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dreadgeek · 04-04-2016, 01:29 AM

This is the first time I've spoken about this publicly. Twenty years ago, I met this butch who rang my little power-femme bell six ways from Sunday. Sam was magnificent. A little taller than me, thick and healthy, short hair, and very very smart. He was moving to Berkeley to attend seminary there.

Right around the end of our first year, he started making noises about transition. I didn't want him to but, of course, given that I had done my own transition only four years prior to meeting him, I couldn't stand in his way. But lesbian was then (and still is) a core identity for me and I couldn't tell myself that we weren't really a heterosexual couple. Being part of what we euphemistically called the women's community was a very important thing for me in my late twenties and early thirties. I wanted my butch, I didn't want a man!

So I broke up with him. I felt guilty for a few years. Then I had the last two women I got interested in while still in SF say that we're I post operative than my being a trans woman wouldn't matter but lesbian meant a lot to them, and while they saw me as a woman they saw my body--well one very specific part--as not. They both said they would probably regret it at some point but I hope not. It's flattering that they said it, but I wish them no ill. How could I? Hadn't I just done the same thing a few years before to Sam? Yes.

I haven't spoken about this because, for the first decade or so, I was ashamed and for the last decade I was afraid of being labeled transphobic. But having finally come out publicly as trans because surgery is so close, I feel I can say this. Leaving Sam, taking him at his word that he is every bit a man as I am a woman was the least transphobic thing I could do. It meant I took him as a man not as a 'man'. If nature hadn't given me the mother-of-all-birth-defects, and I had married a man and then realized I was a lesbian we'd have divorced for the same reason that I had to leave Sean.

It was the only way I could be true to myself, honor Sam being true to himself, and not advocating a position that does violence to the language.

04-04-2016, 01:29 AM	#9
dreadgeek Power Femme How Do You Identify?: Cinnamon spiced, caramel colored, power-femme Preferred Pronoun?: She Relationship Status: Married to a wonderful horse girl Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Lat: 45.60 Lon: -122.60 Posts: 1,733 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,132 Thanked 6,844 Times in 1,493 Posts Rep Power: 21474852	A Femme and Her Butch This is the first time I've spoken about this publicly. Twenty years ago, I met this butch who rang my little power-femme bell six ways from Sunday. Sam was magnificent. A little taller than me, thick and healthy, short hair, and very very smart. He was moving to Berkeley to attend seminary there. Right around the end of our first year, he started making noises about transition. I didn't want him to but, of course, given that I had done my own transition only four years prior to meeting him, I couldn't stand in his way. But lesbian was then (and still is) a core identity for me and I couldn't tell myself that we weren't really a heterosexual couple. Being part of what we euphemistically called the women's community was a very important thing for me in my late twenties and early thirties. I wanted my butch, I didn't want a man! So I broke up with him. I felt guilty for a few years. Then I had the last two women I got interested in while still in SF say that we're I post operative than my being a trans woman wouldn't matter but lesbian meant a lot to them, and while they saw me as a woman they saw my body--well one very specific part--as not. They both said they would probably regret it at some point but I hope not. It's flattering that they said it, but I wish them no ill. How could I? Hadn't I just done the same thing a few years before to Sam? Yes. I haven't spoken about this because, for the first decade or so, I was ashamed and for the last decade I was afraid of being labeled transphobic. But having finally come out publicly as trans because surgery is so close, I feel I can say this. Leaving Sam, taking him at his word that he is every bit a man as I am a woman was the least transphobic thing I could do. It meant I took him as a man not as a 'man'. If nature hadn't given me the mother-of-all-birth-defects, and I had married a man and then realized I was a lesbian we'd have divorced for the same reason that I had to leave Sean. It was the only way I could be true to myself, honor Sam being true to himself, and not advocating a position that does violence to the language. __________________ Proud member of the reality-based community. "People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up." (Terry Pratchett)