I fear my inner identity will never be taken seriously.
Someone wrote…
A lot of guys joke about being “a lesbian trapped in a man’s body.” So many that I fear my inner identity will never be taken seriously.
What’s your experience?
Posted by julian on February 24th, 2011 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 29 comments »
February 24th, 2011 at 8:22 am |
I take you seriously. You at least have a party of one.
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February 24th, 2011 at 8:43 am |
Me and Anonymous make two. And, I’m totally sure there are more.
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February 24th, 2011 at 9:38 am |
Of course, there are more. Count me in! After all, I’m a gay trapped in a woman’s body.
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February 24th, 2011 at 9:41 am |
I hear that. I’m in the military and I’m constantly afraid that people aren’t going who I really am seriously. Military people are understanding and accepting enough in canada but there is always gossip behind backs, and the word “tranny” gets thrown out a lot around me.
But don’t worry ,so long as you know, everyone else can eat it.
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February 24th, 2011 at 10:40 am |
I take you seriously. I was a lesbian in a male body as well, until I went through my transition and complete surgery. Now I’m just a lesbian.
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Anonymous replied:
February 24th, 2011 at 11:37 am
I was reading your message, and suddenly I thought – “I’m very happy for you”
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Roxanne replied:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Thank you!
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February 24th, 2011 at 10:44 am |
And the bio female lesbians are the people who will deny you most. They have a point: you didn’t grow up as a girl. If, for example, you didn’t grow up black in the USA, you’ll never be black, no matter how much empathy you have. Of course, you’ll never be black, in that sense, if you grew up in Nigeria either.
It is a spurious argument, in my opinion, because it is predicated on a whole raft of assumptions that can’t be generalized across different lives. But it is understandable because to many lesbians men are the enemy and anyone who has or had a penis is, at least potentially, evil.
Interesting how when one group writes off half the human race as inferior, those who are written off do the same.
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Roxanne replied:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I’m lucky, though. My lesbian friends acknowledge me as a sister lesbian. Some of them have crushes on me and a couple want to date me.
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Jessica replied:
February 24th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
You’re very lucky. Everyone’s mileage may vary.
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Kim replied:
February 24th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
I don’t buy that thinking at all. On top of it being very centred on a single experience of living as a woman that excludes anything outside a set of characteristics (race, sexuality, physical ability, culture, etc), it ignores an idea I feel very true. That everyone is hit by the sexism and misogyny of society. Some take it in to solely reinforce it, some take it in as it’s target, some as both or as neither. But this isn’t based around gender. My own experiences and those of younger trans people I have spoken with point to a comparable effect of “female” socialisation that imprinted on them and effected them before they transitioned. Things they have to work through when transitioning, and things they have to struggle against while in their teens. Things like eating disorders that follow simply the line of “a girl has to be thin to be pretty”.
While there may be some MTF direction trans people who truly are socialised male, some are just mimicking, unaffected by the efforts of outsiders to shape them into a man, only changing in accordance to the socialisation that is not intended for them. Because it’s still everywhere, and it exists as more than some woman older than them directly speaking to them, shaming them into alignment with ideas about how a girl should be.
So such lesbians who do not accept trans women, I can only see as not only hypocrites, but ignorant to the pasts of trans women and to the idea that there isn’t a universal “girlhood”. Because there isn’t, as those outside the white, straight, able-bodied, “western” definition of “woman” found decades ago, and fought to have recognised.
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February 24th, 2011 at 3:24 pm |
If you’re a lesbian thats cool.
What do you think of Lisa on the Lword?
Some lesbians did watch that show, some straight cisfolk did too, Lisa is the only tangible reference of thought I have on the subject…It was interesting I argued with friends one said it wouldnt surprise her if guys ‘fake it’ to get with girls, but I said that seems like a pretty big identity to claim just to get laid…
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Anonymous replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 6:59 am
I don’t think screenwriters did a good job with that Lisa thing. I think it was fail, as well as development of Max and Ivan characters – totally fake.
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Cole replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 10:37 am
Yeah Lisa was just created for humor, as an entertaining plot twist, just as much of Alice’s love life is used on the Lword (until Tasha)… Like the show wants to normalize Lesbians, and chooses to do so by trivializing other sexual minorities as “weirder.”
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February 24th, 2011 at 4:27 pm |
I used to always say this as kind of a joke to describe myself. In actuality it was the total and complete truth.
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Anonymous replied:
February 24th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Looking back I’ve known it since I was at least 15; now I’m just trying to negotiate the kind I want to be.
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February 24th, 2011 at 6:12 pm |
When I was in high school, I was never exposed to the word “transgender” and had no idea that it existed. Still, I would call myself “a gay guy in a girl’s body” due to my tom-boyishness, but I never really understood how true it was until after the thought… Sort of like Amelia.
It was a friendly way of my subconscious trying to bang into my head the truth of my feelings. I was quite oblivious. ><
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February 25th, 2011 at 4:38 am |
I always hated it when I heard guys say things like that. Battling with them will never work, so I just joined the party. Now I tell people I’m a British person trapped in an American’s body, which doesn’t make sense in any way shape or form. It’s scary and kinda heartwarming how many people DO accept that at face value when I tell them, though.
I think the majority of people will take you seriously. As long as you say it with a straight face.
This is also why terms like lesbian are obsolete. I am neither man nor woman, so I truly don’t identify as a lesbian. There is no word for me yet.
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Lia replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 5:10 am
“This is also why terms like lesbian are obsolete. I am neither man nor woman, so I truly don’t identify as a lesbian. There is no word for me yet.”
I’ve chosen “transgender pansexual, unless otherwise specified” :)
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Jessica replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 6:14 am
homo sapiens always works for me.
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Anonymous replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 7:02 am
You’re kind of lucky. ‘Homo sapiens’ don’t work for me anymore, I don’t quite fit in!
Jessica replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 7:24 am
I used to be allergic to anything normal. I was deathly afraid I’d wake up some morning and be ordinary. Well, it happened. I am not especially special. I am certainly no better than the vast majority of my fellow humans… more’s the pity.
I am an American who went to school in England (Yorkshire/Cambridge) so I guess I qualify for the English in an American shell. I used to speak fairly Oxbridge, but sound thoroughly Iowan these days. Very occasionally I get mistaken for a Canadian.
Anonymous replied:
February 25th, 2011 at 7:03 am
“I’m a British person trapped in an American’s body” – You are genius!
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February 25th, 2011 at 10:31 am |
Perhaps your journey has just begun, and it may take some time to understand where you’re going, how you want to express and what, if anything, this should mean to others. After all – what does it mean to you? Is it likely to change? Excitement!!
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February 25th, 2011 at 10:53 am |
Excitement indeed :)
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February 25th, 2011 at 4:58 pm |
I am a person trapped in a person’s body!
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Lane replied:
February 26th, 2011 at 9:21 am
Oh my god, me too!
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February 26th, 2011 at 12:21 pm |
I’m pretty happy in my body. I’m trapped in a society that genders it.
But I take you seriously!
And sometimes I think a few of the guys who joke about that may be joking because they’re too afraid to say it seriously.
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March 2nd, 2011 at 12:33 pm |
I think a lot of the people only joke about this because they’re too afraid to tell it as truth.
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