Expectations of FTMs/transsexed men (Dylan's thread)

[TenderKnight]

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

But you haven't told us why you're attracted to Dylan.....

I think it may be a mutual love of grape soda.. But I could be wrong..

[Martina]

Originally Posted by TenderKnight

I think it may be a mutual love of grape soda.. But I could be wrong..

Do you know that there is NO DIET GRAPE SODA in California????? i live among barbarians.

[Martina]

i like Dylan's original post. The what do you like about transmen thread was blowing my mind. Most transguys i know would have hated most of that stuff. The they understand me better or they have been through so much and are therefore more sensitive. Dylan put it way better than i could summarize. Most transmen i have met do not date femmes. If they like feminine women, they prefer straight or bi women. (i know there are bi femmes.)

However, this stuff can veer toward dissing femmes, which makes me sad. Like Dylan's comment about if someone is dating only transmen, are they just seeing them as really butch butches. Well, what if they DO??? As long as whoever they are dating is fine with it. Seriously, if a transguy is with a queer femme, then he is probably a little more queer identified than the average transguy. He may not be squicked.

i think the queer femmes who ID as transensual or however -- that they prefer to date transguys -- get enormous amounts of shit, some of it blatantly sexist. They are labelled fetishists. They are accused of seeing transmen as other than men. i was told by one transguy that queer femmes are not "real woman" and that a real woman is someone who knows how to be with a man. He felt that if a woman did not like cisgendered men that the fact that she liked him was demeaning to him.

So i appreciate this thread as a corrective to the other one, which i figured HAD to get a reaction at some point. But boy i hate to see this interrogation of the motives of femmes who like transguys.

i do not date transmen. i did for a second. And i realized, hey, these guys are men, and i am a dyke. Not going to work. That's why when Dylan seems to argue for some separate category for transmen, as somehow exempt from accusations of male privilege, i don't get it. i experience transmen as men. That's how it FEELS. That is the effect they have on me.

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Martina

i like Dylan's original post. The what do you like about transmen thread was blowing my mind. Most transguys i know would have hated most of that stuff. The they understand me better or they have been through so much and are therefore more sensitive. Dylan put it way better than i could summarize. Most transmen i have met do not date femmes. If they like feminine women, they prefer straight or bi women. (i know there are bi femmes.)

However, this stuff can veer toward dissing femmes, which makes me sad. Like Dylan's comment about if someone is dating only transmen, are they just seeing them as really butch butches. Well, what if they DO??? As long as whoever they are dating is fine with it. Seriously, if a transguy is with a queer femme, then he is probably a little more queer identified than the average transguy. He may not be squicked.

i think the queer femmes who ID as transensual or however -- that they prefer to date transguys -- get enormous amounts of shit, some of it blatantly sexist. They are labelled fetishists. They are accused of seeing transmen as other than men. i was told by one transguy that queer femmes are not "real woman" and that a real woman is someone who knows how to be with a man. He felt that if a woman did not like cisgendered men that the fact that she liked him was demeaning to him.

So i appreciate this thread as a corrective to the other one, which i figured HAD to get a reaction at some point. But boy i hate to see this interrogation of the motives of femmes who like transguys.

i do not date transmen. i did for a second. And i realized, hey, these guys are men, and i am a dyke. Not going to work. That's why when Dylan seems to argue for some separate category for transmen, as somehow exempt from accusations of male privilege, i don't get it. i experience transmen as men. That's how it FEELS. That is the effect they have on me.

I agree with almost everything in your post. I purpled the one part, because you misquoted me. I said, "see them as really butch women". 1. Some transguys ID as butch. But 2. It's none of my business what goes on between two people in a relationship.

My question wasn't pertaining to anyone in particular...it's just something I wonder. I don't have any male friends whose partners view them as really butch women...but that doesn't mean I don't know of couples in which a transguy's partner DOES view him as 'formerly female', and I notice very often how ThisPartner will do things to 'put him in his place'. They are very subtle things, but they are there. ThisPartner will occasionally she him, and she'll just say things. So, yeah, I DO wonder. And maybe ThisGuy is squicked and maybe he's not. I don't really know as I don't really talk to these people. But I still wonder. I also wonder many other things.

I also said, "If someone only dates butches and transmen"...meaning (in the shortest form) masculine women and transmen.


Dylan

[BullDog]

Dylan, you make a very big distinction between cis and transmen. That's two different categories of men right? Why would I be seeing all men exactly the same if some are considered trans and some are considered cis?

