear are more exclusive than the bastard lovechild of Gucci and Versace and that to revoke those labels is to be rejected and cast into a pit of worthless heterosexuality or even the dreaded bisexuality (we’re so mean to the bi folks. Poor kiddies). Nuh-uh. Screw that. You have worth far beyond the label of your sexuality, and what matters most is that you are happy and comfortable with yourself and your chosen mate, male or female or…well, let’s just not go there.

I’m sure you’re a wonderful woman, with many things to offer anyone lucky enough to know you, and far more to tell the world about yourself than “I’m a lesbian”. I know you’re a bit shaken up right now, but just take a breath and relax, let yourself get used to the idea. Whether your attraction to this guy fades or deepens, you’re still yourself, and that’s the only label that really matters.

Your chatty No. 5,
~Adri

Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.

kinsey scale, defining sexuality, sex and sexuality, gay sexuality, lesbian sexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality, attraction

“Sensitive TX man seeks like minds for friendship, more” the tagline reads. His profile says he’s 32 years old, 5′10″, brown hair and blue eyes, average build; his favorite movie is Alexander, his favorite book is blank, he has one or more dogs, no kids but wouldn’t mind them, he’s a versatile top, and to him sex is equally as important as romance. My gut instinct says tired pencil pusher, doormat, few hobbies, starting to sag, probably shorter than he says, wants more than I’m willing to put out on a first date, and has about as much in common with me as an orangutan has with a feather boa - and I click and move on. I hate dogs anyway. Not too fond of children, either. And Alexander was a crappy film.

I’ve never even met the guy and I’ve already rejected him, just as I rejected the half-dozen other profiles paraded past me in the past ten minutes. I’m browsing OutinHouston.com, my local installation of OutinAmerica.com, and the profile belongs to a man who’s just e-mailed me his general neighborhood and his phone number and told me to call him if I want to hook up tonight. That’s real internet safety for you, right there. Good thing I’ve got too much style to play the villain in a real-life slasher flick.

In recent years the internet has become more than a safe place to anonymously find the night’s latest stroke material; go to the right websites and you may end up bringing home the real thing in Mr. Right, Mr. Right Now, or Mr. You’ll Do Until I Can Find Something Better. The Hanky Code has been replaced by the Dot.com code, and sites like Gay.com, OutinAmerica.com, GLEE.com, and GayFriendFinder.com have created an online safe haven for members of the GBLTQ community to find friends, partners, or one-night stands behind the safety and anonymity of a screen name.

Whether you’re logging on for love or logging on for lust, within ten minutes you can create a profile that’s as much you as you want it to be, or as fictional as Britney’s sense of self-control. Browse, chat, click, contact - you’ll be viewed, reviewed, propositioned and rejected anywhere from one to one hundred times per night without ever hearing a single voice or seeing a single face beyond a photograph that looks like it was either culled from a high school yearbook or from the cast of beach-bum extras on Baywatch. You’ll know his endowment and his kinks before you even know his name; you’ll decide if you’re interested or not without ever feeling that first chemical spark of attraction. Within twenty minutes you could be chatting over coffee, asking who brought the condoms, or just staring at your screen wondering nervously how he’ll respond to your first inquisitive e-mail.

Digital dating has changed the way that we review potential mates; rather than responding to a glance, a smile, a whiff of pheromones, body language…instead we respond to a list of traits, often-misspelled words, answers chosen in a multiple-choice questionnaire, and a single photograph without life or personality. The fire of attraction has been reduced to an electrical spark transferring bytes across the distance, and beyond a gut reaction to an image, depends wholly on an intellectual response to what’s written.

This can be both a positive and a negative. Too many relationships crash and burn because they were based on the size of his assets or the cut of her figure, and by viewing profiles we’re forced to think of more than our libido’s instant reaction even if all we’re looking for is a quick hookup. The list of interest and favorites lets us know if we have anything in common; within five minutes we can know someone’s relationship goals rather than guessing, whether we’d be theoretically sexual compatible, and if they know how to use QWERTY with any degree of accuracy. If someone doesn’t meet our set criteria, we can cruise on by without the awkwardness of rejecting them face-to-face - often, they don’t even know we’ve looked.

But does this blithe and casual anonymity make it hard to make a real human connection? The digital dating pool in the pink triangle often feels more like the Bermuda Triangle, and it’s too easy to flounder and become lost without ever really finding your way. While it’s safer to browse for a potential mate online - no outing yourself if you’re closeted, no embarrassment of hitting on a hetero, no fear of homophobic reactions - that convenience may come at a price. A thousand profiles, a hundred e-mails, and yet how often do you feel that real sense of attraction - and when you do, how often does it translate to reality upon meeting? The guy who sent you steamy e-mails that left you panting turns out to be a nervous and fumbling thing who can barely articulate a single word, lives in his mother’s basement, and can’t even meet your eyes. The girl who spent long nights sharing intimate secrets with you over IM wants a long-term commitment on the first date, screams at the waiter in the restaurant for glancing at her for two seconds too long, and twitches with a nervous tic any time that you mention that you might need to…uh…go.

Do internet hook-ups really work out? I admit, I haven’t really delved into the idea much. I’ve met a few guys online, people with like interests who share my hesitations and would rather ask me out for coffee than ask me in for a one-night romp in the sheets. No matter how much I might have enjoyed e-mail communiques I find, on meeting them, that I feel absolutely nothing other than a rueful appreciation that I have, at least, made a new friend with whom I have something in common. Even if my mind said a dubious “yes”, my pheromones cry an emphatic “no!“, no matter how attractive he is. The spark just isn’t there; the body language doesn’t match the written word. Maybe I built him up too much in my mind, and the reality was a letdown. Maybe love really is just chemicals. Either way, we tend to part with a mutual agreement that we’d be great as friends, but nothing else. Sometimes I never hear from him again. Sometimes he’s right there with the rest of my friends when it’s Friday night and we’re out cruising for something to do. But he isn’t Mr. Right, even if I wouldn’t mind having a quick go at him just for right now.

