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I’ve dated (proportionally) a lot of guys who were closeted homos. Now, when someone is closeted, sometimes one’s identity is really tied up in the notion of the embattled homo, who can’t have what one wants. For example, my identity was really tied up in the notion that I like girls better than boys, but I just couldn’t have them. I identified as a (closeted) lesbian instead of as a bisexual for that reason.

Now, some of these guys made it perfectly clear that they loved me in spite of my female body, not because of it. It was never verbal, it was always those little actions that tell you that someone finds part of your body too horrible to contemplate. Now, obviously having a partner who can barely have sex with me at all, and definitely can’t have sex unless I’ve put my finger up his butt, who refuses to touch my breasts, who thinks my vagina is ‘gross’, only reinforced my own body dysphoria, and my own desperate longing to have a body that my partner could desire. (For the record, I actually quite like putting my fingers up people’s butts. Its just tedious if it’s every single time, and you know your partner has to lie back and think of Tom of Finland to get it up.)

It’s a fucking horrible way to be. Being straight, or being gay is no excuse not to revere your partner’s body and the pleasure you can have together. Even if your partner is not the gender you usually desire, even if your partner is transgendered or intersex. If you can’t handle the reality of their body, you should be polite enough not to take them to bed. Express your love for them in other ways. This notion that I’ve seen in transfeminist circles, that if someone likes your body because it’s trans, rather than in spite of its transness, they must be a tranny chaser, strikes me as being full of self-loathing. I don’t want yet another gay boy to hate my body, while loving me. Or ignoring my body, while loving me. I’m a person in a body, and I want to be touched, and touched with conviction!

So anyway, imagine for a moment some heterosexual cis folk dating. They get into bed for the first time, and start to get undressed. The dude is all like “Your boobies are hot cos they are girl boobies” in his head, and he gets aroused. He doesn’t think that way about the boobies of the other footy players in the change room, even though they might be just as big and round as this girl he’s bedding (though if they are footy players, probably not as soft). She is probably enjoying the feeling of his boner pressed up against her. The knowledge that it’s a responsive, flesh and blood organ, rather than a silicone penis probably adds to that arousal. Their attraction to each others’ bodies is intrinsically linked to their understanding of the other person’s gender identity.

Now, I’m not saying that heterosexual cis women could never be attracted to a trans man, or heterosexual cis men can’t be attracted to trans women. The way we construct a lover’s body in our mind, and under our hands, is linked to how we understand their gender. So when a lover doesn’t have the strength to see a trans person naked, without starting to screw up on pronouns, or can’t touch certain body parts for fear of challenging their notion of their lovers gender, there’s a problem.

Notice that I am not saying that people should ignore trans folks’ requests not to touch certain body parts!!!

I am saying that don’t assume that just because someone’s body is trans, you aren’t allowed to touch. NEGOTIATE. For example, my breasts are fairly sensationless. I very rarely get any feeling out of them, though I do sometimes if my mind is in the right place, which tells me that there is probably no nerve damage to them, just psychological blocks. However, I am never going to get past my psychological block to enjoying my breasts if I’m the only person that ever touches them. Even when I tell partners that it’s ok to touch them, and I want them to touch them, they often don’t, because they say, when they are sleeping with a man, breast play isn’t something they usually do.

Some trans folk want to be treated exactly like a cis person of the same gender. Again, you should respect their wishes. However you can’t assume what that looks like in that trans person’s mind, and you should communicate about it and make sure everyone is on the same page. Also, for the record, don’t assume that someone’s biggest hang up in bed is their gender, just cos that’s your biggest hang up about being in bed with them.

My point is: I want a partner to love my body for what it is RIGHT NOW, not what it might be, what it could become after surgery / more hormones / more surgery. Likewise, I want to be able to appreciate a trans partner’s body for what it is right now, and enjoy my partner for being gender fucked, not for their body’s similarities to a cis body, not for my ability to block out the ‘conflicting information’, but for all of the beautiful, sexy, pleasurable body they have right now.

Unfortunately most people who are part of the sex and gender diverse community know only too well what it feels like to have our names and identities be a very bad word, to have our identity thrown at us as if its a grave insult. I’ve had emails get caught up in my spam filter, I’ve had Google Mail step in and refuse to send an email because it was suspected of being offensive. Just because my identity is also a dirty, filthy, spam-trap-triggering keyword.

I think that this is one of the key reasons that identity labels are so hotly contested in the sex and gender diverse community.

The Gender Centre defines Transgender as:

Transgender means anyone who lives, has lived, or wants to live as a member of the opposite gender (sex) to their birth gender.
In the past, the common term for transgender has been transsexual. However, in general, people who are transgender prefer to use the term transgender as this is a more accurate reflection of their identity or behaviour – that is, that they want to live and behave as a member of the opposite gender to their birth gender, not the opposite sexuality, sexual preference or sexual orientation. A transgender, just like anyone else, may be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.

However, under the Discrimination Act 1991, a “transsexual” is defined as meaning:

a person of one sex who—
(a) assumes the bodily characteristics of the other sex, whether by means of medical intervention or otherwise; or
(b) identifies himself or herself as a member of the other sex or lives, or seeks to live, as a member of that other sex.

That to me sounds like a very similar definition. Sometimes even when someone is asked what the difference is, its still not clear. FTM Australia says that the difference is quite easy to understand:

“A transgender individual takes hormones to appear as one gender or another; a transsexual person takes hormones and undergoes surgery as rehabilitation for a physical condition.”

I still don’t get it though.

Even the psychiatrists can’t decide who is transsexual, who is transgender, who is a transvestite, and who is just a filthy pervert with a fetish for ladies lingerie. The medical industry also draws lines between ‘primary’ transsexuals and ’secondary’ transsexuals. Harry Benjamin himself had a scale of transsexuals, TRUE transsexuals, and everyone else.

I find the idea of categorising someone elses identity extremely problematic, and it is often used as a way of privileging one identity over another. Doctors like to withhold treatment from those people they suspect aren’t ‘trans*whatever enough’ and because its thrown as us constantly by everyone else, sometimes we end up turning on each other and saying “So and so had surgery, but she’s really a ‘post-operative transvestite’ not a TRUE transsexual/real woman/whatever”. Its just not cool.

You wont see the words transsexual and transgender used as much as would probably be expected by A Gender Agenda. We prefer to cut off the end, and refer to people being ‘trans’ or someone being a ‘trans person’. It helps us stay clear of the debate, and be inclusive, without having to define terms that no one can agree on anyway.

What is most important, is how you define yourself. If you define as a woman, or woman of transsexual history, then you are a woman to us. If you define as third gendered, intersex, or genderqueer? No worries. We’ll respect that too. If you define as a ‘trans identified FTM’, we can respect that. Respect is important, and there is no place for being judgemental about other peoples identities within A Gender Agenda, or at any of our events. We want to be warm and welcoming, you need not worry about not passing, or not being ‘trans enough’ to join. We even welcome woman-identified women, and man-identified men, if they respect our cause, and want to work for change along side us. Its not only people that transgress gender boundaries as radically as those who transition that experience discrimination for expressing their gender differently.

Names are important, they help us communicate. In the end though, its the communication thats important, not the name itself. Labels are only useful when we are free to apply them without judgement, and express ourselves freely no matter what label we have claimed for ourselves.