Quote from: Andy8715 on September 04, 2011, 11:26:10 PM
I'm a male. My parts are male. Not what one would think of as "typically male" but still male.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I
may probably will redact my statement at some point as I refine my understanding, but I agree with you halfway. First, I am definitely not a woman. It p*sses me off when people think I'm a woman, which doesn't happen among my friends too often. What does occur, is that they assume I relate to my body as it is pre T, pre op as a woman's body (you're gay! penis goes into hole, what's the big deal about straight vs gay men

) Put simply, I don't experience my body as being congruent with my mind, and my mind wins out over my body. That unfortunately doesn't completely negate the fact that I have a body that more closely resembles a female body than a male body. In fact, if my body weren't connected to my mind/ spirit, whatever it would exactly resemble a woman's body. Personally, the difference for me is that my brain doesn't react to my female body being treated like a female body like a cis woman reacts to her body being treated as a woman's body. Ergo, sex is complicated. And more to my point, while if anyone were to perceive my gender as anything other than male, I'd be p*ssed, I understand if they're not attracted to my body as it is now. Despite the fact that I'm not connected to the female aspects of my body, they're there, other people see them, and I lack many male attributes that gay guys tend to find attractive. No one can choose what attracts them sexually. It seems like the statement "you are transphobic if you aren't attracted to me because my gender is male and you are a gay man" is just as ignorant as saying "you should only be attracted to 'x' gender because you are 'y' gender." It just doesn't work that way; you don't get to choose what turns you on. Now, if a gay man said he wasn't attracted to me because of my gender, and not my personal attributes or gender presentation or any other number of things that make or break attraction, but simply because he didn't see me as male, I'd think he was ignorant. But, if he said "Unfortunately, I understand that you're a man, and I respect you as a man, but I'm only sexually attracted to cis men's penises, so it won't work out between us," I wouldn't fault him for that. Yeah, sorry about the tirade. It's just something that has been on my mind recently, so I sorta was working out my thoughts as I wrote this.

edit: typo