Tada!

First, I got a job interview! I haven’t talked a ton about my dissatisfaction with my current job. I’ll write a longer post at some point, but the short version is that I’m ready to move on. In spite of my job’s laid back atmosphere and a number of really great coworkers, there are some things about it that are driving me nuts and I think it’s time for something else. So on Monday I’ll be having a phone interview with another arts organization in Chicago for an admin position. Nifty!

Then, I spoke with an insurance agent. I was forthcoming about my status as trans, and he said that he actually thought it wouldn’t be a problem. (Though the insurance wouldn’t pay for “changes.”) And because my hormones are either generics or can be converted to generics, we can tell the insurance company they won’t have to pay for ‘em and I still won’t see my hormone prices going up too much. At least, that’s the plan… So if I find a job without insurance (a distinct possibility) I hopefully won’t be screwed. Fingers crossed!

Finally, I got a phone number for a cute girl on OKCupid! I’ve been on the site for a while, and have been online flirty with some people I’d extended an invitation for drinks to someone a while back, and never heard a reply. But last night I got a message saying “Sorry, I’ve been offline forever. Lets do something,” with her phone number. (That’s the abbridged version, but you get the gist.)

Woo!

When I began talking [about what I liked doing, sexually] I didn’t discuss the things lovers have done I’ve really liked or dynamics which I find hot, instead I found myself explaining my sometimes difficult relationship with cissexual queer women as a group and as individuals, the fucked-up attitudes about trans women I’ve encountered in various communities, the mistrust I have because of the history trans women have with cissexual queers – all of the things I write about and do activism on which intersect with sex, but I had nothing to say about the actual sex I have or would like to have. I stopped myself and apologized for not answering the question, then sat back to consider this sudden disheartening awareness of how deeply my sexuality is entangled with the politics in which I am active.

This spoke to me because of what I’ve felt recently as an uphill climb toward finding a relationship. First, I’ve been socialized in the rituals of straight sexuality. I didn’t buy into them for myself, but I did end up with a peer group that is almost exclusively straight and cis. So while I see friends all around me meeting people, hooking up with people, being introduced to friends of friends, I feel kind of left out.

At some point in college, my high school friends and I constructed a ‘sex map.’ I think we used dotted lines for making out or hooking up, and solid lines for sex.

I was the lone dot.

It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be having sex. I definitely wanted sex. It was partially because I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to be having sex as male, and much more because I was utterly clueless and totally petrified by the idea of expressing interest in a girl, as a boy. The hetero mating dances I saw swirling around me seemed utterly confusing, because I didn’t understand why any of the girls – who I wanted to be, and to be with – were attracted to any of the boys – which kinda included me, at the time.

Now I am ‘one of the girls.’ I have days where I feel more confident in that identity, and days were I feel less confident, but my confidence is slowly increasing over time. But I feel sort of like I’m coming out as gay at 25. Not because I didn’t know it was true, but because I avoided any of the lesbian socialization or community I might have been exposed to had I been able to come out earlier.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Namely, that I’d like to get laid. That I’m jealous of my friends who are having regular sex, and even of the ones who are having intermittent sex, but clearly know how the dating game works. I’ve had a total of two sexual partners in my life (two and a half, if you count drunkenly making out) and only one of those was I sexual with since I started transitioning.

I have fantasies about being the type of person who can go out and get drunk, gohome with a different stranger every weekend, have mad sexual escapades. But I know that A) that’s rather unsafe for any woman, let alone trans women, and B) I don’t think I could actually go through with it. But the idea of going out and taken back to some hot thing’s apartment is kind of appealing.

But because of my own lingering confidence issues, I sort of can’t imagine picking anyone else up. This comes back to “If I don’t like me, why would anyone else?” I can admit, when forced by the evidence, that someone else might be trying to flirt with me. But I “naturally” assume I shouldn’t be flirting with other women, “imposing” myself on them. I’d feel silly going to Spyners or t’s or Big Chicks (all not too far from my neck of the woods) and being a wallflower until someone takes pity on me.

I’ve been on OK Cupid for almost six months now, and it’s been fun to be flirty, but I still have only had one (absolutely and comically miserable) date, which hasn’t exactly been a confidence booster. I say I’m trans in my profile, which I sort of worry is scaring people away, but I’d also feel uncomfortable not saying I’m trans.

Any thoughts or suggestions on getting into the dating realm? Lacking that, anyone want to play matchmaker?

That’s terrifying.

Ignoring the reasons dating is scary for everyone, I’d like to talk about two specific areas I’ve been giving a lot of thought.

