Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Rant blog, and expansion of a previous confession.

I've decided I'm going to keep this blog as a personal journal given the previous context. I want to comment more on society in general, LGBT rights, and sexuality, in a broader sense, but I've decided to make a new blog more designed for this. As a result I won't be posting as much on this one as I might be on the new one. However there are issues I want to discuss here twice, on both a personal and societal level partly because some of this I'm just starting to deal with myself, and because some of this I'm thinking needs to be said to the transgender community as a whole, or to society.

For one I'm out of the closet now as being partly genderqueer. I've come to realize that as important as femininity and womanhood are to me, to a lesser extent, my gender ambiguity and bigendered identity are also important to me, hence the non operative choice and my identification as "mostly female"

I'm exhibitionistic. I've been placing pornographic photos of myself on the internet. Why? pure personal choice: I find it fun and I like the attention. I'll get to the relevance of why I needed to post this on my blog in a moment.

Finally I'm a trans fetishist, although it's not truly a "transgender" fetish, but if your eyes are not crossed now, just bear with me. I am probably going to be accused of being a transvestite in denial, and I'm going to have the legitimacy of my gender identity completely torn from me by smug self superior individuals who require their own validity to come at the expense of another's. For this reason I'm am probably going to lose friends as they read this before they make it to the end of this paragraph, I no longer trust people to read this objectively and give me a chance to explain myself. But someone might, so here goes:

I find the juxtaposition of a male organ on a female body arousing. This is a detail, not a focus, but it exists in my sexuality, and among the things that I have dealt with in my life, I have found this to be the deepest source of denial, loss of validity and self doubt in the entire course of my transition and my life. As I've stated before sexual kink is not my reason for transitioning, however it appeared first before I gave myself more self analysis as sexual kink.

I have already more than asserted the legitimacy of my gender identity disorder, which has come to bring to my attention the fact that this needs to be discussed openly, in the potential instance of others less like myself. I'm absolutely sick, tired, and disgusted of the hatred that comes from -within- the trans community. This hatred has been by far more the source of my self doubt than any destructive words that could come from outside. I've dealt with for a very long time the semantics of who is and who is not a "true" transsexual. While I have met fetishistic men with male gender identities I do not think this is the exclusive case of fetishism, I've met cissgendered women who feel this way, having fantasies about penetrative sex rather than being penetrated. I do not believe neurologically there is any difference between myself and them.

I am not a "tranny chaser" given my own gender identity disorder and my ability to empathize with a woman's need for validity and for the need for public funding for SRS, and my own gender identity disorder. I feel the transsexual persecution of fetishists whether transvestitic, heterosexual, lesbian, gay or otherwise, is a useless element in our community. While the phenomenon of tranny chasers exists, this can be remedied with communication and understanding. Having had the opportunity to communicate with a number of these men myself, having this fetish and legitimate transsexuality myself, I somewhat bridge the gap between these two opposing communities. Persecuting them for this aspect of their sexuality only further pushes them to acknowledge stereotypes and return to incidences where they feel welcomed for their sexuality, thus furthering the momentum of prostitution and pornography as the only understanding of transsexuality. This sexuality is not going anywhere, and yelling at them for invalidating women is not going to magically cause them to click their heels and re-write something that is probably nuerologically set, or at least deeply psychologically set. The fact that I exist with these people asserts there is a niche in our psychology and nuerology for myself and them, and that neither of our existence needs to be a threat to a classic DSM IV transsexual woman.

I find it deeply hypocritical that we argue that womanhood is not defined by sex organs, and yet, by imposing a desire for surgery as a requisite for validity on all male to female transsexuals, we continue to define women by their genitalia. I also have seen transsexual men asserting that they enjoy being penetrated and even some gay transmen who have found the possession of a vagina on their male body or on the male bodies of others to be arousing. A woman who was deeply critical of "shemale" transvestites, who were never, ever "legitimate transsexuals" was in complete acknowledgment of the validity of his gender identity.

Mentioning the "shemale" derogatory term, given my bigendered identity, with a preference towards my femininity (don't you dare try to box my gender identity into a triangular "middle" simply because you acknowledge that there is not a binary. I am mostly female, period.), paired with the exhibitionism I briefly touched upon, my relative brush with pornography, my fetishism and sexuality, you begin to build a profile of a "shemale" or a "transgenderist" and you compile a negative stereotype that has affected me deeply and made me have to doubt my validity as a woman. I make no requirement for other women to be like myself, and I believe I have just as much of a right to my gender identity as anyone else. If you have failed to recognize that validity, frankly, I find that quite pathetic. It's taken every ounce of independence and individuality out of me to acknowledge this for myself, and I challenge you to -think- independently and -then- challenge anything I say, instead of rehashing the same illegitimate bullshit about transgenderists and the sacred vagina as the sole defining element of female existence.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are who you are, Sara, and what you are. I see nothing wrong with it. We each have to work out what works best for us in life, and that means everyone, not just trans people. And especially if our path is far outside the norm, some will criticize us for it and even attempt to invalidate us. It sucks, but it's reality. We do the best we can in the face of it.

