An article I wrote, let me know what you think:
Why should I have to quantify how trans I am based on other peoples perceptions of how I should behave and act?
Because I am an FTM transexual does it mean I have to turn in to the ultimate stereotype of masculinity before people will accept I am "trans" enough.
Because I find men sexually attractive and not women does this mean I am not trans enough? Should I care if I am trans enough? Do I really want to be trans enough?
Why do I feel the need to point out
that I like to be the one to penetrate men in most sexual enounters that I have and that vaginal penetration is not a part of my sex life nor do I ever want it to be?
Why do I feel like this gives me extra ->-bleeped-<- points, validates my transness in someway?
It's just a fact of life for me, my sexual preferences, I can't change them.
Maybe I can choose them but I cannot change them.
Should it matter? Would it make me less trans if I wanted to bottom every single night for a guy for the rest of my life? I mean if I know I'm trans isn't that enough?
If I identify as male then I am because that is after all what I identify with. Otherwise I would identify as a female or as a camel or a lion. To me it is obvious, people identify for a reason the clue is in the word. Identity.
And yet I find myself having to explain and make excuses for myself and what I am to people over and over again just so they can feel at ease with me, with who I am.
I find myself saying to people in banks who stare at me blankly when presented with a money order in a male name, my name, "It's ok, I'm transexual" excusing their ignorance at
being unable to perceive me as male purely based on how I look and speak even though there I am telling them as male, presenting as male stereotypically in terms of clothing
etc...
I find myself excusing peoples embarrassement when they call me on the phone asking to speak to Mr Robertson and when I say that's me speaking struggling not to feel distaste and hatred for them, for their ignorance as they stammmer and stutter and flounder and keep insisting that they want a Mr Robertson and then I offer them absolution with the golden line "it's allright, I'm transexual, it's ok I get it a lot" just so they don't feel stupid because of what they didn't know and put out because they feel stupid because
then they might hate me, despise me because my very being threatens their ego.
So I make it ok. I smooth things over with a shrug, an easy laugh. But oh I despise them for their blindness because dammit why can't they see.
I know the answer to that is "it's just human nature" but that's not even totally true.
That's where the scorn I feel comes in for ignorance and for blindness because I know it doesn't have to be that way.
I mean I've met people that totally accept me as a man, who would unconditionally even if I was wearing mascara and a dress just because I say I am
and that's enough for them and I also know people who perceive gender as merely a form of social stereotyping and see people as individuals composed of many varying colours each in a different way not beings limited to black or white, male or female.
And while this doesn't exactly describe the way I feel, i mean personally I don't have a problem as identifying as male and I have no real desire to live in a completely non-gendered world where everyone was completely androgenous, I do see the reality.
That there should be more room for manouvre than there currently is, more acceptance,more tolerance. That human beings are complex creatures made up of many shades of grey rather than the cookie cutter black and white moulds that at the moment we are all forced to endure. I think eventually we will evolve to a point where this dogmatic way of seeing the world ceases to become relevant, stops making sense in the same way we had to revise our opinion that the world was round despite our limited beliefs.
Outmoded ways of thinking are eventually pushed out by neccessity by evolution in the same way that the story of creation according to the bible doesn't explain
why there are dinosaur bones being excavated every day by archaeologists and why black people are not bought and sold as human commodities anymore, why women now have the right to vote.
But at one time all these things were seen as shocking, against, nature, scandalous, revolutionary that that was just the way things were and so it must be right.
My personal view is that one day we will come to see gender and to a lesser degree sexuality in a less rigid interpretation than we currently do. There is in my opinion just too much contradictory evidence for any other eventual outcome.
And of course I understand that people do tend to go only on what they see when passing judgement on what kind of person a person is, I do it myself to some degree which is obviously the main reason for my physical transition if only so I can perceive myself as more physically
male but the question is not do we tend to go only on what we see when judging what a person is it is should we?