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Dylan, you make a very big distinction between cis and transmen. That's two different categories of men right? Why would I be seeing all men exactly the same if some are considered trans and some are considered cis?

Dylan I asked you this question and you never answered. I didn't accuse you of backpeddling, waffling, deflecting or avoiding. I just figured you didn't want to answer it- cuz really you are not obligated.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Betenoire, I don't think all queers are lesbians. I don't think all queer femmes are lesbians. There I've said it twice now- this time with a little refinement.

I was referring to this statement:

Originally Posted by BullDog

How does this work if one is queer?

"How does this (also dating non-trans men) work if one is queer?"

Since you did not mean that it was unqueer to date non-trans men...what -did- you mean, exactly?

Originally Posted by BullDog

My first thought is do the women dating them have any rules of their own, like say see me for the queer that I am and not just interchangeable with straight women? Then again, what would I know. I am just a simple lesbian.

Wow, way to bait. Nobody implied in any fashion that lesbians were too "simple" to understand anything.

And I can assure you that nobody sees me as interchangeable with a straight woman.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by betenoire

I was referring to this statement:



"How does this (also dating non-trans men) work if one is queer?"

Since you did not mean that it was unqueer to date non-trans men...what -did- you mean, exactly?



Wow, way to bait. Nobody implied in any fashion that lesbians were too "simple" to understand anything.

And I can assure you that nobody sees me as interchangeable with a straight woman.

Well gee Betenoire, you seem to think I don't even know gay men exist and that I think all queers are lesbians. Anyway, I seriously don't think it matters how up to speed or not I am on queer identities in terms of this discussion.

To me it looks like a lot of double standards, but hey if people are happy go for it.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by BullDog

Well gee Betenoire, you seem to think I don't even know gay men exist and that I think all queers are lesbians. Anyway, I seriously don't think it matters how up to speed or not I am on queer identities in terms of this discussion.

To me it looks like a lot of double standards, but hey if people are happy go for it.

So, when people ask you to clarify a statement you're going to use snark in order to get out of clarifying? Neat.

And of course I know that you know Gay men exist. You said that Bisexual Men tend to hang out in the Gay Male community rather than in the Queer community - so I gathered from that that you were aware of the existence of the Gay Male.

What looks like a lot of double-standards to you, and in which way?

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by betenoire

So, when people ask you to clarify a statement you're going to use snark in order to get out of clarifying? Neat.

And of course I know that you know Gay men exist. You said that Bisexual Men tend to hang out in the Gay Male community rather than in the Queer community - so I gathered from that that you were aware of the existence of the Gay Male.

What looks like a lot of double-standards to you, and in which way?

What was I supposed to clarify? I scrolled up, but not sure.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Martina

i like Dylan's original post. The what do you like about transmen thread was blowing my mind. Most transguys i know would have hated most of that stuff. The they understand me better or they have been through so much and are therefore more sensitive. Dylan put it way better than i could summarize. Most transmen i have met do not date femmes. If they like feminine women, they prefer straight or bi women. (i know there are bi femmes.)

However, this stuff can veer toward dissing femmes, which makes me sad. Like Dylan's comment about if someone is dating only transmen, are they just seeing them as really butch butches. Well, what if they DO??? As long as whoever they are dating is fine with it. Seriously, if a transguy is with a queer femme, then he is probably a little more queer identified than the average transguy. He may not be squicked.

i think the queer femmes who ID as transensual or however -- that they prefer to date transguys -- get enormous amounts of shit, some of it blatantly sexist. They are labelled fetishists. They are accused of seeing transmen as other than men. i was told by one transguy that queer femmes are not "real woman" and that a real woman is someone who knows how to be with a man. He felt that if a woman did not like cisgendered men that the fact that she liked him was demeaning to him.

So i appreciate this thread as a corrective to the other one, which i figured HAD to get a reaction at some point. But boy i hate to see this interrogation of the motives of femmes who like transguys.

i do not date transmen. i did for a second. And i realized, hey, these guys are men, and i am a dyke. Not going to work. That's why when Dylan seems to argue for some separate category for transmen, as somehow exempt from accusations of male privilege, i don't get it. i experience transmen as men. That's how it FEELS. That is the effect they have on me.

Yes, what is all this about (in red)? Again, this community seems so closed to me at times. Stereotypes abound!!!

I agree with you & Dylan that the other thread was/is not a very true representation at all. Certainly doesn't jive with what I understand from women I know that are with Transmen. A couple of them have sent me YUCK notes about the thread. And yes, I know others that just could not/can't date Transmen because they are dykes/lesbians as well as identifying as femme.

