I just back from a party being thrown jointly by a friend of mine (from high school, of course) along with some of his friends. Point A from above – that I’ll inevitably run into people at parties who either didn’t know I’m trans at all or (more commonly) had heard through the grapevine but hadn’t actually had any contact with me since highschool – is something I just need to get used to. I’ve been dealing with it since graduating from highschool, but it’s only become something I’ve really thought about this past year, living fulltime as Rebecca.

Combined with Point B, though – realizing there was no one at the party who I’d be interested in flirting with who would also want to flirt back – made me feel a little ‘othered.’ Unintentionally, to be sure, and I did have a really good time for most of the night, s0 this isn’t to say I was miserable all night.*

But, as the night wore on, sitting in the Arts and Crafts room** watching one of my friends moving from flirting to cuddling to making out, I definitely had a realization that I could safely assume no one at the party would be interested in me.

Likewise, when I go out to bars or clubs with my friends, the attention I’m getting (if I’m getting any) is from men. The assumption is going to be that I’m straight. Now, I haven’t talked a ton about my sexuality on this blog, but suffice it  to say that I’m more attracted to women than to men, so assuming I’m straight isn’t going to win anyone any points for accuracy.

I’m not sure what to do about this. I definitely don’t want to lose the friends I have, or to make them feel uncomfortable taking me to straight bars/clubs/etc. I also think it’d be rather awkward to go to a queer bar with my big group of straight friends (although maybe I’m wrong!) and don’t want to subject them to that.

Ultimately, I do think I want to expand my social circle to include more queer friends. I think that’s doable without pushing away the friends I have, and without removing myself from the longstanding circles I do like. But I also am realizing that there’s this whole part of my life I’m attempting to establish – working on queer theatre, figuring out how I do identify my sexuality, the transition itself (can’t forget that…) – that maybe my straight friends, fantastic allies though they are, can’t function in as peers.

*They had a bouncy castle. How could I not have a good time? And yes, I took pictures, and yes, I’ll post them at some point. And yes, having a bouncy castle under a mulberry tree results in grossly black mulberried feet. I’m going to shower after I finish posting this…

**Tes, the Arts and Crafts room…there was collaging and Eye-of-God-making going on; I have odd and amazing friends, don’t question it.

I mentioned to my roommate that – if a girl ever professes their love for her – she should not respond like that, as it’s rather condescending.

She said, “No, I think it’s flattering!”

I’ve been trying to figure out if she’s oblivious, or I’m being overly sensitive. I think there are two issues. First, there’s the whole implication that being gay is a choice. Now, Jones may simply be be using a slang term for being gay, and not actually expressing her belief that being gay is a choice. But I think that’s sort of beside the point, as responding to this woman’s very heartfelt expression of love with slang seems horribly dismissive.

Second, the implication that there’s any choice in who one falls in love with, above and beyond issues of gender. By saying “…there’s no one for me but you,” Jones goes beyond being explicitly dismissive of whatshername’s homosexuality and is more generally dismissive of her expression of love in general. If a man had said the same thing to Jones, removing the element of homosexuality, it’d still be condescending to say, “If I ever decide to stop loving Darcy, you’re the only one for me.”

It seems like at least one other person agrees that the lesbian scene in the movie is used “to reinforce the idea of lesbian intimacy as just another available offering on the straight male sexual menu.” She continues,  “which begs the question: if two women kiss and there are no men to see it, did it really happen?”

I don’t think I can finish this post of better than that!

(PS – After looking up the definition of condescending, I still think I’m right.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about situations where my behavior or interactions or presentation will be functionally the same before and after transitioning, but where there’s still a large emotional and/or perceptional shift. For example, while out with friends over the summer, I jotted this down during the cab ride home (in the interest of full disclosure, I was not exactly sober at the time):

There is a subtle, yet fundamental difference between being catty (with ‘the girls’) and being an asshole (with ‘the guys’).

In all fairness, ‘the guys’ that I’ve hung out with aren’t exatly the assholish type, nor ‘the girls’ really the catty type. But I’ve noticed a few times recently when out with friends in girl-mode that there’s been a subtle shift in my interactions with the men and women in the group. And I think there probably is an actual difference in interactions, but I think a lot more of it is based on my own emotions and perceptions of the situation and me feeling more comfortable in girl-mode than I ever really have in boy-mode.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about: being perceived and/or thinking about myself as a heterosexual man versus a gay woman.

I’ve never really thought of myself as male, or as a boy, or as a man. But I also didn’t really think of myself as a girl growing up, or as a woman now. In fact, only very recently have I felt anything like being ‘trapped in the wrong body’ as estrogen as given me a basis for comparison for how my body could have developed. Rather, while I knew that ‘boy’ was not right for me and ‘girl’ felt like it would be right, I had always been concious that I wasn’t a girl.  So, as is my nature in all walks of life when I haven’t actually tried something, I was really hesitant to say “I am a girl” but rather said or thought things like “I think I want to be a girl” or “I feel like I should have been a girl.” I particularly like Julia Serano‘s phrasing, “It’s like my brain expected me to be a girl.” (Quoting from memory, so that may not be the exact line.)

But I’ve always found women more attractive than men, both before and now during the transition. Likewise, while going on hormones sure as hell has changed how I experience sex/sexuality, it hasn’t change my sexual preferences. (I’m speaking here of who I’m attracted to, not what I enjoy doing with them…)

(As a side note, when I first went on hormones, my therapist did say it was possible my sexual preference might change over the course of the transition. I like her a lot and think she was telling me what she understands to be true, but my suspicion is over the course of the transition some trans people realize their sexuality has already been this or that, rather than having it actually change.)

So I’ve recently been examining how it feels – particularly since G got back – to think of myself as a lesbian versus a straight man. Again, I never really thought about myself as a straight man, but I also never really thought about myself as a lesbian, other than in a ‘maybe someday that’s what I’ll call myself’ sort of thing. The long and the short of it is that it feels good. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t like the potential negatives I’m opening myself and G up to by ‘coming out’ as a couple, but I do like the way thinking about us as a lesbian couple makes me feel about myself and my gender.

Which, I guess, is a good summary for me of transitioning as a whole: The specifics of the changes are often not the imporant part (although sometimes the specifics are nice, too) but it’s the way it makes me feel that’s important.

-R