right thread.
 

some of these posts have a tone of female self-subjugation.

and fetishlike

I agree. One must not undermine another’s identity when describing one’s own attractions. And I certainly see how ascribing ‘feminine’ traits- whatever those may be, exactly- to FTMs (in particular, among men as a whole) is undermining. That’s a really important point and I’m glad this discussion is happening.

What I was wondering about, and perhaps not articulating well, was whether wishing to date or to partner with men who belong to this community, specifically, was necessarily undermining. (Maybe it is, btw- not meant to be a rhetorical question...)

To me (and speaking only from my me place), I don't see dating people within One's community as undermining anything. Personally, if someone told me they ONLY date FTMs, I have no problem with that either. I wonder how someone would KNOW an FTM on the street from any other man, but...

I (me, me, me) DO wonder is IF and DO folks in this community who date men feel the need to either A) 'hide' that for fear of 'having their community card' taken away or B) constantly ID their partner (in some way) as 'formerly woman' or 'female bodied' for (again) fear of 'having their community card taken away'

I know very well the crap married/formerly married folks, bisexual folks, folks who partner with guys get/have gotten over the years in this community, and I just seriously wonder if this makes some people feel the need to constantly refer to their partner as FTM/trans/etc instead of just 'guy' or 'man'. Like if those people feel maybe they'll get less 'flack' and deal with less 'explaining' if they constantly refer to their partner as 'formerly-woman'.

Honestly, if One is dating only butches and transmen...I have to kind of wonder A) how do you know who's trans and who's not and B) are you seeing transmen as 'really butch women'?


Dylan

This is a great thread. Dylan, I always love your posts-thanks for speaking exactly what I'm thinking at times.

I shall continue to follow this thread....

Well, I'm Queer. And I am attracted to Butches, FTMs, non-trans-guys, Drew Barrymore, Jack Black, and whoever happens to be providing me with coffee. I am quite open about my bi/pansexuality. (I hate the term pansexual because it has the word "pan" in it - irrationally.) If I weren't married and monogamous now god only knows who I would be with - but I was still dating people who were born with a penis right up until the time I started dating my spouse.

I feel like you're excluding those of us who aren't lesbians from your definition of Queer. I'm not liking it.

Nope, sure doesn't.

Exactly. What things look like -TO ME- is a whole lot of people are attracted to the FT part of FTM.

In the case of some (not all) people B is what I generally suspect. I see it in real life a lot.

I come from a pretty huge city, so I have had the pleasure of being acquainted with a zillion different people. And a really big chunk (we're talking well more than half, here) of the REAL LIFE transmen I know will only date women who -do- date both trans and non-trans men. And these -are- transmen who I met in the Queer community. (I actually don't have any friends who aren't part of the Queer community - because that's who I choose to pal around with.) All I know (and this is in pretty stark contrast to what I see online) is that the majority of my FTM friends feel that it's very important to know that the people they date are attracted to who they ARE and not who they "were" or some journey they supposedly have gone on.

Also - I don't get where people are under the impression that anybody is putting the weight of understanding on the shoulder of Femmes and expecting nobody else to understand anything? Maybe I missed the post that has given people that impression - but it reads as very knee-jerky to me.

Betenoire, I don't think all queers are lesbians. I don't think all queer femmes are lesbians. There I've said it twice now- this time with a little refinement.

Do you know that there is NO DIET GRAPE SODA in California????? i live among barbarians.

Well, if there are transmen who will only date women who will date both trans and non-transmen, then that's there preference. My first thought is do the women dating them have any rules of their own, like say see me for the queer that I am and not just interchangeable with straight women? Then again, what would I know. I am just a simple lesbian.

i like Dylan's original post. The what do you like about transmen thread was blowing my mind. Most transguys i know would have hated most of that stuff. The they understand me better or they have been through so much and are therefore more sensitive. Dylan put it way better than i could summarize. Most transmen i have met do not date femmes. If they like feminine women, they prefer straight or bi women. (i know there are bi femmes.)

However, this stuff can veer toward dissing femmes, which makes me sad. Like Dylan's comment about if someone is dating only transmen, are they just seeing them as really butch butches. Well, what if they DO??? As long as whoever they are dating is fine with it. Seriously, if a transguy is with a queer femme, then he is probably a little more queer identified than the average transguy. He may not be squicked.

i think the queer femmes who ID as transensual or however -- that they prefer to date transguys -- get enormous amounts of shit, some of it blatantly sexist. They are labelled fetishists. They are accused of seeing transmen as other than men. i was told by one transguy that queer femmes are not "real woman" and that a real woman is someone who knows how to be with a man. He felt that if a woman did not like cisgendered men that the fact that she liked him was demeaning to him.

