Welcome to #TransTuesday! Let’s dive into a complicated topic that a lot of trans people struggle with, myself included. We’re talking SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER. Also – bows Bows BOWS! (they’re related, trust me)
me in a light blue unicorn and rainbow dress with a white iridescent bow in my hair
me in a sporty pink and gray top with a pink bow in my hair
me in a low cut black top with a large white bow in my hair
Many times I’ve said that understanding my own transness was like untying a giant knot, because it touched and affected so many areas of my life that making sense of it all involved trying to see all the ways in which aspects of my life intertwined.
And a BIG part of that knot was disentangling my sexuality from my gender, in ways that people who are cisgender and heterosexual probably never have to think about. Not that I’m saying coming to terms with being anything other than straight is always easy for cis people.
But the difficulty can be compounded when you’re trans, especially when you’re trans and are attracted to your own gender. In terms of my own sexuality, I’ve always been attracted to women (and nonbinary people). I’m a disaster lesbian through and through.
Guys have never done much for me (though Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge could always Get It). But I’ve always been able to say HEY that’s a good lookin’ guy. I can find men attractive and good looking, but I’m not attracted TO them, know what I mean?
And yes, I do feel toxic masculinity too often prohibits men from admitting things like that, which is pretty sad. This is one of the sad parts of “losing” the false cis straight man version of myself, because we need more men willing to break the cycle.
So if you’re a dude, hey, subvert and deny toxic masculinity every chance you get willya? Society needs a lot more of that. You deserve better! And the more of you that break out of that mindset, the more cis guys around you will be inspired to do the same.
This is how you change the world. Be vulnerable, be open, feel things. Be HUMAN.
In any case, here’s where my sexuality contributed to making things difficult. How can I see a woman and be attracted to her… but also just as badly want to BE her? I don’t know, but it certainly happened! And it’s something unique to trans people pre-transition.
For the longest time I thought that was just part of being attracted to someone (ahahaha PHEW). You mean not every guy who sees a pretty lady also wants to BE her? WHAT? ARE YOU SURE? No that can’t be right, because that would mean- well, here I am.
But which one was it? Was it just that I was attracted to them, or just wanted to be them? Well obviously the answer was both.
But I had no frame of reference for this. I grew up believing I was a boy, and I was “supposed” to be attracted to girls (ugh). Once I got older and thought about it more, I wasn’t sure if I was attracted to guys or not. For a while I thought maybe I was.
Turns out what I’m attracted to is “femininity” (I don’t think that’s the right word to use here, but words fail us a lot in these discussions). But that doesn’t mean only “high femme” or anything, because I can also be attracted to butch and androgynous ladies.
And it’s not that I don’t find it enjoyable to look at certain parts of a woman’s anatomy, but it’s not the parts you think. For me it’s always, always, ALWAYS been about faces. It’s what I love about all people most, and what I find most attractive about the people I’m attracted to.
In fact it’s what I most needed to change from transition, as my pre-transition face was a HUGE source of dysphoria for me. You can learn more about that in the trans tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA.
And in the trans tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS, and why they can be so tough for many trans people.
And so I find that I can be attracted to some men in drag, for example. Not all of them, but sometimes it happens. But never once does what’s between their legs or their secondary sex characteristics come into the equation whatsoever. I don’t really know how to parse that.
Is there a word for that? I’m not sure there is, I’m not sure I care, and I’m not sure if it matters. I’m attracted to faces and to people as a whole, and I could care less what body parts they have or don’t have. That’s not what makes a woman a woman or a man a man, is it? Nope.
You only believe that if you’re a reductive bigot. And for more on where that line of thinking came from, see the trans tuesday on TRANSMEDICALISM (and WPATH version 1).
And I’ll note here that in order to transition, you used to HAVE to be gay prior to transition and straight after, aka for me as a trans woman, I’d have had to been attracted to men, so that by transitioning I’d be a straight trans woman (who had to pass as cis!) so that I’d be upholding the compulsory cisgender heterosexuality of society. There was NO path for we transbians (or gay trans men) to medically transition just a few decades ago.
