Would you date a transgendered person?
Before we move on to the usual, let’s have a moment of silence for the victims and survivors of the Virginia Tech shooting. I don’t care if it’s topical to this blog or not. They deserve a little acknowledgment and respect.
Back to business and today’s blog topic in the world of the wonderfully gay…uh…well, crud. I skimmed the headlines and found very little that actually roused my interest enough to go on one of my long-winded tirades. Sometimes it really does seem like the same carousel of issues swirled about in repetitive circles, and I’m so sick of talking about yet another wankery regarding the Church (whatever Church it is this week) and homosexuality. So you know what? We’re not. Instead we’re going to get a little personal, tell a bit of a story, and then ask you a few questions.
I have a friend - stop looking so shocked that anyone can put up with my acidic tongue - that we’ll call Jason for the sake of his privacy. Jason, my friends, is gorgeous. He’s also funny, sweet, responsible, and well-educated with a stable job. He likes kids (why, I don’t know) and is dying to meet just that right guy to have and to hold. Hell, I’d date him myself, if I didn’t think I was too mean for him and if I wasn’t caught up in my own conflicted romantic mess. Still, Jason’s not short for suitors…but they never last very long once they get to know a certain thing about him.
Jason isn’t just any other gay guy. Jason is FtM (female-to-male) transgendered.
I’m sure there are some people out there asking “wtf?! Do people do that?!” Most people think of MtF (male-to-female) transgenders when someone mentions transgenders, transsexuals, transvestites, etc. When people do find out that FtM transgenders exist, they usually assume they’re just butcher-than-butch lesbians who decided to just go male.
Not so. There’s a huge difference between a woman who desires other women, and someone born in a female body who nonetheless feels strongly that they should have been born male - strongly enough to take medical and surgical measures to correct it. One’s sexual identity is wholly separate from one’s gender identity…which is why one thing that hurts Jason more than anything is the rather nasty comments that he gets about how if he was going to continue to date men, he should have stayed female.
The thing is, if you understand what it means to transition…Jason was never female to start with. Trust me, it took a lot of long late-night talks over stale pizza for me to understand this, too…but Jason’s my friend and I wanted to know, and he didn’t mind telling me. The way he sees it, he was a man born in a female body. He just happened to be a gay man born in a female body, and that’s what’s causing him the most grief.
Because he’s pre-operative (he’s on hormones, but hasn’t had any surgery and binds his breasts to flatten his chest), most of the men that he dates see him as just a woman, once they find out. It doesn’t matter that Jason looks manlier than I do (and could probably bench-press me for fun). It doesn’t matter that he can grow a beard, doesn’t matter that to all outside appearances while fully clothed, no one would ever take him for anything other than a man. No one cares about that. No one cares about what a nice guy he is, what a great friend he is, all the other winning traits that would have guys falling over him if he’d just been born with the right anatomy. No one cares about him.
Just about what he lacks between his legs.
He’s tried dating bisexual men, but it doesn’t work; they either treat him as a woman (down to calling him by female pronouns) or dump him because his anatomy isn’t masculine enough. It makes me wonder just how shallow we really are - and I don’t just mean gay men, though it’s gay men that have caused Jason most of his heartbreak. Men, women, gay, straight…when it comes to attraction both romantic and sexual, do we care about the person more than we care about their looks and their anatomy? Or do we focus first on physical traits, ignoring everything else about this person until they’ve satisfied some base requirement?
With that thought in mind, I’m curious about you..how you choose, and if a person being transgendered would matter to you. So if you’ve got a moment, I’d appreciate it if you’d take this anonymous poll. Be honest - after all, it is anonymous. Who would know?
dating, romance, relationships, ftm, mtf, male-to-female, female-to-male, transgender, transsexual, gay transgender, lesbian transgender
April 17th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I know another gay man in a woman’s body, but since his health is terribly bad, he can never have the operation. The people he knows IRL still call him ’she’, but on the internet he can safely be a he. A lot of people of the forum I know him from know he’s stuck in the wrong body, and it’s nice for him to be so accepted. He’s wonderful, a bit crazy, and a fantastic writer and friend.
I can’t say for sure, of course, since I’ll never meet him. But I’ve never known him other than as a transgender, and I love him none the less. He’s gay, so we could never be together, but if he wasn’t… We like a lot of the same things. It could happen, and I wouldn’t mind whatever body he’s in - that’s not saying that it wouldn’t be difficult. But relations are never easy anyway, so a little bit of extra work is no drama. I believe that love has more to do with a person’s soul in the end than his or her body. Beauty is much more than skin deep.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
You forgot to leave space in your poll for if one already was a m2f, f2m, or genderqueer transperson, would one date another transperson, a heterosexual man or woman, gay man, lesbian woman, or genderqueer person.