I know who and what I am, but then I'm a pretty simple case: a women who was assigned male at birth but is now anatomically female. I'm boringly vanilla, but it's really all I ever dreamed of. I don't have to invalidate anyone else to be secure in who I am. I do, of course, have opinions, and they might not line up with yours, but that's pretty normal.

At any rate, I'm glad you are working things out for yourself. You know what's best for you, and that's what counts. I'm sure you realize that you will need to be strong to follow the path you're on.

Sara said...

You're also in a lesbian relationship, unless I missed something in my absence. While my gender identity is slightly variant I don't think we're all that different. I believe womanhood in and of itself is far too broad to be considered "boringly vanilla." You're a woman, and an individual, just not one having to deal with the specific issues I mentioned that's all.

Anonymous said...

Well, you've missed a bit. :) It's true that I am in a stable, long-term, same-sex relationship. We both want that to continue. We don't want to live without each other.

I have shifted quite a lot on the bisexual continuum, however. These days, I am primarily sexually attracted to men. If I were single, I would be looking for a guy. That's what I mean by "vanilla." My sex is female. My gender identity is fairly femme, which it always was. And my primary sexual orientation is hetero. Which is pretty boring (though not in a bad way) compared to many of my friends.

Sara said...

I still lean towards lesbian, but I've found myself more comfortable with my own attraction towards men as well, so I identify as bisexual where I used to identify as lesbian. But really, while I understand what you're saying, heterosexuality and individuality are not mutually exclusive, you don't strike me as someone who' so caught up maintaining an image you forgot to be yourself.

Anonymous said...

Oh no, I'm not caught up in maintaining an image. It's only that "me," the way I'm most comfortable, turns out to be a lot more normal than I had thought it would be. If I were younger and single, I'd probably be looking for Mr. Right and the white picket fence. Well, OK, not that normal. :) But all the years I was kinda freaky seem to be behind me. That doesn't fit me any more, and it's a bit surprising.

BTW, very glad to see you around. I know you went through some pretty hard times. Sounds like things are better.

Sara said...

Yes and no, I still live in a less than great situation, and being able to admit this kinda stuff out loud, let alone to myself, has taken an enormous amount of will, but given that I have my transition, a roof over my head, meals a day friends and some semblance of a life, it feels meaningless to complain. I still need a job though, and I'm still having family problems.

Being not so normal is not wonderful all the time. Self acceptance has been the biggest part of this struggle :\

Dani said...

Sara,

We all make our own way in this crazy world, and it's not my place, or anyone else's, to judge you for how you live your life. Those who are in this community should be the LAST people who would judge you, seeing as how we go through what we go through just to be who we are!

I'm pretty new here, but I haven't gotten the memo yet, you know, the one where you subtract trans points and issue demerits for not being trans enough?!? As far as I'm concerned, you haven't lost a friend here!

Dani xxx

Anonymous said...

hi i find you have really interesting blog, its great that you have decided to share it for others
i want to offer you exchange banners or links ! i have too network of gay photo blogs, there some of them :
http://mytwink.blogspot.com http://justnakedboys.blogspot.com http://sweetmuscleboy.blogspot.com
i know together we will get more traffic!!!!
if you agree to exchange links or banners, welcome! fire-bob@hotmail.com
thanks for attention!! bye!!!

Sara said...

Dear anonymous, you clearly do not think my blog is very interesting if you think it's a "gay photo blog." I thought I had this thing set to moderate comments before they are published. Everyone else thank you for commenting.

Samantha Shanti said...

First, I read the whole thing. Twice! :) My only complaint is the same one I've had for a few years now, you don't write often enough. LOL.

I don't buy much into labels, limits, boxes, or whatever, it's all pointless and exclusive in nature. People are people, all different, unique, wonderful and rich in their own hard won individuality. Me, I just want you to be safe, happy, healthy and enjoying life. Everything else is just detail toward making that possible, or (the horror) getting in the way of that.

Being a girl, female, a woman has nothing to do with parts, I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's a state of grace. If you're happy and enjoying life, then I say Rock on Luv!

You've not lost a friend here either! Takes more than living your own life to scare me off. :)