Answers about the T

TNG is taking a much needed break from Dec 19-Jan 4. TNG will return with new content on Jan 5. Until then, please enjoy this post from the past year. Original publish date: 10/22/08.

In this post, Alex, a transplant to Maryland from the Wild West, responds to Michael's recent posting "Questions about the T" and shares some personal responses to the questions raised about trans life and dating.

Does "trans" have a destination, or is it a life-long journey?

It depends on the person (actually, any answer "depends on the person", so just assume that caveat is there), but most people reach a point where their outward gender presentation isn't visibly in flux anymore. Some people transition and consider themselves no longer trans when they are done. For me personally, "trans" is a statement of my history as much as a current state of existence. I suppose I am still technically "in transition", as I am still experiencing some puberty-type effects from testosterone, and have surgery scheduled for later this year. However, I don't really think of myself as "in transition", since I live and pass full-time as a man.

Do same-sex-attracted trans folk start off as gay people and, while changing their gender identity, maintain their gay identity and change who they're attracted to?

Most trans people seem to continue to be attracted to the sex they were attracted to before transition (and so go from straight to gay, or vice versa). Second most common seems to be identifying as "bi" (physical sex can seem kind of trivial after transitioning, you know?). Some people, however, do change what sex they are attracted to, and this usually seems to happen with hormone therapy. I fall into the first (and second) category(s). I've always been mostly attracted to guys (and butch girls, butch girls are cute)

What about socializing? What community do trans-folk want to belong to? Do trans-men feel comfortable in straight "meat-markets" looking for potential sexual partners? (Does anyone, really?) Or do they find more success and understanding at lesbian venues? Wouldn't a trans-man dating a lesbian present identity issues for both parties involved?

Alright, this is a big mess. I'm going to halve it by only talking about trans-men, since that's the group I'm more familiar with, and even then I'm only going to be scratching the surface.

There's no easy "rule" for whether any given transman participates in the larger LGBT community. Part of it depends on the importance they place on stealth and passing. Hanging out with other gender outlaws increases the probability of someone noticing your "tells", and you run a risk of being mistaken for a butch lesbian. However, since trans issues are so much less well known than LGB issues, lots of trans people identified as some sort of queer before figuring out that being trans was an option.

There are many transmen who identified as lesbians before transitioning, and for some of them, that connection to the lesbian community remains very important to them. There are plenty of transman/lesbian couples, with varying degrees of success - there certainly can be identity issues, and relationships have ended because of them. Transmen who never identified as lesbians are unlikely to enter lesbian communities after transitioning to find dates.

Dating is often a huge issue for trans people, because the chances of rejection and the penalties for rejection are so high. Beyond that, many of us missed gender-appropriate socialization. For me, while I prefer the company of queers, the gay club scene makes me very uncomfortable (of course, besides being trans, I'm also a big geek, which doesn't help at all). The emphasis on sex makes me feel like I would be disqualified from participating. Al wrote a great 3-parter (Post 1, Post 2, Post 3) for TNG about trying to date as a gay transguy. One reason why I really like reading TNG is that you can hear other gay men expressing dissatisfaction with the gay "dating" (rofl) scene, which gives me some hope.