We transpeople have got a say in this too, y’know!
And of course, what about the intersexed? Where do these folk fit into the dating schema?
Sometimes Adrien, one has to really get out of thinking about sex and gender as being binaries when one asks questions that involve sex and gender.
April 17th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Ah, you caught me, Autumn, and you’re absolutely right. I was trying to cover my bases and I really missed out, didn’t I? Originally, though, I’d set up a group of questions asking if one was male, female, MtF, FtM, etc…the free polling service I was using wouldn’t work, though, and I couldn’t find a free poller that would let me do multiple questions without being garish and screwing up the layout, so I narrowed it down to that one question.
Still, I may save this for another article and explore it further with less binary options discussed. Thanks for smacking my eyes a bit further open.
April 17th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
As a transgender MtF (note the lack of “ed” on that word) who self identifies as lesbian, I completely understand what he’s going through. I’ve had gay men look at me, roll their eyes and exclaim in disbelief “You mean you went from being a MAN to being a LESBIAN?!?” Discovering the idea that gender and sex are not the same thing is not easy until you spend some time really thinking it through.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:15 am
It’s a tough issue. A friend of mine is a lesbian transwoman, who for health reasons will never be able to have bottom surgery — and the experiences of your friend Jason are the sort of things she fears. Another friend of mine is a gay transguy who’s on hormones, but can’t afford top surgery — and faces the same sort of cold shoulder Jason describes.
I’ve been following the “All My Children” discussion boards at Soap Central and it’s ironic that it’s hetro women who are _far_ more accepting than of the budding romance (since put on-hold) between the transgender character, Zoe, and Bianca, the show’s resident lesbian. In fairness to the lesbians who are upset, it could be seen as stunting the two LGBT characters off into the queer ghetto, and the attraction was a bit out-of-character for Bianca, a “gold star lesbian” who’s only intimate contact with a man came when she was raped. Especially when — due to an apparently compressed timeline — there was no “gee I never thought I’d be attacted to…” sort of soul-searching on Bianca’s part.
But still, for the most vocal lesbian critics it always seems to come down to what Zoe has (or doesn’t have) below the waist. (That actual lesbian females-at-birth somehow manage to negotiate that fact with actual lesbian pre-op/non-op transwoman doesn’t seem to matter much…. )
April 18th, 2007 at 2:29 am
it just goes to show the ignorance in society and the lack of compassion and understanding. It seems that looks matter most and the rest can wait until later. While I personally do not know anyone in his shoes I have heard of it and its unique issues it brings to the person. I wish him all the love and happiness in trying to get to a place where he can finally be happy in his own skin and his surroundings. I never grasped why people jump to conclusions, don’t talk to anyone, rather they just pick up and leave never considering the person they just hurt out of their ignorance.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
A friend of mine recently went through this problem. He’s FtM and has been given a shitload of grief from his family and some now ex-friends about it; they’re convinced he “only did this” (because heaven help them if they actually spoke about it) because he’s dating an MtF, and has several transgender friends.
Yes, I’m sure that such a LIFE-ALTERING REALIZATION was made on a whim and caused by being around “those” people so much. -eyeroll-
But, he’s happy, and I’m happy that he’s finally got some stability in his life. His girlfriend’s a total sweetheart and they have a healthy relationship, and he’s been going out rather than sitting in the house all day having IM freak-outs to me about it. I’m seriously not equipped to help anyone figure this kind of stuff out; I mean, I’m just a garden-variety lesbian. But I did tell him that I loved him no matter what, whatever gender he is, whatever his sexual orientation is. I mean, I like the person, not what’s between their legs or what they do in bed.
I do have to confess, I’d probably be on him like a mosquito if he was single.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I find it infinitely interesting that one of the responses, from a straight woman, speaks about the fact she would have no issues with this. I find this to be more then the case when it gets down to facts.
The so-called allies of transsexual as well as transgender (which in reality an umbrella term gay and lesbian people also fall under), gay lesbian community, tend to be more discriminating then are those in the heterosexual community.
I know men who are gay and men who are straight, it seems those straight men find women who see and know them to be male, while the gay men tend to be stuck finding bisexual men or the odd gay man.
The same seems to be said for the women who are transsexual. So often you hear those in the lesbian community speak about how they are not real women. Just look at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. They have their “Woman born Women” policy.
Other “lesbian” events that are accepting of women who are transsexual tend to also include men who are transsexual in to those same spaces, such as an all women’s bathhouse. Does that say a great deal about what they think about those men, or does it say they don’t care about genitals either way? I suspect the former myself.
