i am tired of explaining

[scroller]

right. so, let me ask you a question. if there was a scale where one end was white (we'll say that's 100% homosexual) and one side was black (100% straight)...and everything inbetween was different shades of grey where does trans fit in?

sqrt(black)?
assuming black is negative

So I think you're saying that it's all very complex.

[muhmuh]

not quite... i was going for the orthogonality

[whatsupwithat]

not quite... i was going for the orthogonality

possibilities there.

[hwbs]

damn where to start...i stopped trying to explain myself years ago....if someone is genuinely interested in finding about my life that is one thing...i will be more than happy to shed some light...i live my life for myself and no one else...next time i see my chick i will ask her what it makes me when i dick her down till she cant walk right....hey but i do make up a bath for her afterwards , hahahaha



E u are my boy....don't worry about it....if anyone asks i will be like "my friend Eric he loves to hump everything, lmfao" like u say humps bring smiles !!!!

[Coroner]

hey old straight brother. good to see you.

great points! yes, sexuality is related to gender, but we're caught in this dualistic way of looking at it. who we are is outside of the normal precepts of society and gender and sexuality...and people cannot grasp it. it's almost like we need a stephen hawking of gender to appear and write a book on string bikini theory. :P

I´d buy that book. What you said about people who don´t grasp "us" is related to anything else that appears as "unusual" in our societies. This leads to terminological creations of sub-cultures. People talk about gay cultures, gay societies which is wrong since homosexuality has always been part of humanity. Some folks create specific rules and treat anything "alien" to those rules with acts of exclusion.

seriously, though, i am all for living as i be. but if you go back to what truebeauty said earlier...as well as others...this goes beyond the individual and our individual choices and preferences and ideas of how we label and see ourselves. it's actually all about community and cohesion and support and moving forward as one, under one umbrella, in a positive way. 'i am what i am' and 'we are what we are' just doesn't cut it when there's nothing for those outside of our community to pin it to. we might as well be ether.

I second that. What you call a community in this context is a great idea but it´s just an idea. Frankly spoken, I´m not sure how many folks here have that community consciousness. We are all just humans and this community includes people like you who care, cockchasers, douchebags, nice guys, avaricious girls. People join a community to pursue personal interests and some really try to discuss important issues. This is a great topic and I wish we have more of these conversations. A community is much more than club parties and can be classified as one based on its beneficial character.
As for the "outside world", you can´t help it at all. The biologist and philosopher Humberto Maturana said that the observed depends on the observer. This means that whatever you say or write, the reader or listener will intepret it his way. You like TS but not men and you probably don´t label yourself as a gay man but there will always be people who will still call you a fag because they don´t recognize TS as women. They have no connections to this community which remains a sub-culture and it seems that "members" of this community don´t really try to change its position in its world. I do not blame anyone because I better start with myself.

btw, awesome about your sis. i may have painted a portrait of my sister that was a tad negative, but she really has been supportive. she just wants to understand...just like my nieces and nephews do. and they're not the only ones. i run across it all the time. it'd be great to give them clarity outside of rehashed buddhist sayings...that's all.

This is great, E. I´m jealous of such a great family and I hope for you that you can count on them forever. You have to prove your true competences and people will hopefully forget about such actually unimportant things like sexuality. Stay strong man.

[Paladin]

ME: "Well, there are medical terms which are negative. There are terms used by some of the trans women which are negative.

OK, we trannys call you a tranny chaser. I got that. xoxo


But what is the medical term for guys that like trannys? I'm not sure if I know that.


.

Cockmasters!

[salvador]

-

You're not alone .

i've brought this up before on this board and we didn't get anywhere...but here i am again repeating to you what has become a standard interaction for me with people outside the trans community.

my sister was in the city today and we had lunch. my family has always known of my sexuality and i've always introduced to them any trans women i was dating and serious about. they've also met many of my trans friends and we've all hung out together numerous times. they've always been supportive and i didn't think it was an issue. well, today, i learned that my sister was a little confused about who i am...sexually...and it became an issue.

the topic of my sexuality came up when my sister mentioned that my nieces and nephews has been texting each other back and forth lately about an interview i did where i discussed my sexual preference and my history in the trans community. apparently, they were confused as to my sexuality and when one of them asked their mother, my sister, she didn't know how to answer. she asked me.

SIS: "So, you're gay." (lol, i know, i know, i laughed too)

ME: "No. I experimented with men in the past when i was younger, but it wasn't for me. Never liked it."

SIS: "Then, you're bisexual."

ME: "No."

SIS: "You're not straight."

ME: "No."

(long pause)

SIS: "Then, what are you?"

ME: "There's no name for men like me."

