I’ve gotten some interesting comments to my post about belonging and thought more people should check them out.
To all you who responded:
Thanks all for very interesting insights & thoughts.
I have always been an ally of the LGBT – & felt welcome as one. (I was that person all the gay boys came out to after HS, & likewise a little later with lesbian friends.)
But my own sense of my LGBT-ness comes out of my own genderqueer qualities, and I wonder how trans partners who are more gender normative (& not otherwise gay, bi, or lesbian) might feel. To me, it’s all about creating safe spaces, and of course I’ll continue to do that.
On that note, the guys who date transwomen who identify as straight are *never* going to feel part of this community while we all gossip that they’re ‘really gay.’
< Jill and I right before the workshop on trans relationships at TIC.
We had a lot of great conversations with people up at TIC especially in the trans relationships workshop Jill Barkley & I hosted – about identity, compromise, sexuality, fetishization and respect. The one point that came up early was why non-trans people often are accused of being fetishizing or predatory for doing things that trans people might do and not be similarly accused – as in, if a trans person seeks another trans person as a partner, it’s understood as being a shared interest or experience, but if a non-trans person seeks a trans person as a partner, they are accused often of fetishizing transness.
I do value Betty’s transness because of my own gender stuff, but sometimes it feels like that wouldn’t “count.” It kind of reminds me of a story told by two professors I had (who had been married to each other for upward of 50 years), about when they met in the 1930s, when one of them was a Socialist and the other a Communist; their friends lay bets on how soon they would break up, since one was considered a “committed radical” the other only a “fellow traveler.”
I’ve also had people who’ve met me since the book or in my 20s “worry” that my own discovery of my gender stuff is somehow Betty’s fault. It isn’t, of course, and anyone who knew me when i was 20 or younger knows that.
The way these things interlap is of ongoing interest to me, and I welcome your further comments.
Messier Bedroom
Last April, sex columnist Josey Vogels forwarded me a letter from a 21 year old women who was turned on by her boyfriend dressing in women’s clothes, and I got a shot (for a day) at being a sex advice columnist.
It turns out the same woman recently wrote to Josey to thank her for the advice:
“Last year I wrote to you, worried about my sexuality because the only time I had ever orgasmed with a guy was while my boyfriend was dressed as a french maid. You offered advice on a couple of possibilities that didn’t involve me necessarily being gay. Through a little experimenting we found that yes I do think my guy is really sexy when he’s my girl. Part of it is that it’s kind of sweet that he would do it to indulge me, part of it is he makes love entirely differently when he is wearing panties. We’ve started channeling that into our regular sex and I am now glad to say that he gets me off regularly even without the lingerie. I figured once that happened we had seen the last of the dressing but for Valentines day (which we celebrated last weekend) he rented a red maid’s dress and waited on me hand,foot and other areas too. It was so sweet. Just wanted to say thanks for saving my love life.”
And I’m just pleased as punch! See? There *are* women out there for whom crossdressed men is a genuine turn-on. Keep looking, CDs – you never know when you might find one.
I’m also really pleased because after my recent Trans Sex and Identity workshop at TIC, someone who’d caught the workshop told me that he and his partner had great sex as a result of what I’d talked about. There really isn’t a better feeling in the world than hearing something like that.
3/6/06 = #10
NCTE’s 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality:
#10 Donate money to an organization providing direct services for transgender people.
Oscar
Jon Stewart, in the opening lines of his Oscar hosting:
Welcome, Ladies, Gentlemen (pause) … Felicity.
Jon, you didn’t have to do it. And you really shouldn’t have.
TG Life Interview
I was interviewed for this month’s TG Life – in the Celebrity Spotlight.
Do check it out.
… I think a lot of transpeople want to be attractive for being women or men, which is fine, but I think those of us who love you all tend to love the transness itself. Not the issues, not the narcissism – but the very fact of someone who transcends or combines or expresses more than one gender.
Trans Partners Presentation
I’ll be doing a presentation tonight, Thursday, March 2nd, for the TransNYC group. I’ll focus solely on partners, to give these scholars a little bit of an idea of the innumerable variables of trans relationships.
Five Questions With… Renee Reyes
Renee Reyes is the webmistress of www.reneereyes.com, a huge site where t-girls of all stripes have found information over the years. She is a strong believer in the commonality of experience of all kinds of transfolk, from crossdressers to transsexuals. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
< Renee Reyes
1. As far as I can tell, we’re rare in talking about admirers. Why do you think so many trans sites avoid the subject?
I’d say there are a couple of reasons. First, the large majority of gender-related web sites are hosted by girls whose feminine existence is still a very limited affair. In terms of sheer hours these gals have little time to fully consider their sexuality as precious femme time is wrapped up in improving their appearance. Attraction to others is limited to other transgenders & females. Alas, the sometimes crude approaches from neophyte male admirers aggravate the situation.
Admirers are an important segment of the gender community. They provide beauty affirmation and serve as healthy outlets for relationships. Like the girls…most admirers didn’t necessarily choose to find transgenders highly appealing. Nature just wired them that way.
Gays weren’t initially very accepting of transgenders. Admirers suffer the same sort of fate. We’ll get there.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Renee Reyes”
2/27/06 = #9
NCTE’s 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality:
#9 Change the Policy of an Organization You Belong To.
Exhausted
First: If anyone who was at TIC (who we met or didn’t meet) has any requests for resources, you can 1) use the search box at the upper right, or 2) email me.
I don’t know if I’m getting old or what, but every time I get back from a conference I feel a little more tired than I did the previous time. This TIC was a great conference – a good collection of people, interesting workshops, familiar faces.
As it was last year, working with Jill Barkley was a real pleasure; this year, we ran a pretty intense trans relationships workshop, which was not just transgender but trans-generational. We both ran trans partners workshops the previous day, right before which I did my trans sex and identity workshop – which is always a pleasure to do, and always slightly different than the way I did it before. I’ve been asked more than once now if I have a copy of that workshop on DVD, so I’m going to figure out how to do that so I can make it available. (Once I shake off this sleepy, sleepy feeling, that is.)
It probably didn’t help that we went right from the 6 hour drive home with DJ and Lizzy to Tristan’s House of Ass party, but we did get *great* goody bags (supplied by Babeland.com, if that gives you a hint)!
Monday in New Jersey
For anyone who can get to West Creek, NJ, this Monday night at 7PM, please do. A substitute teacher who happens to be trans is being challenged on her right to a job.
For more information.