So I guess the question out there should be, why is it the lesbian and gay community are lagging so far behind the straight community?
April 18th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Actually, my friend mentioned this problem with his girlfriend - evidently she’s given a lot of grief by the lesbian community in the area where they live. It’s a bit ridiculous, really - tell any lesbian who was born with female parts that she really just needs a good strong man to settle her down, and she’ll scream until she turns blue.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
It strikes me as very odd that some members of a community that in general often feels discriminated and oppressed (and often with good reason) would themselves do the same to people who are part of their group o_O
But I suppose that happens everywhere… Sadly enough.
April 18th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
It’s not so odd, really. You always lash out at someone who threatens you in some way.
April 19th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I guess I don’t understand what it is that they see as a threat, then…
April 19th, 2007 at 9:33 am
I’m a male-attracted non-op transwoman. And I have to agree I’ve gotten more outright discrimination (nasty comments) from LGB people and more support, generally from straight people. BUT I have to say that once GLB people get it, they really do and are often MORE supportive.
I feel like part of the problem is that we’re all more aware of gender and sexuality issues than straight people, so when we want to hurt each other we can be more cutting, but when we want to support each other we can be much more supportive.
About the topic: I have several non-op ftm friends who I’ve talked with about this and it’s so complicated! For me, it’s difficult, because I’ve always liked large d*ck. LOL. So I guess I’m a size queen in that sense but not in general. I mean I like them to be big enough to do me, and a smaller one or a diclit doesn’t really cut it for me. But I told a friend of mine that if he was handy with the dildo I guess it would be okay. It would take some getting used to though.
As for me, all the guys I see identify as “straight”. I’d say about 50/50 have no problem with it when I tell them my situation, and even when they don’t like it, they’re almost always nice about it. I only had two bad situations with that.
The problem is that first, all straight men desperately want to be topped, which I don’t do. Sexuality is so complicated. There are also a lot of guys who are really focused on pre-op or non-op trans women, that’s what they like. But they all treat it as some kind of fantasy and its really difficult to have an LTR. Since they just want the “thrill” and then that’s it.
As far as the gay men go, the ones who are mean are like that because a few of them have gender issues themselves. And others have been accused of having gender issues by homophobes for a long time so they don’t want to be associated with us. And the really gay ones aren’t attracted to us and if they’re just misogynistic then they can talk a lot of nasty trash.
But the gay men who realize that, like with being gay, they don’t need to understand “why” in order to be accepting and supportive (I really don’t understand “why” either it’s just how I am). The ones like that end up being super nice!
And most lesbians are nice I’ve found except for the more sort of earthy crunchy ones who have the woman identity wrapped up in the gender binary in an internalized way and get threatened by the instability or ambiguity of reality, which is that not everyone fits into the usual boxes. And if “woman” and “man” comes a lot from power roles, then the genitals don’t matter it’s how people treat you. And if men treat you like crap half the time and as a sex toy the other half of the time then you’re a woman no matter what your organs are because it sure doesn’t matter to them, that’s for sure.
Anyway, that’s my two cents.
April 19th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Thanks for the great post. I’m straight, but I think what a lot of you say here and all over your site, rings true for me too–it’s about being comfortable in your own skin, whether that be your m/f anatomy, your weight, your skin color, etc. Just my opinion: putting yourself in the right body has nothing to do with your sexual preference. They’re two separate things. Right? I come from a very close-minded community, so these kinds of topics are really new and intriguing to me.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:20 am
I’m FTM (transitioned more than 15 yrs ago) and my preference is to date pre or non-op MTFs. It’s much easier, however, to find gay male partners, but it feels like “settling”. It’s too hard to find transwomen, and most of them have no more knowledge about transmen than the average person on the street. Doing FTM 101 education gets very tiring after the first thousand conversations…. . I am entirely “passable”, as the term goes, so much so that I can go to any locker room or gay male bathhouse without a problem— as long as I’ve got a few crucial inches of fabric, vs. total nudity. The above commentary pretty much nails it— there is tremendous prejudice against FTMs in the gay male community. Mainly due to ignorance about the topic (and the phallocentric nature of most gay men). Most gay men simply do not know we exist. Times are changing, however, and things are gradually getting better, mainly for much younger transmen (teens, twenties) who’re hooking up with a generation of young gay, bi, and pansexual men who’ve grown up with fewer hangups. One encouraging (and amusing, at least to me) fact is that many if not most of the non-transgender gay men I know who’ve been partnered with FTMs say they are “hooked”, now that they’ve been with FTMs. They say that they purposefully sought out other FTMs after the relationship with the first transman ended, or— if still in that first relationship, they say they would definitely prefer to be with a transman if the current relationship were to end. From what I hear, it has to do with transmen being “more balanced” (which I can believe), more in touch with their own feelings, more communicative, more sensitive, less inclined to game-playing, less into the stereotypical “gay bar drama” scenes, etc. All these factors are on “the inside”, while many transmen appear “ultra-masculine” on the outside—- often bearded, muscular, burly or athletic-looking, inked, etc. The non-trans partners I’ve talked to spoke of finding that combination very attractive. There’s another element, the details of which I’ll skip here, um, having to do with “mechanics”. Let’s just say that the gay men who identify as “tops” say they’re now completely hooked (the word they tend to use is “spoiled”) on these butch-looking transmen who haven’t had the lower surgery.
