Transmen and the City
Gay guys who love ex-girls, and other Brooklyn permutations.
* By William Van Meter
* Published May 15, 2010
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/66064/Sipping coffee at Williamsburg's Variety café, Amos Mac looks like a typical hipster gay guy. His wispy boyish mustache and baby face belie his 30 years. His black hair is short on the sides with an unruly mass of curls on top. A large chest tattoo peeks out from his low-cut tank top: It reads identity. Underneath it are two large pink scars, like half-moons, from his double mastectomy. Every ten to fourteen days, Mac's roommate gives him a shot of prescribed testosterone, or "T," as it's known in FTM (female-to-male transsexual) parlance. He has no desire for any below-the-belt surgery; it's not necessary for him or anyone he dates.
Mac doesn't really see himself as a guy, but as a "transman," someone who started out female and then shifted to the masculine side of the gender spectrum. And yet Mac also identifies as a "queer guy," which means he often finds himself attracted to, and dating, gay men.