So i appreciate this thread as a corrective to the other one, which i figured HAD to get a reaction at some point. But boy i hate to see this interrogation of the motives of femmes who like transguys.

i do not date transmen. i did for a second. And i realized, hey, these guys are men, and i am a dyke. Not going to work. That's why when Dylan seems to argue for some separate category for transmen, as somehow exempt from accusations of male privilege, i don't get it. i experience transmen as men. That's how it FEELS. That is the effect they have on me.

I agree with almost everything in your post. I purpled the one part, because you misquoted me. I said, "see them as really butch women". 1. Some transguys ID as butch. But 2. It's none of my business what goes on between two people in a relationship.

My question wasn't pertaining to anyone in particular...it's just something I wonder. I don't have any male friends whose partners view them as really butch women...but that doesn't mean I don't know of couples in which a transguy's partner DOES view him as 'formerly female', and I notice very often how ThisPartner will do things to 'put him in his place'. They are very subtle things, but they are there. ThisPartner will occasionally she him, and she'll just say things. So, yeah, I DO wonder. And maybe ThisGuy is squicked and maybe he's not. I don't really know as I don't really talk to these people. But I still wonder. I also wonder many other things.

I also said, "If someone only dates butches and transmen"...meaning (in the shortest form) masculine women and transmen.


Dylan

Dylan, you make a very big distinction between cis and transmen. That's two different categories of men right? Why would I be seeing all men exactly the same if some are considered trans and some are considered cis?

I was referring to this statement:

"How does this (also dating non-trans men) work if one is queer?"

Since you did not mean that it was unqueer to date non-trans men...what -did- you mean, exactly?

Wow, way to bait. Nobody implied in any fashion that lesbians were too "simple" to understand anything.

And I can assure you that nobody sees me as interchangeable with a straight woman.

Well gee Betenoire, you seem to think I don't even know gay men exist and that I think all queers are lesbians. Anyway, I seriously don't think it matters how up to speed or not I am on queer identities in terms of this discussion.

To me it looks like a lot of double standards, but hey if people are happy go for it.

So, when people ask you to clarify a statement you're going to use snark in order to get out of clarifying? Neat.

And of course I know that you know Gay men exist. You said that Bisexual Men tend to hang out in the Gay Male community rather than in the Queer community - so I gathered from that that you were aware of the existence of the Gay Male.

What looks like a lot of double-standards to you, and in which way?

What was I supposed to clarify? I scrolled up, but not sure.

And quoting myself:

Originally Posted by betenoire View Post
I was referring to this statement:

"How does this (also dating non-trans men) work if one is queer?"

Since you did not mean that it was unqueer to date non-trans men...what -did- you mean, exactly?

I was asking a question, not making a statement. My own view is if someone is queer, they are queer no matter who they date. I don't understand why it's a requirement for someone who might be attracted to transmen and/or FTMs who are part of a queer community to also be obligated- at least theoretically- be willing to date cis men. I seriously don't get it.

As to the double standards, I agree with Martina. This is how it looks to me.

Yup, it is a Queer community, but also one embracing the B-F dynamic. And there are a whole lot of lesbian queers here, too. Butches and femmes.

Nope.... lumping any group of people into neat little stereotypes is not a good idea! When I look at all of the Transmen I know (and I mean, really know), they are all quite unique and sure don't fit into any particular box. Nor do the MtF’s I know. The same goes for all of the different butch-femme, queer folks I know and have met through this very online community. I'm a butch woman who is a lesbian which I see as just one part of the entire queer community. Lesbians don't fall into one category, either. Then we have all of the differing kinds of sexuality within the queer community.

Thinking, however, that I have not seen the numbers of generalizations and stereotypes I have in the B-F community since I was a teenager and straight! I'm 59 now. Why is this community so closed minded and at the same time pretends to aspire to diversity?

I'm thinking, (but do not know this, as I am not a Transperson) that any person on the trans spectrum would want someone to be attracted to them due to their entire persona just like attraction works for all people. I mean the past, present and future promise in a person's experience and growth. Sure, physical appeal (which really is in the eye of the beholder) has to be present, but so do common values, politics, goals.... And the element of magic, yanno, the chemistry that just happens to us all.

I would hope to hell that someone would not do to a Transperson the same that some straight people do in experimenting with queer folks without really caring for them! And, we have all seen star-fucking in action throughout life!

Hummm... are we talking just attraction here, or attraction as it relates to relationship building? Asking because, I know that how I acted on just pure physical attraction in my teens and 20's is a hell of a lot different than when I was older.. and very different now.

I guess I am seeing a difference between the basic fuck-factor and attraction and the fuck-factor plus phenomena concerning attraction. Seems like both would apply to all of us, No?