I suppose I should consider my apathetic experiences to be rather fortunate when compared to the nightmare tales of others. One of my lesbian friends has a talent for finding calamity online - calamity, and pure insanity. She’s often met girls on MySpace who seemed sweet, funny, and everything that she’d love to date. When she meets them in reality, they turn out to be spastic psychos with serious mental problems, whose tamest “quirks” range from stabbing themselves with forks at the dinner table to breaking into tears at the sound of a car horn.

While I tease her and ask her what else she expects from MySpace, the sad reality is this: most people are nothing like the person that their profiles portray. In that five-minute summary you’re seeing not the person, but your subjective interpretation of them from a list of traits; you may end up ditching someone who could have been your potential lifemate without even knowing it, and instead choosing someone who turns out to be the next Norman Bates. Granted, that happens with real-life dating as well; until you really get to know someone, you can never be sure if they’re right for you or right for the curb. While it may seem easier to get to know someone online, where you can spill a dozen truths about yourself without ever revealing your real name, without having to duck your head and blush in embarrassment or worry about how they’re looking at you…

How often do you really meet the person that you thought you’d come to know?

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Today’s Transgender Tale was submitted by Jill, and was originally published in Transgender Tapestry #206 in Winter of 2004.

Rite of Passage

I have a very good friend named Jan, a married woman. We met on line eight or nine years ago. We struck up a conversation in an AOL chat room and were soon writing each other short notes almost every day. At the time I was married to a woman and presenting as male. I was still in deep denial, refusing to confront and come to terms with the gender issues which had relentlessly dogged me since childhood.

Jan and I lived three states away from each other. We corresponded for several months before her family, on vacation, passed through the area where I lived. Jan and I met for coffee. We had planned on talking for half an hour or so. Instead, we spent more that two hours together.

Over time, Jan and I found common interests and shared points of view on many issues. We would discuss religion, politics, her husband, my wife, children, careers, every topic under the sun but one; sex. Neither of us were looking for anything beyond our marriages. It was just not “there” sexually for either of us. We agreed that if there were a sexual overtone to our friendship, it would most likely get in the way. Neither of us wanted to jeopardize the specialness of the friendship. Besides, she could not quite put her finger on it, but she said I was just “different” from any other male she had ever known.

When I finally came out, I was scared to death to tell Jan. We had shared so many things, so many intimacies - but as with my family and other friends, I knew I had to take the risk of losing a relationship with someone for whom I cared for rather than pretending to live differently than who I am. So, over a very long telephone conversation one evening, I told her. She was very surprised but not shocked. After reflecting on the issue for a week or so, she finally said “THAT’S what it is, I KNEW you were different somehow.” Jan has been supportive of my transition ever since.

Prior to my coming out, Jan and I had not disclosed the existence of our friendship to our respective spouses; this was to keep them from thinking there was anything sexual between us. I don’t know where you come from, or how you grew up, but where I come from, a married male just doesn’t make close friends with a married woman unless something is going on on the sly. Now that he knows, her husband thinks I’m totally strange for doing what I am doing. In a way, maybe he’s right.

A year after I came out, my marriage fell apart, and I moved to Phoenix, Jan lives in another community in this same state, but that’s not why I chose to move to Arizona. It’s just a happy coincidence. We see each other every few months when she is in town on business, or when I have gone to visit her. The rest of the time we e-mail, and occasionally call.

Jan has witnessed the various stages of my transition literally from day one. She has seen me as a male; as an “out TS” but still presenting as male; as a newbie starting hormones; as a very rough presentation to the point I was read by the waitress one day when we were at lunch; as a budding woman with a softening of my facial features and small pubescent breasts; and finally as I am now; a confident, post-transitional feminine woman, who lives as such 24/7, and who is fearless about going anywhere in public any other woman would go.

This includes of course any woman’s public restroom - and therein lies the story.

Consciously or not, we interact with others in a way that reflects their perceived gender. Two colleagues go for lunch. It’s strictly professional, but he will still open the door for her. He does not, however, accompany her to the restroom. My relationship with Jan had, until that day, been similar, with the typical male/female dynamics.

On the day in question, Jan was in town to run some errands. We went out to lunch and caught each other up on all the latest gossip and news. After the meal we continued our discussion over coffee. We all know what coffee does. I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room. Jan said, “Wait, I’ll go with you.” So, we, two women, trotted off to the ladies’ restroom, continuing our conversation on the way. We did what we came there to do, each fully aware of what the other was doing in the next stall, yet all the while talking over the partitions. We both then washed our hands, checked our hair and makeup, and returned to the table together.

Neither of us commented on the event, either during or after. The act of doing what she did was very simple; all she did was allow us to pee in each others’ relative presence. Yet by doing so, she forever altered what was left of any male/female dynamics of the relationship.

The act was a subtle, yet distinct acceptance and inclusion of me into womanhood, and into her space as a woman. And for that, I shall forever be grateful more than she will ever realize.

I’m sure many others are grateful to you for sharing this story, and on their behalf I thank you.

~Adri

Are you a MtF or FtM transgender/transsexual/transvestite/crossdresser, or considering/questioning? Want to share your story or motivational anecdote? E-mail your story to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Transgender Tales” or use the Contact Form to send your story in.

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