I guess the more I accept my gender the more comfortable I become with my maleness the more I question my sexuality and this is a tough one. Can I express my sexuality honestly when I am one gender in the body of a different sex, what if those two entities within me have conflicting sexualities? How do I attract the people I am attracted to when my body isn't the body they want? And when I do attract people it's seems only a matter of time before my trans identity seems to get in the way of things. "Well if your a [insert gender here], well I'm a [insert sexuality here] so I can't be attracted to you" It is almost as if my very presence forces these people to question their sexuality, it makes them uncomfortable.
I grew up being taught that people were people ( seems corny I know ) and that if there was that spark or chemistry or whatever it didn't matter if that person was male, female, black, white or purple with pink polka dots. Once again I'm learning what a strange and wonderful family I grew up in. I thought everyone believed that, but clearly they don't and I find it hard not to be jaded by it.
Whilst I have never, personally, experienced a (non-platonic) relationship (chiefly because I find myself ultimately crippled by the issues you have just expressed in addition to have always seemingly exuded some quality that prevents even those who know me well from considering me as anything but asexual, which I assuredly am not) I do know that it is possible. Two persons I know of in a similar position of being non-op men-in-female bodies have successful and seemingly accepting relationships- one is handfasted to his wife and I have witnessed their devotion to one another many times. Additionally, I don't think such issues are the lot of purely those of us who are non-transition. Phalloplasty still is unable to make a transitionaing ftm's body sexually capable in a generally 'meaningful' way, and the vast majorty I have known are loath to lose what sexual feeling they do have in exchange for 'one that pees, or one that pokes'. This means that the issue of...potential 'lying' (is it possible to pursue a relationship in the early stages without being fully capable of doing the deed in the manner the potential partner will no doubt expect?) is there nontheless. I don't have any answers, only that there seem to be a good amount of people who have overcome this hurdle with the love of exeptional people. I'm afraid I don'tknow what their secret is.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment LF,
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that there are people out there who have found each other and made it work and yes you are right it's not just about non-transition. Maybe the whole trans thing is just a convienient excuse and they are just really just trying to find a nice way of saying that I am not attractive. If that is the case I would prefer the truth..
I don't think it's necessarily that (if so it's a blow to my ego too, having never been the pursuee and rarely been the pursuer) I often think it's some sort of....I don't know. Vibe to other people. Something that makes their subconscious go 'this person doesn't fit into any of the neat tickboxes of gender, and possibly not of sexuality and so I fail to see them as a sexual being'. It's more a kind of 'Keep Away, Don't Look,' vibe. For years I was hugely unhappy with myself because of feeling that, simply by existing within a body that did not match my gender, I was a liar to people- and maybe that came through me somehow- that I didn't want people to look at me and se a female-sexual-being, and so, rather than understand and look deeper, people failed to see at all.
ReplyDeleteWoah. Deep thoughts. I'm probably talking bollocks, Im half asleep.
No that's an interesting idea, I think you may well be onto something there, I need to go and think about that..
ReplyDelete