I still at times find non-Transmen attractive and yes, that means that my ovaries spin just as they do when I am very attracted (for me that means a totality of factors about an individual including the physical) to a woman or a femme (yes, I am attracted to non-femmes, sometimes). Also, I have had attractions to MtF’s and Transmen that are gay men (Sean Dorsey and other FtM’s like him are fine!). Go figure! Humm, to date, I have not been attracted to a Transman that is straight. Or one that identifies as queer as in within the B-F community.

Shit, this is complicated! And… diverse! I hope I didn’t mix anything up with my distinctions! And Heaven forbid, my butch-card could be discredited by admitting different attractions! Again, I speak of how closed ( and really quite conformist) I often view this community to be (which makes me sad).

LOL... I'm cussing, again! I hardly ever swore until I joined the B-F community.... see what ya'll are doing to me! Nah, its all good... really it ALL is good!

Oh, I see. So even though you put "If a queer femme is to see trans men exactly as they see non-trans men, then in order to be attracted to a trans man she's supposed to be attracted to all men?" and "How does this work if one is queer?" immediately following each other in the same paragraph (only things that were in that paragraph, in fact) the two questions had nothing to do with each other. You just forgot to hit the enter key between your two separate and completely unrelated thoughts, is all. Got it.

I'm sorry that you cannot see how being attracted to FTMs but not to non-trans men can be hurtful to (some) guys. All men are men. They just are. FTMs are not ex-women, they're men.

I love typos. I promise I'm not making fun of you.

Like on the news the other day when the newscaster said "Christless counselors are on the scene" (meaning CRISIS counselors) It killed me a whole lot.

No those two sentences go together exactly as I wrote them.

A transman is a man. A cis man is a man. Is there only one type of man? There are lots of different types of women- one type no better than the other. A transwoman is a woman, a butch woman is a woman, a femme woman is a woman, a straight woman is a woman, etc. None are less than or better "women."

You get that being a woman (trans or otherwise) is a sex, and that butch and femme are genders, and that straight is a sexual orientation....right?

butch, femme, straight, queer, artistic, conservative, sporty, aggressive...those are different ways of being a woman. yes.

but transwoman and non-trans woman? those are not two different ways of being a woman. your sex is your sex. period.

Yes Betenoire, I am perfectly clear on all of that.

People keep talking about man in these discussions when I think they are really talking about male.

Man and woman are gender. Male and female are biological sex.

Edit: actually I think of woman as gender, so I don't agree with the first part of what you said. Female is biological sex, woman is gender.

The arrogance of anyone being offended because someone is attracted to them amazes me. If someone is attracted to you, even if you aren't to them, that is a compliment, a sweet thing.

If a transguy wants to date women who date cismen, i get it. That's fine. Going out of his way to criticize a woman who is not interested in cismen but may be in him or another transguy -- i don't get it. It's unnecessary.

The implication is that your identity as a man is dependent on, or at least can be affected by, the kind of attention you receive from women or the kind of women you receive attention from.

As a girl, i was certainly taught that my identity as a woman was dependent on the attentions of men, but i outgrew that.

And if I say, "I'm attracted to you, because I see you as a straight woman", am I attracted to YOU or some picture of you I'VE created?

If you keep saying, "Um, I'm not straight", but I keep saying, "Oh yeah, queer, lesbian, straight, whatever"...is that being attracted to YOU or some picture I've created?


Dylan

Also, may I asked who criticized any woman on this site for not dating cismen?

From the other thread:

Ok, Bulldog (since you're now speaking for Martina), then why are men being blamed for something Potty said


And Why Are You Speaking For So Many Folks Except The Female Butch Contingency...or yourself?,
Dylan...also wonders why you're specifically avoiding answering Potty's questions to you about your own words, and why you're using deflection by mixing up other people's words

I'm not speaking for Martina. I agreed with what she said earlier. You asked where someone had been criticized anyone for not dating non-trans. I provided the quote.

What precisely am I avoiding answering. I've answered very directly. I am not mixing up anyone's words.

And I'm still wondering if *some* people who date men feel stripped of their 'community ID cards' if they admit they date men and that's why they feel soooooooo compelled to always keep their 'trans'men 'formerly female'


But...,
Dylan

Martina said a man had said it

It's in her post (which I quoted)


You Didn't Answer Directly...You Backpeddled And Waffled. And Yeah, You Are Mixing Up Other People's Words To Better Fit Some Conversation You WISH Folks Were Having (or something),
Dylan...isn't going to rehash all of Potty's posts again, so we can go around in the inevitable circle of avoidance and deflection

I haven't back peddled, waffled, deflected or avoided anything. Whatever Dylan. The things you are saying about me are absurd. Have your conversation.

