Two Words
It would be great to have a vagina installed - but I've been able to work around it
| 12 Dec 2006
The idea of trans sexuality, two words, is slippery - the word 'transsexuality' has the word 'sexuality' in it, which makes it sound like changing your sex is about fucking. It's not. I mean, it kind of is - it's hard to have great sex with somebody if they think you're a gender you don't want to be - but transsexuality is not a sexuality like homosexuality or bisexuality is.
I know gay, straight, bi and omnisexual transwomen. I know transwomen who are into exhibitionism and S/M. I know transwomen who are furries and ones who are into the goth/vampire/blood/doin' it in a graveyard thing; transwomen who top and transwomen who bottom; ones who switch. I know transwomen who get off all the time and transwomen who are so uncomfortable with what's in their pants that they don't really get off at all. I know transwomen who want nothing more than a heterosexual marriage with a heterosexual man.
It makes me feel kind of boring.
I use a lot of identity labels for myself because I feel like they give me permission, rather than restriction. "Femme" means I can wear a prom dress and way too much eye make-up if I feel like it. "Punk" means I can wear 'em sprawled across the subway platform. "Trans" describes my experience of being assigned male when I was born, figuring out that I disagreed, and then doing what I could about it. "Dyke" means I consider myself a woman and that I mainly date women; "bisexual" means that I also like boys kind of a lot. "Queer" wraps a warm blanket around all of 'em.
Essentially I identify as an activist dyke, as a woman who mainly does it with other women. I've never gotten any static for being trans in dyke space. Quite the opposite, in fact. Girls who fuck girls who are involved in art or activism tend to be on exactly the same page as me when it comes to most things ("Oh wow, you lost your virginity to the girl who gave you your first Ani DiFranco record, too?"). The thing where lesbians all hate transwomen has not been my experience. That theory came from the same time and place that gave us the 'heterosexual women can't be feminists because fucking men supports patriarchy' theory.
And as for the sex that I myself have? I'll admit that I feel pretty ambivalent about having a cock, and that I think it would be great to, y'know, have a vagina installed. But I've been able to work around it. I can totally still get off with it, and get somebody else off, and I like making out and orgasms and fingers along my spine as much as you probably do. Imagine that you were horrendously embarrassed about your ass, for some reason, and that whenever anybody paid any attention to it during sex, it was a total bonerkill and you had to withdraw for a bit then start over. Um, my having a cock isn't even that bad. So.
I know gay, straight, bi and omnisexual transwomen. I know transwomen who are into exhibitionism and S/M. I know transwomen who are furries and ones who are into the goth/vampire/blood/doin' it in a graveyard thing; transwomen who top and transwomen who bottom; ones who switch. I know transwomen who get off all the time and transwomen who are so uncomfortable with what's in their pants that they don't really get off at all. I know transwomen who want nothing more than a heterosexual marriage with a heterosexual man.
It makes me feel kind of boring.
I use a lot of identity labels for myself because I feel like they give me permission, rather than restriction. "Femme" means I can wear a prom dress and way too much eye make-up if I feel like it. "Punk" means I can wear 'em sprawled across the subway platform. "Trans" describes my experience of being assigned male when I was born, figuring out that I disagreed, and then doing what I could about it. "Dyke" means I consider myself a woman and that I mainly date women; "bisexual" means that I also like boys kind of a lot. "Queer" wraps a warm blanket around all of 'em.
Essentially I identify as an activist dyke, as a woman who mainly does it with other women. I've never gotten any static for being trans in dyke space. Quite the opposite, in fact. Girls who fuck girls who are involved in art or activism tend to be on exactly the same page as me when it comes to most things ("Oh wow, you lost your virginity to the girl who gave you your first Ani DiFranco record, too?"). The thing where lesbians all hate transwomen has not been my experience. That theory came from the same time and place that gave us the 'heterosexual women can't be feminists because fucking men supports patriarchy' theory.
And as for the sex that I myself have? I'll admit that I feel pretty ambivalent about having a cock, and that I think it would be great to, y'know, have a vagina installed. But I've been able to work around it. I can totally still get off with it, and get somebody else off, and I like making out and orgasms and fingers along my spine as much as you probably do. Imagine that you were horrendously embarrassed about your ass, for some reason, and that whenever anybody paid any attention to it during sex, it was a total bonerkill and you had to withdraw for a bit then start over. Um, my having a cock isn't even that bad. So.