It is quite sad that this interrogation of a femme's motivation concerning attraction/dating/partnering/marrying a Transman exists here. I'm still looking for all this love of diversity..... Just look at some of the comments about stone sexuality, BDSM, some members being poly, etc......

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

Yes, what is all this about (in red)? Again, this community seems so closed to me at times. Stereotypes abound!!!

I agree with you & Dylan that the other thread was/is not a very true representation at all. Certainly doesn't jive with what I understand from women I know that are with Transmen. A couple of them have sent me YUCK notes about the thread. And yes, I know others that just could not/can't date Transmen because they are dykes/lesbians as well as identifying as femme.

It is quite sad that this interrogation of a femme's motivation concerning attraction/dating/partnering/marrying a Transman exists here. I'm still looking for all this love of diversity..... Just look at some of the comments about stone sexuality, BDSM, some members being poly, etc......

And I'm still wondering if *some* people who date men feel stripped of their 'community ID cards' if they admit they date men and that's why they feel soooooooo compelled to always keep their 'trans'men 'formerly female'


But...,
Dylan

[Martina]

Originally Posted by Dylan

And I'm still wondering if *some* people who date men feel stripped of their 'community ID cards' if they admit they date men and that's why they feel soooooooo compelled to always keep their 'trans'men 'formerly female'


But...,
Dylan

"soooooooooo compelled to keep their transmen 'formerly female'?" -- Is that what you see a lot of femmes doing?

Even if they are, the guys have some say in it. i am just into hearing how femmes are not respecting transguys sufficiently for their maleness.

If you think it's a response to community pressures, i get that. But what role does the guy have? i don't imagine it to be easy for these couples, but why is this all about what the femme needs to do?

What i see on this site -- most of the transmen i know in real life date men -- are women celebrating the maleness of their partners.

What i do agree with you about is that this is probably not a comfortable space for guys to just celebrate being guys. i have seen a few attempts at that and cringed. It was in the trans zone, so i was like, not my business. But i personally do not enjoy witnessing men celebrating their man-ness or whatever. In a way that's too bad. But i am a dyke and a woman of my generation. That doesn't mean my reaction ought to affect how community works. But i am sure that others might pick up on it, even unexpressed.

We all should be able to shiver with pleasure and say, oooo, how wonderful am i. But it's sort of a select audience one does that with. i am femme, and i get squicked by the very conventional femmes and butches celebrating their very conventional gender play on here. But i assume this is the place for it. i am not sure that this is the place for men to be celebrating being men. Maybe it is. If it is, i guess it's up to me to ignore it or deal, just as i do with the heteronormative butch-femme stuff i sometimes have issues with

[BullDog]

I don't see cis men as the be-all and end-all of man. I don't understand why some transmen would hold cis men up as the measuring stick of man and think they were being thought of us as less than if people don't see them exactly the same as cis men. I seriously don't get it. I don't think all transmen do this, but it seems that some do.

Some of the finest men that I am aware of are transmen. I seriously don't get why we are supposed to see all men as exactly the same- as if "man" is some monolithic entity with no variation.

Also, whether someone has transitioned or not has zilch to do with whether they are a man or woman as far as I am concerned. Gender is not biology. Not everyone can afford to transition, others may have health issues, others may not transition by choice, etc.

If I was going to date a a transwoman who was a femme (because femmes is who I date) or I have a friend who is a transwoman, am I supposed to just completely ignore her past, her childhood, what she has gone through in her life? Just because I know and acknowledge that she was born male doesn't mean I don't see her as a woman.

Perhaps saying "honoring someone's journey" is too woo woo, but seriously I think all of us here, no matter what our gender and sex are, have genders that we have earned and that we have made our own. Not all of us are transsexed or transgendered, but none of us came built to factory specifications, especially our genders. We didn't just take what was given us at birth and go through life not questioning things. We are who we are because of the personal journeys each one of us has taken. I honor everyone's journey here.

[Dylan]

Originally Posted by Martina

"soooooooooo compelled to keep their transmen 'formerly female'?" -- Is that what you see a lot of femmes doing?

Even if they are, the guys have some say in it. i am just into hearing how femmes are not respecting transguys sufficiently for their maleness.

If you think it's a response to community pressures, i get that. But what role does the guy have? i don't imagine it to be easy for these couples, but why is this all about what the femme needs to do?

