WOAH... unexpected transition stuff

[kathygnome]

Curve's Executive Editor is becoming straight the hard way...

This brings up just a huge bucket of issues, mostly oriented around lesbian identity and transition. After all, what does it say if the executive editor of a lesbian magazine is dating a man?

This is starting to really get strange for those of us who are lesbian-community-identified transwomen. After all, if FTMs are women and women who date them are lesbians, doesn't it follow that transwomen are men?

Comments

[invisible-gurl.livejournal.com]

I think there are more lesbians who consider FTMs lesbian than FTMs who do. I number of FTMs I've talked to are very much offended to be considered women in any way, including being considered a lesbian (if they like girls). I've heard a couple FTM friends express frustration in fact when it seems a girl they're with may only be attracted to them because the girl thinks of them as a lesbian.

On there other hand, there does seem to be the occasional FTM who is so rooted in the lesbian community, and doesn't want to part with that community (or with female space, for some reason) that they'll consider themselves a lesbian. But it's truly the minority.

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

After all, if FTMs are women and women who date them are lesbians, doesn't it follow that transwomen are men?

You'd think so. But for some reason, a lot of this stuff doesn't seem to work symmetrically.

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

It's definitely confusing...and there's definitely in difference between a partner coming out as an FTM and seeking to date FTMs.

It's weird, a significant portion of the FTMs I know (including those already on T and trying to find the money for chest surgery) don't ID as men, but as genderqueer...where do they fit? Is it ok for a lesbian to date them? Who knows?

This is why I think queer and dyke are such useful terms...

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

Are they really FTMs, then, or something else?

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

well, in the sense that they seek to transition as much as physically possible to a male body, yes.

The main fear, I think, is losing their queer identity and becoming invisible.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

the way you deal with that is by going from being attracted to women to being attracted to men

[dashingdeviant.livejournal.com]

I know there a lot of "perceived as dykes, transition, and are gay or bisexual men", but, couldn't one be not immediately visible as queer, but still queer?

In an unrelated issue, I feel really guilty that hanging around me seems to hurt the passability of my FTM friends - if I'm with one of them, we get read as a pair of butches, rather than as a butch and a guy; whereas, if they were alone, they're way more likely to get read as a guy.

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

Yeah and I see this kind of person becoming more and more common.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

it sounds liek a classic case of gender insecurity, and also fear of being labelled bi and thus being an 'outsider' again

its easier to believe that men are men and women are women for life just as its easier to see homosexuals as sick and devinat if your straight, If she was straight she probably be rabidly homophobic

[transsexualjedi.livejournal.com]

For many people, it doesn't matter what you do, what any doctor says. What working parts you were born with determine who you are and who you will always be. That's why transwomen will forever be men and transmen will forever be women. It's why "womyn born womyn" is such an inclusive, super "sekrit!" club.

If you weren't born that way, you will never be that way. It doesn't matter what drugs, surgeries, or therapist certifcations you get. It's all smoke and mirrors to confuse the truth that you're just lying to everyone else to get something forbidden to you.

And that's all there is to it, to people who see gender/sex in such a fashion.