Just not narrow.

Someone wrote…

Dating a transgender man doesn’t make me a lesbian or bisexual. I’m straight… just not narrow.

What’s your experience?

And what are you thinking about gender right now?


Posted by on November 11th, 2010 at 08:00 am

Category: your voice 11 comments »

11 Responses to “Just not narrow.”

  1. Juu

    As the partner of a transman and as someone who has always been attracted to males, I couldn’t agree more!

    I hope you two have a long and happy relationship.

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  2. Trevor

    :)

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  3. Geoffrey

    This makes me so happy :)

    [Reply]

  4. anon

    I’m sure this is not what you mean, but it sounds like you don’t want to be a lesbian or bisexual and are trying to justify yourself… The only way around this really is to stop using labels. We love who we love, and if people want to know whether we are straight, gay, trans, man, woman or whatever, well that’s their problem not ours.

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    Simon replied:

    I just read it as affirming her partner’s identity. Which makes me really happy. *shrug*

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  5. ****

    My boyfriend is transgender too, I’ve always been attracted to men. If someone would call me a lesbian or bisexual I’d tell them they’re wrong, not because I feel the need to justify myself – I couldn’t care less about what people call me – but because calling me a lesbian means calling my boyfriend a girl, and that hurts him, and I don’t accept that.
    But calling myself “straight” does feel plain really, because dating him is so much more special than dating a boring bioman.

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  6. Lo

    Yeah I’ve been confused by that for a while . . . is sexual orientation based a person’s anatomy or on their sexual identity?

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    Meike replied:

    Oh, I missed this comment. I think that it really has more to do with how both you and your partner self-identify, if that makes any sense. Like my girlfriend calls herself an omnisexual, because not only is she dating me, but she doesn’t care what a person’s biological sex or gender identity is–they just have to be a good person. And I don’t identify as a lesbian, even though my girlfriend’s made it clear that she identifies as a female (sex) and as a woman (gender). I have a female body, but I don’t exactly identify as a woman. I don’t know what I identify as, actually. I just know that defining my sexual orientation as “lesbian” feels wrong to me, since I don’t see myself as a woman who loves other women. So I think it really does not have to do with anatomy, because sometimes anatomy is entirely independent of self-identity.

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  7. Jessica

    Being a lesbian is a badge of honor for some people… like a label makes you a better person. Some lesbians deny the existence of transwomen and that’s sad. People have a hard enough time without people making things harder. I wish there was a way to get a lot of people to lighten up.

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  8. Anonymous

    I don’t get it… if you’re straight, no one cares. If you’re not, they immediately need a label to cling to so that they can understand. Sounds like a stupid double standard to me.

    Since when do non-hetero people deserve to have their sexual orientation (or gender, for that matter) be so relevant when hetero-normative folks never have to deal with those issues?

    Labeling it doesn’t make it less complicated or scary, just gives the haters something new to hate, IMO.

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    Meike replied:

    I totally agree! I really do think it’s a double standard, and it really annoys the heck out of me. Of course it’s natural for people to label things, it keeps the brain from going crazy–but either everyone should be labelled, or people who don’t want labels should have the freedom to choose not the use them, and everyone else should have the understanding to accept that choice. People can be so silly sometimes.

    And to comment on the actual comment, I really do love this! I wish more of the straight people I know were as non-narrow as you. ^_^

    [Reply]


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