SIS: "Nothing?"

ME: "Well, there are medical terms which are negative. There are terms used by some of the trans women which are negative. Some guys call themselves straight, others call themselves bi. But as for a definitive term...nothing. I've started calling myself transsexual. I think the term transsexual was misappropriated back in the day when they didn't understand too much...not that it has changed all that much out there. There's heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual which apply to sexuality, right? Trans is a bigger issue, not a sexual one. It's about the sex, who trans people are intrinsically, inside. It's not about sexuality. For me, it's about sexuality. It's my sexuality. So, if i liked women, I'd be heterosexual....men, homosexual...both men and women, bisexual...but transsexual...do you see what I'm saying?"

SIS: "So..."

ME: "Yeah. Exactly."


being open about who i am has led me to have zillion and conversations like this....and not just with family. business people, clergy, friends, acquaintances...the list goes on and on. oh, i could take the buddhist route and say, "it just is", but i think the world at large, society needs something more to hang their hat on. it's a fact that we, as human beings, communicate by words. we understand concepts through them. i'm just tired of explaining. i really am.

[Justawannabe]

Just wanted to say the OP was excellent, and really does address a weakness in our community.

In this case I mean community as a group that shares certain political, economic and social interests. If we don't choose some terms to be called we can't expect support from media or write law that defends us, as both need something to identify us by.

Whether we want terms specifically for each variation or not, we need them to move forward any agenda that protects us from an relatively ignorant majority. Education is a generational goal here, as that same majority has no need to try to understand us, so expect them to change only slowly, but we can achieve much more with a few legal battles, laws and media events.

On the personal side, I really wish we had a term for someone who is attracted to trans women (pre or post op) that is not at least vaguely insulting. (And lets face it... chaser and fag are both pretty negative nine times out of ten.)

I'm very open about who I like to date, have never used someone as a sex object... but the best I can expect to be called is a chaser. It adds to the rampant depression in our community if there is no good way to talk to each other, like every other form of damaged family around.

Aw... I'm just rambling... thankyou folks for the topic.

sean

[Arc-Angel]

E, I tried to hide my attraction for transgender ladys when I came to the point where i no longer could keep my feelings inside I had paid a price. I lost my job and was abandon buy close friends.I also think it was one reason for my alcoholism. now sober I am learning that you cant change how people see you, you just need to be yourself and let the chips fall where they may.lables are for close minded people and you my friend are far from close minded . so my point ,just be yourself and forget about what others think.

[Ecstatic]

a label is a starting point as in my previous reference to trees. i could point to one and say to you, "that's a tree." if it was a tree, you would agree. now if we got into what kind of tree...this one's a maple, that's an oak, and so on...you would also understand while recognizing that they are all trees. apply that to human beings and voila! i know you know what i'm talking about...and i se where you're coming from. you are seeing the forest through trees...but to get there we have to see the trees.

First of all: Hey Eric!! Long time no talk! I tried to reach you when I was in NYC back in April, but couldn't connect. Good to see you posting and to hear the updates on "T".

On topic: I recall a very in-depth discussion of this topic here a year or two back, which even came up with some rather clinical terms which may have technically addressed the issue, but only very awkwardly, such as transphillic (love of one of the same birth sex who identifies and presents as the opposite gender, but rather sounds clinically like a fetish), gyneandrosexual (gyneandro = female man, but then that is rife with linguistic mines), or gyneandromorphosexual (sexual attraction to one who has metamorphosed from male to female, but whew, what a mouthful...err, no pun intended). I recall each of these from that previous discussion, and each has been mentioned recently here and elsewhere, but none really satisfies.

The dichotomy in the community is obvious at every pass: transwomen are not gay men in frocks, they're women who were born with mis-matched genitalia. They are transsexuals. But you're right about the morphology of the terminology: hetero-, homo-, and bisexual all refer to the sexuality of the subject in terms of the physical type s/he is attracted to, but transsexual refers to the subject in terms of their identified sex (which is further confused all too commonly with gender). Yet transgender is too wide an umbrella, hence the use of transsexual (plus the historical fact of transsexual being used earlier than transgender).

Trees: this reminds me of an argument between a friend who is a landscape architect and one who is a landscaper regarding bushes vs. shrubs. To the landscaper (and most English speaking people) "bush" refers to any relatively small woody treelike plant. But technically, as the landscape architect argued, there is no such thing as a "bush": there are trees and shrubs. I won't belabor the point, but it has parallel here, as we are all fairly clear on what constitutes a tree and what constitutes a shrub, but what of that middle ground?

Bikini String Theory: love it! And how about the follow-up, A Brief History of Trans? This Hawking fellow must be a busy guy....

Cheers.