First, I’ve been in the same relationship since before I started transitioning. And before that, I really didn’t date. I had a girlfriend, H, near the beginning of high school (who recently got married to her now-wife in Vermont, natch) and hooked up with one girl between H and my most just-ended relationship. Since hitting puberty, I’ve seriously kissed maybe three people. (I’m not counting spin-the-bottle bullshit kisses.)

This certainly wasn’t because of a lack of interest. I wanted to be with someone, yes. But I had have self-esteem issues, and wasn’t am not good at picking up on others’ interest in me. Looking back at when I was presenting as male, I’m guessing this was at least partially because I had no idea how to romantically interact with women as a man, and absolutely no idea how to romantically interact with women as a woman. (Which I wasn’t presenting as, anyway.)

And now I’m single, but with this weird time-jump where I feel just as awkward as I did at 15, but now presenting as a woman. A woman with what feels like no flirting/courting/dating history or experience.

I’d imagine this general idea – of not feeling like you know how to flirt or date – has to do more with my having been in a long-term relationship and less to do with my being trans. I think being trans heightens it, but I think being trans heightens a lot of issues that everyone feels to one extent or another. But I can’t help echoing my constant refrain of “I wish I’d transitioned earlier,” because my fantasy-world version of adolescence involves me having some dating and romantic experience…

(My fantasy-world version of college and post-college also involves me not having to transition while in a relationship and not royally fucking everything up to begin with. So yeah.)

My second big issue is that, well, society isn’t know for its huge acceptance of trans people. In particular, ‘chicks with dicks’ are one of the most reviled groups under the sun. It’s true that, being out and being interested in women, there’s less of an opportunity to be a victim of trans-bashing. But that’s not horribly reassuring.

To be totally blunt, I’m just getting out of a relationship that was sexually comfortable in no small part because the relationship developed as I was beginning to transition. So my discoveries about my body – about changing sexual experiences and preferences – were also being made with an aware and supportive partner. But now I have this body, and am incredibly conscious of how possible it is I’ll be rejected for it.

I wonder what the hell I’m thinking getting out of a relationship with someone who does love me. I wonder who out there could possibly be interested in dating someone like me. I have 25 years of training telling me that not only am I not sexually desirable, I’m sexually abhorrent.

The first issue, a lack of dating experience, I’m hoping to solve by trial and error. One of my big attempts at self-growth over the past year has involved being more honest and direct, and I don’t see why that can’t apply to dating. That is, say what I want out of a relationship rather than play stupid games, and ask when I don’t know what signals I’m getting. Obviously much easier said than done, but I don’t think it’s an impossible goal.

The second seems less simple, and is much more a confidence issue. I don’t really consider myself someone worthy of love, so expect others to view me that way. (That was a fun sentence to write…) I’m hoping that actually trying to get out there and date will help, but the realist cynic pessimist in me worries that it’ll justify my fears instead.

As I said: terrifying.

*By “on the dating market” I mean that I’m neither in a relationship nor thinking of myself as ‘off the market’ due to relationship complications that I won’t get into.

This totally makes sense to me, although it never would have occurred to me as something to expect. Periods and PMS are something that are assumed by the vast majority of people to divide the genders cleanly. Sure, people might be intellectually aware that some women have had hysterectomies or be post-menopausal or not experience menstruation for whatever other reason. But it’s generally safe to assume that, if you’re talking to someone who is presenting as a woman, they bleed once a month. And if you’re talking to someone who is perceived as a man, they don’t.

(I’d like to make a detour momentarily to note that I don’t think these assumptions are inherently a bad thing, unless they cross the line to imposing gender in a specific situation. That is, I think it’s a Good Thing that we’re moving as a society toward a place where men and women are, at least legally, not treated differently. It’s a slow journey, and full of fits and starts, but – overall – I think we’re heading in the right direction. At the same time, I think treating men and women with equality is different than pretending there are no differences between men and women. I wouldn’t be transitioning if I thought men and women were the same. So, throughout this post, I’m not trying to say any of this gendered conversation is a bad thing, other than that it might be nice to have more frank discussions of gender and our bodies across gender lines. But I’m not faulting or calling out friends for their behavior, just noting it.)

Likewise, I was at a party last night, chatting with a coworker. We were discussing our plans for the holidays, and she said she was going down to Alabama to visit her cousins, as they’re throwing a baby shower for her. (Her baby is now about 6 months old.) She asked me how I felt about being at her (pre-birth) baby shower earlier this year, because she’s known me for a few years and since before I transitioned.

