both trans kids and gay kids grow up not conforming to gender stereotypes. so i was wondering if their where any gay trans guys who think maybe the non gender conforming and the non gender conforming canceled each other out? its just something i was thinking about.

uh... sorry, but What?  I don't understand what you are asking.  How are we non gender conforming and non gender conforming?

... edited for punctuation fail...

I think what he is trying to say is that because we are trans we are ALREADY being non gender conforming, therefore we stick to normal social and gender rules for our gender(our real gender)

Quote from: Elijah on October 05, 2011, 11:09:50 PM
I think what he is trying to say is that because we are trans we are ALREADY being non gender conforming, therefore we stick to normal social and gender rules for our gender(our real gender)

I think this is what he meant, but I don't think it's true for every trans person.

It really confused me growing up, because it took me a while to figure out I was a metro drag queen with an unfortunately-female body. I wanted to wear eyeliner and nail polish and heels, but I wanted to be a guy when I did it. As a consequence I never wore anything remotely girly, because it made me feel so disappointed. So I grew up as a non-gender-conforming boy stuck in a non-gender-conforming girl's body, being acutely envious of my non-gender-conforming male friends. Phew.

Not all non-heterosexuals are gender-non-conforming, mind you (in the broader sense of how we behave and present ourselves, rather than in the very specific sense of not comforming to society's expectation to be straight!). I know gay and bi men and women who are pretty "stereotypically straight" in terms of how they comfortably present themselves and just happen to fancy their own sex.

Also, not all trans people conform to the stereotypical image of their experienced gender. Some of us trans women, for example, are not interested in being feminine, but just in being female (I speak as someone who is basically a bi-ish dyke currently in the wrong body ). I assume it must be the same with some trans men too. And those of us who don't conform to the expectations of "normal trans" values can get just as much pressure to conform from the trans community as from the wider world, alas - just as gay/bi people can be under pressure from the gay community to dress and behave in more "stereotypically gay" ways.

It's up to us to conform to our own selves, in the end, even if that singles us out sometimes. There's always going to be group pressure both from the normative society at large, and from within any group with which we identify, beit gay, bi, trans, andro, or straight.

Double negative.  Brain processing.  Please wait....

That was very hard to parse, but I think I understand.

What you reference is part of why it's been so easy for me to stay in the closet most of my life, and so hard to explain to people who I am when I come out.

I'm kinda girly and ->-bleeped-<-gy (can I say that?), but absolutely male. With a girl body and a gay male mind, my presentation was pretty muddied by not fitting into clearly visible categories. I could act swishy and metro and emotional, and it was interpreted as me just being a girl. I could act strong and tough and climb trees, and people just thought I was being a tomboy. No matter what I did, the warring weirdnesses kept me misunderstood. I see what you mean by the canceling out bit. It's an added burden.

Maybe not a burden, though. When I get to be who I am, I'm so happy.

From the other side:

While I agree with Padma that gender non-conformity is not always present for gay or trans folks, yes it did work for me. I knew I wasn't really supposed to be a boy, but luckily the difference between "boy" and "tomboy" wasn't that excessive, so I had a pretty damn good childhood. Of course when I hit puberty it all went to hell, but, yes, it worked for a while.