Quote from: Beth Andrea on February 08, 2013, 12:07:34 AM
Mainly a discussion on the solidity of "orientation" -vs- "preference", specifically which term (if either) is more easily changed (and thus, less substantial in absolute meaning). There may not be a cut-and-dried answer, but the discussion would be neat to read.
In my case, as a straight male, as I transition I do sense a slight increase in interest towards men, but women are still the primary interest. Thus, as I transition I will identify as lesbian....which is just a change in labels, yes? Straight -vs- lesbian...
But if I were to change my preferences and want a man (which is conceivable, especially post-op), that changes my internal vision of myself, which is a larger change than merely identifying with a new label. To me, changing preference is a more fundamental change than changing orientation. (I could be wrong).
And of course, this is just a hypothetical semantics discussion, we're not formulating dogma or anything.
Orientation vs. gender, as terms, for me tend to be politically loaded. I'm not adverse to being perceived as a gay male... well, the male part I am, but if forced to choose, maybe just because I felt that was how I was perceived by most, I think I'd prefer it to being seen as "straight."
Perhaps the source of my confusion in reading your post comes from this?
QuoteIn my case, as a straight male, as I transition I do sense a slight increase in interest towards men, but women are still the primary interest. Thus, as I transition I will identify as lesbian....which is just a change in labels, yes? Straight -vs- lesbian... [emphasis added]
For me, being identified as a straight male (even if perhaps that was the "stranger perception" when I was married) was something that was hugely dysphoric for me. Maybe it's that I was aware of and wondering whether I wasn't transsexual from a fairly early age? During the marriage, to myself, at least, I looked at our relationship as a lesbian relationship, and when I look at butch-femme dynamic as it's been described in the lesbian community in the years since I came of age sexually (which were the years of the flannel-and-doc-martens "uniform" at least among college-educated lesbians (which would include LUGs)) those descriptions were the ones that resonated the most for me, with my wife as soft butch and me as some sort of deep stealth femme (and not always deep stealth, especially to her).
I've more or less assumed that I would always be that way, but loneliness has gotten to me, or given me too much time to think about things, perhaps. I still don't find myself aroused by gay male images, for the most part, but at one point I did realize that I actively avoided them. Even after addressing that, I really can't say they do much for me. Then again, at this point, straight porn doesn't do much either (and it only ever did with me identifying with the actresses, and most of the time that seemed so faked (and I would hear my various girlfriends from years ago repeating their ridicule of its fakery) that it too was not good for me... oddly enough, it did quite a lot for my ex, and I discovered that the more softcore things that did something for me (the type of stuff usually identified as porn (or erotica) for women was likewise boring to my ex.
I think I've long tended to feel that, if I was going to use labels at all, I would use the ones of my own choice. And for me, I won't choose to use labels that are imposed from the outside... it seems too much like bowing to the oppressor for me. I can fantasize about being submissive, and in some ways I am, I suppose, but forced submission and all that really doesn't do it for me either, and is in fact, at least most of the time, something that's a turn-off for me. I'm not sure I could keep a straight face if someone asked me to play domme. I'm drifting to this, I guess, because the thought of accepting a label like "straight male" has for me associations that are largely negative, and also just distorts and fails to say much that's relevant or truthful about any part of my own history, despite the fact that there might have been at least a few people out there (ones who knew almost nothing about me or my marriage) who might have used that term to describe me. Unless they could do it still after being a fly on the wall for a week or two of my daily life, I'd tend to say it's an irrelevant term for me.
Hoping this comes across as a description of my experience, rather than anything disrespecting your own choices in framing your history -- a history I clearly do no know in enough depth to say how I would (or would have) see/seen you at various points in your own life to date.