I said that it was weird, that showers are weird, and talked about how showers are a holdover in society from when we pretended everything about the genders are different to where we are now. (See my parenthetical two paragraphs above.) Again, I wasn’t saying showers were a bad thing, inherently, but that they were a bit bizarre to me – as someone who still feels like something of an outsider to women’s spaces – to act as if the men weren’t involved in creating life.

This coworker said showers – and baby culture in general – were particularly frustrating to her and her husband, because he was the primary caregiver and she was the primary breadwinner. When almost every child-rearing book assumes the opposite is true, her husband has complained, it makes him feel totally left out: He doesn’t need “daddy tips” like “bring her flowers every so often to remind her you care about her” or “remember to pick your child up when you get through the door at the end of the day.” Some dads might, but he doesn’t. Likewise, the situation isn’t just reversed – she’s still breastfeeding and helping care for their son, so they can’t just swap all the daddy tips to her, and mommy tips to him.

Another coworker sat down with us, and the conversation then turned to their birthing stories,  which brings this post back to the idea of women being comfortable sharing certain information with others they perceive as women. Now, I don’t know that the conversation wouldn’t have been the same were I a man. I’ve known both of these coworkers for years, and it’s entirely possible they would have felt comfortable revealing some of the information they did (about their birth experiences, labor, tearing, post-birth cleanup, the amount of blood in the delivery room, etc) had that been the case.

But I suspect that’s not true.

I don’t have anywhere I’m going with this, exactly. I talked a little about the whole idea of gendered conversation with my therapist last night, who sort of said, “Yeah, that’s true. You’ll get used to it and it won’t seem so weird anymore.” I have no doubt of that, but wanted to share the experience while it still is a little weird.

(Confused yet? My friends have never been known for their lack of drama.

I was talking about this with my roommate last night. She was saying, basically, that Adam had been bogus and – even though it was a little shady that Bob told Claire, since he’s also interested in her – Claire was right to get really upset with Adam.

I, on the other hand, was saying that, yes, what Adam said is bogus. But the context is also really important, and I’d want to hear more before passing judgment; initially, I thought that Bob’s conflict-of-interest when it comes to Claire and Adam made his gossiping somewhat more obnoxious.

But then I remembered this post from July. And I realized that I’d been thinking about the situation from the perspective of being more likely to say, “I’d sure like to fuck her” than to have it said about me.

When I I made that realization and started to think about how I would feel as Claire, I somewhat flipped sides and agreed that what Adam said was not OK. (Even if Bob also handled the situation poorly.) Because I’m still used to being on the boys’ team, so to speak; assuming that it’s “Us” (the guys, trying to get with women) versus “Them” (the women, trying to field off endless advances).  I could easily imagine saying that about someone else – there are lots of women I find attractive – but had a hard time imagining someone saying it about me.

This isn’t to say that I agree completely with Claire’s chewing-out of Adam. I do think the context is important, and it’s not like Adam’s feelings were particularly a secret. But it’s yet another situation where I’m realizing exactly what “male privilege” can mean: It’s the privilege of being the gazer, not the gazee. Of analyzing a situation base on how the one the more powerful position felt about it, not the one being targeted.

Interesting food for thought, and something I want to keep in mind in the future, before I open my mouth and say something hurtful.

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Anyway, I’ve been stressing: having trouble getting to sleep, feeling nervous and panic-y, all the stuff I was talking about in early December.

I realized one of the things that helped me then was listing all the stressors, so I figured I’d try that again now:

• Relationship/transitioning issues with G
• Feeling like I don’t have enough time for all the things in my life and for myself. ‘All the things in my life’ includes:
  • Monday: Therapy
  • Tuesday: Workshop rehearsal for the piece I’m directing (and now, conflicting, a weekly theatre thing with friends)
  • Wednesday: Trans youth group
  • Thursday: Workshop class I’m teaching (starts next week)
  • Friday: Blissfully nothing, and the stress of using downtime ‘well’
  • Saturday: A class I’m taking; more Workshop rehearsal
  • Sunday: Rehearsal for a friend’s recital piece that I don’t really want to do but am doing as a favor to her
  • (And, of course, a full-time job)
• Money, specifically paying off hair removal (3/4 of the way there, but I want it off my back)
• Buying a new wardrobe (partially linked to ‘money’; I have, like, six or seven tops that I can reasonably wear to work that I just keep cycling through)
• Feeling insecure in the transition (to be the subject of a longer post, one of these days)

Boo! Stress, stress, go away, and don’t come back another day!

-R

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