Now listen, it’s FINE if you’re attracted to or not attracted to certain body features. We like what we like. But the entire goal of feminism and gender equality is decoupling the idea of gender as being defined by genitalia. If you’re not willing to do that, that’s absolutely where you have to start.
But ohhhh goodness did it confuse me, a little kid who was told they were a boy and raised to be a boy and to believe nothing other than being straight existed.
Bee tee dubs, my mom kept teasing me about having a girlfriend any time I tried to make friends with a girl, or would ask if they were my girlfriend, even when I was little. And all I was trying to do at the time was learn about girls that I felt a deep connection to but didn’t know why.
The cishetero compulsory push is STRONG in our society, even as little little kids. “She’s gonna break a lot of boys’ hearts!” and “he’s going to make such a good husband someday” and on and on and like… what the actual heck. And it’s treated as normal!
For more on just how compulsory cisgender heterosexuality is in our society, and how it’s forced upon kids and reinforced at every turn, see the trans tuesday on GENDERED CHILDHOODS.
But if you said that about two little girls or two little boys, or if you actually WAITED for your kid to figure out their gender on their own first, people accuse you of “grooming.”. They can’t see that’s WHAT THEY ARE ALREADY DOING BY FORCING CISGENDER HETEROSEXUALITY ON KIDS. The cis binary matrix is insidious.
Anyway, here’s a pretty good example of how difficult this made things for me. For the entire time we’ve been married and knew each other before that, I’ve tried to get my wife Susan to wear bows in her hair.
Bows bows bows. I love ‘em. I think she looks great in them. I think most ladies do. Are you wearing a bow of any kind? I am over here admiring you and cheering you on forever.
You can see where this is going, right? Too bad I couldn’t.
*I* wanted to be the one wearing bows. But I couldn’t identify that for a long time. Susan humored me because she’s a saint, but they were never really her thing. Which is fine!
But my own desire to be on the outside who I was on the inside got mixed up with the things I like to see in people I’m attracted to. And after I began transition Susan… just gave me all of her bows, which honestly I suppose she’d just been holding for me all this time (in fact you can see one of them in the last photo posted above, the big white one).
Which is not to say I get attracted to myself (ew) when I have makeup on and a bow in my hair or anything. I like to wear bows, but I also still dig seeing them on ladies I’m attracted to and even ladies I’m not attracted to, so… good luck analyzing that, I guess.
For more on how THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE (that we’re trans), see the trans tuesday on the topic wherein I completely embarrass myself to the entire world.
And for more on how discovering my own childhood red bow (seen in the first photo in this essay) is perhaps my most treasured possession, see the trans tuesday on THE PAST (and why it haunts us).
How much of my desire to wear bows and enjoyment of seeing other ladies with them was wrapped up in being told for my entire life that I could not wear them because they were not For Me? Was it just rebellion against sexist societal standards?
If so, how’d that get wrapped up into who I’m attracted to, and who I am, and wanted to be? I don’t have any good answers here. Sexuality and gender are complicated, and this definitely doesn’t make them any less so.
The bottom line here is so much of discovering I’m transgender was wrestling with things like this for YEARS and trying to make sense of it.
When you compound even this one difficult issue with every other aspect that’s just as difficult to untangle (if not even more so) maybe you can see why it took me so long to figure it out. You have to try to undo all the damage society has done to you leading up to that point.
I’m envious of the trans people who figure it out as kids, or earlier than I did. Not just because they get to live more of their lives as themselves (if they have a supportive family or environment), but I think it’s likely easier to figure out without as many years of societal programming to undo.
For more on the insidious ways that societal programming affects all of us (yes, ALL of us), see the trans tuesday on IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA.
And then see its even more evil sister, INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA.
What I do know is that you can be cis and straight or gay or bi or pan or ace or more. And you can be trans and straight or gay or bi or pan or ace or more. Or you can be agender or nonbinary or anything else and straight or gay or bi or pan or ace or more.
Sexuality and gender are connected, but entirely different. They’re in the same general neighborhood, but have different addresses. Separate and distinct, but just a short walk away.
And the distance between is filled with the width and breadth of every beautiful thing humans can be. I finally found my spot as a lady who’s attracted to ladies. I hope you’re able to find your spot too, wherever that may be.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com