[Bit]

Originally Posted by Mister Bent

So that's my question: Do you feel you have to choose between the worlds? Do you have to pick a lane, a queer or heterosexual life? Is there really even a need to do so?

Omigawd, Bent, speaking as a Queer Transensual Femme---YES, YES, yes, a thousand times YES, I felt I had to choose between my own identity and my potential partners' identities, between my community and theirs, between being queer and being straight... and omg the grief. I cried for months, trying to figure out what it meant that I was in love with guys who were straight and I still needed to be Queer, trying to figure out how I could have Butches and Transmen both in my life, trying to figure out how I could ever leave my community behind--and believing I would be forced to.

It took me a long time to understand that there would be guys who did not reject me for myself, who did not need me to "make the queer disappear" in order for them to feel safe, who did not feel like my own identity was nothing compared to theirs.

It took me even longer to understand that I would find guys who would not only allow me to be myself, but who would celebrate me AS myself, AS a Femme, AS a member of a highly beloved Queer community.

e, my experiences in the community were so totally different from yours. I got it from both sides, yanno? It wasn't just the guys insisting that if I wanted to be supportive I had to force myself to be straight... it was so MANY of my friends insisting that I was a traitor for being with a man, and trying to take away not just my Femme card, so to speak, but even my Queer card.

It was a tumultuous time for me and I came through it wiser and oh, so very much sadder.

Originally Posted by Paphigleo

I cringe inside too hon, I am amazed it doesn't show on the outside.

It never shows, Nick. You keep a pleasant smile on your face every time. At first I thought I was the only one who was bothered by it! But lately even Gryph is beginning to be bothered, and yanno... he's a Two Spirit and isn't going to transition!

Bent, I wanted to say thank you for your earlier post about my questions. It is so very difficult to avoid offending people when the subject is so fraught with difficult emotions to begin with, isn't it? I know that no one ever intends to offend... but sometimes there's just so much baggage from lifetimes of not fitting in, of thinking we're the only one in the world, of feeling ostracized by friends, families, lovers.