Thank you for posting the above entry and adding to the education about the topic.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
I self-identify as a dyke, ergo I date women! Plural! Which means I’d be open to dating either a non-transexual woman (I hate the terms “genetic women” or “women born women” as both are truly invalidating to someone who has always identified as a woman) OR a transexual woman, lesbian or bi. And I’d like to think it wouldn’t matter to me where she was in her transition, although that might take some work on my side (which I’d be willing to do).
I would assume that I’d not date transmen because, after all - they’re men, and men just don’t do it for me. :p
I should probably add that woman-identified intersexed folk are just as appealing to me as women in general.
I’ve probably duplicated something in my message that others have already posted here, so I’d like to apologize by explaining that I wasn’t dumb enough to actually read the previous comments because I’m quite enjoying this “at peace” feeling I’ve had lately; I’d rather not have to get all uppity, pacing my apartment with baseball bat in hand, screaming at transphobic people who aren’t there. I’m sure there are very supportive responses to your article, but then there are always the ones who make you want to rip your hair out by the roots. I once read a great quote that goes something like this [paraphrased]: “It’s very frustrating having an argument with someone who’s not actually there”. One of Jane Rule’s characters, I think.
As for you phobics or heterosexuals not “in the know” - gender identity & sexual orientation ARE two different things. One is who you identify as, the other is who you are attracted to. It just didn’t seem like that hard of a concept for me, after someone sat me down and explained it. And I am known for being particularly dense. Women have been trying to get men (and other women) to realize that our genitals do NOT define us as women. So we should stop trying to sell these same misconceptions, when talking about the transexed community. Do women with breast cancer suddenly became male or stop identifying as female because they’ve had a masectomy? Of course not. I reserve a special place in the bat-box for members of the queer community who have the nerve of being transphobic, biphobic, etc. [Separate rant here, sorry, but - sexual orientation has nothing to do with whether or not you’re monogamous or polyamorous so quit it already! Stop asking!]
If anything, one of the most important things I’ve learned from having friends in the wider queer community is that, not only do I identify as a woman, I absolutely LOVE the fact that I am. And I love my body, lumpy though it may be. I’m just smart enough to realize how lucky I was to have been born into a body that’s currently socially accepted as female.
Peace and blessed be, Pagan Dyke.
Binary systems are for computers!
June 2nd, 2007 at 2:15 am
I’m MTF transsexual just starting transition, and I would not date a transsexual. Sounds hypocritical? No. It isn’t. I have a couple reasons why I wouldn’t.
1. I don’t need the constant reminder. Dealing with someone else’s HRT, surgeries, therapy sessions, depressions, getting clocked, name change problems, etc. That just reminds me of where I came from, and I don’t like that. I have enough of that to worry about for myself.
2. I’m not into women so other MTF transwomen are uninteresting to me even when they’re very pretty and very passable. Pre-op or post op: they’re just too feminine for me.
3. I’m not into FTM transmen because I need a man with a functioning penis. I’m sorry, but FTM bottom surgery just isn’t quite there yet (when compared to MTF bottom surgery). Besides, LOTS of men are sure to reject me because my future vagina will not be a fully functioning one. We all have the right to reject or accept.
4. I’m tall and most FTM’s are short. I prefer tall men 6′0 and up.
August 18th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
[…] Tales: Call for Submissions After so many transgendered individuals spoke up on this post about dating transgenders, I was thinking about instituting something called Transgender Tales: a post, once a week, […]
December 21st, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I’m bi, and I’m tired of America’s fascination with the outside of people. I’m overweight, currently missing my two front teeth (which were 45-degree angled out of a profound overbite–so I don’t miss ‘em), and I wear glasses. Most men don’t look twice at me, and those that do generally turn out to be friends rather than lovers because they *are* hung up on appearances.
So, were I to end up with a transgender (trasnsitioning to either gender), I would not at all be bothered by it. I am in fact fascinated by them–their courage.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:30 pm
F2M: sounds like the perfect man