Quote from: sad panda on April 22, 2014, 01:35:26 PM
Maybe since you actually like women, that is projective identification and you are actually fantasizing about what you would like in a girl, availability, and being the girl in that picture gives an element of control. What do you think?
Well, that's an interesting question. What you're saying is pretty much what therapists would tell me when I went to them, a million years ago, describing how I felt. They said it was just a fantasy, or a projection, or a phase, or whatever. Meanwhile it became harder and harder (well, actually, softer and softer!!) for me to have sex with women. And it's also the case that four or five times in my life I've met a guy - just in passing - and had an instant, omigod, heart-pounding, tummy-flipping, instant reaction to them, on a completely unconscious, animal level.
But for whatever reason, I never, ever had any desire to have sex with a man, as long as I was a man. And the dysphoria never, ever went away.
I think it makes more sense than you might imagine. I have a friend who was born a cis-female. 'She' was a lesbian, who only ever had relationships with other women. Then 'she' transitioned. Now that he is a man, does he still have relationships with women? No. He's a gay man.
The point is, sexuality and gender are two different things. My friend is gay. Irrespective of her/his gender presentation, (s)he has always liked to have sex with the same sex.
In my case, I have always seen heterosex, as the closest thing I can get to what I want, because there's a woman in the bed, even if I can't, in physical terms, be her.
Another gay, male friend once said to me that he couldn't understand the concept of lesbian sex because, "I can't imagine having sex without at least one cock in the bed."
Well, I want at least one vagina. And if it can't be mine ...
As for the idea that it's all just fantasy ... Honestly, hon, I came to terms with the fact that it wasn't just fantasy years ago. Nor is it suppressed homosexuality. I'm trans. I know I'm trans. If you asked my incredibly experienced gender therapist about me, she'd say, "Yes, she's trans."
Circumstances which would seem bizarre to you, I'm sure, but which would make perfect sense to other people of my age, with similar experiences, have prevented me expressing my trans identity in my life. Or maybe I've been able to get by well enough as a man, and been rewarded highly enough to make transition seem too risky until now.
But I'm trans. I promise!