What i see on this site -- most of the transmen i know in real life date men -- are women celebrating the maleness of their partners.

What i do agree with you about is that this is probably not a comfortable space for guys to just celebrate being guys. i have seen a few attempts at that and cringed. It was in the trans zone, so i was like, not my business. But i personally do not enjoy witnessing men celebrating their man-ness or whatever. In a way that's too bad. But i am a dyke and a woman of my generation. That doesn't mean my reaction ought to affect how community works. But i am sure that others might pick up on it, even unexpressed.

We all should be able to shiver with pleasure and say, oooo, how wonderful am i. But it's sort of a select audience one does that with. i am femme, and i get squicked by the very conventional femmes and butches celebrating their very conventional gender play on here. But i assume this is the place for it. i am not sure that this is the place for men to be celebrating being men. Maybe it is. If it is, i guess it's up to me to ignore it or deal, just as i do with the heteronormative butch-femme stuff i sometimes have issues with

Please notice my wording. I was very specific NOT to limit to 'femmes', because A) it's not my (whole) experience in real time and B) there are a few men who partner with men on this site...there are also a few butches...and I didn't want to leave them out and C) while I said 'partner' there are random butches and even guys who do this too. So, I was very specific not to say 'femmes'...even though it's an assumption that anyone who partners with guys is a femme (and that is totally another thread I'd ben interested in participating in)

It's my understanding, and it's been my understanding that this particular site is a QUEER site which embraces ALL gender/sex IDs. That was how this site was presented to me when I was invited over here.

If the men in this community ID as queer, and this is NOT a women-only space...why then would those men be expected to curtail celebrating their ID? I mean, everyone else on this site is 'allowed' (maybe even expected) to celebrate their ID...but men on this site are told, "It's not the right place"...why is it so limiting to members of this queer community? And I appreciate that you stated, it's not 'my place to moderate a community' (or however you worded it)...I'm just curious.

In my world, it would be fantastic if queer could mean something other than 'women into (some fashion/twist/flavor of) women' on these sites. I mean, seriously, when people's ID of queer is questioned, and it's 'assumed' that the only 'accepted' version of 'queer' is a woman who's into 'some form of woman' (whether that's 'formerly woman' or 'female-bodied' or somesuch) that just gets back to my original idea that *some* people ONLY see transmen as 'former women'.


Dylan

[adorable]

Originally Posted by Martina

"soooooooooo compelled to keep their transmen 'formerly female'?" -- Is that what you see a lot of femmes doing?

Even if they are, the guys have some say in it. i am just into hearing how femmes are not respecting transguys sufficiently for their maleness.

If you think it's a response to community pressures, i get that. But what role does the guy have? i don't imagine it to be easy for these couples, but why is this all about what the femme needs to do?

What i see on this site -- most of the transmen i know in real life date men -- are women celebrating the maleness of their partners.

What i do agree with you about is that this is probably not a comfortable space for guys to just celebrate being guys. i have seen a few attempts at that and cringed. It was in the trans zone, so i was like, not my business. But i personally do not enjoy witnessing men celebrating their man-ness or whatever. In a way that's too bad. But i am a dyke and a woman of my generation. That doesn't mean my reaction ought to affect how community works. But i am sure that others might pick up on it, even unexpressed.

We all should be able to shiver with pleasure and say, oooo, how wonderful am i. But it's sort of a select audience one does that with. i am femme, and i get squicked by the very conventional femmes and butches celebrating their very conventional gender play on here. But i assume this is the place for it. i am not sure that this is the place for men to be celebrating being men. Maybe it is. If it is, i guess it's up to me to ignore it or deal, just as i do with the heteronormative butch-femme stuff i sometimes have issues with

I love the honesty in this statement. And to me this is what the thread is about. Why can men not celebrate being men? What is it that squicks you?

I bet a ton of money (ok, well really $5) that there are lots of TGs, male IDs, Trans, FTMs watching this conversation and wanting to say something but they just don't dare. I hope that will change.

What I know for sure as a woman that when I'm in public with my guy SOCIETY sees us as queer. We are not given straight privilege. Our experiences in the world are no different then the other Femme-Butch dynamic couples. I also know that the world doesn't see him as a man and that he sure can't celebrate his maleness out there either. Some Male IDs, FTMs, TGs and Trans can pass as men so can some butches. Some can all the time and some not.

What is it about being a man that makes people so uncomfortable? Why do we feel compelled as a community to silence that? In the gay male community it doesn't seem to be that way from what I've seen online and in real time.