Dylan I asked you this question and you never answered. I didn't accuse you of backpeddling, waffling, deflecting or avoiding. I just figured you didn't want to answer it- cuz really you are not obligated.

To me it doesn't read as though the person is offended by the attraction itself, but what the attraction implies.

...yeah. That wasn't criticizing. I was simply saying that it doesn't make sense to me. I didn't say that people who date FTMs but won't date a non-trans guy are satanists, kick puppies, have ugly shoes, or are stupid.

There is a difference between questioning and criticism. And also, people are not their actions. I can think a certain practice is distasteful, but that does not necessitate that I think that anybody who engages in said practice is distasteful.

Ok, thanks.

i was responding to some stuff in the bulldog/betenoire interaction. It was implied. i don't know. Too tired to track it down.

Re what you said otherwise, that would be unacceptable. Are a lot of femmes out there insisting that their trans partners or dates are TRANS rather than men? Is that what you are saying? i get lost sometimes with the hypotheticals.

"soooooooooo compelled to keep their transmen 'formerly female'?" -- Is that what you see a lot of femmes doing?

Even if they are, the guys have some say in it. i am just into hearing how femmes are not respecting transguys sufficiently for their maleness.

If you think it's a response to community pressures, i get that. But what role does the guy have? i don't imagine it to be easy for these couples, but why is this all about what the femme needs to do?

What i see on this site -- most of the transmen i know in real life date men -- are women celebrating the maleness of their partners.

What i do agree with you about is that this is probably not a comfortable space for guys to just celebrate being guys. i have seen a few attempts at that and cringed. It was in the trans zone, so i was like, not my business. But i personally do not enjoy witnessing men celebrating their man-ness or whatever. In a way that's too bad. But i am a dyke and a woman of my generation. That doesn't mean my reaction ought to affect how community works. But i am sure that others might pick up on it, even unexpressed.

We all should be able to shiver with pleasure and say, oooo, how wonderful am i. But it's sort of a select audience one does that with. i am femme, and i get squicked by the very conventional femmes and butches celebrating their very conventional gender play on here. But i assume this is the place for it. i am not sure that this is the place for men to be celebrating being men. Maybe it is. If it is, i guess it's up to me to ignore it or deal, just as i do with the heteronormative butch-femme stuff i sometimes have issues with

I don't see cis men as the be-all and end-all of man. I don't understand why some transmen would hold cis men up as the measuring stick of man and think they were being thought of us as less than if people don't see them exactly the same as cis men. I seriously don't get it. I don't think all transmen do this, but it seems that some do.

Some of the finest men that I am aware of are transmen. I seriously don't get why we are supposed to see all men as exactly the same- as if "man" is some monolithic entity with no variation.

Also, whether someone has transitioned or not has zilch to do with whether they are a man or woman as far as I am concerned. Gender is not biology. Not everyone can afford to transition, others may have health issues, others may not transition by choice, etc.

If I was going to date a a transwoman who was a femme (because femmes is who I date) or I have a friend who is a transwoman, am I supposed to just completely ignore her past, her childhood, what she has gone through in her life? Just because I know and acknowledge that she was born male doesn't mean I don't see her as a woman.

Perhaps saying "honoring someone's journey" is too woo woo, but seriously I think all of us here, no matter what our gender and sex are, have genders that we have earned and that we have made our own. Not all of us are transsexed or transgendered, but none of us came built to factory specifications, especially our genders. We didn't just take what was given us at birth and go through life not questioning things. We are who we are because of the personal journeys each one of us has taken. I honor everyone's journey here.

Thanks for the clarification

I DO see a lot of the insistent 'trans'-ing, and overdoing the "My partner is FTM". Like, instead of just saying, "I'm with a man" or "I dated a guy once", it's "I was with a TRANSguy once..." or "I date a lot of FTMs" etc. Like, it's not sufficient to just say, "I'm with a man" or "I'm with a guy".

In some cases, I get the impression it's a way of outing oneself/queering oneself (and I see this in real time, so that's why I'm wondering if online it's the same reasoning). What I see in real time is this 'Chosen Closet'. Like...today, I want to be in the closet, so I'm with a guy...but tomorrow, when we go to SuchASuchPlace, I want to be outed, so I'm with a TRANNNNNSguy" (said like annoying people who say, "Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadies") instead of just owning that the responsibility is One's own to out themselves. It's kind of like using someone else to do your 'dirty work' (if coming out can be considered 'dirty work')...like (and I'm saying 'like' wayyyy too much), if I out YOU, then I don't have to take responsibility for outing ME. Does that make sense?

And in some cases, I wonder if repeating the TRANSman mantra over and over is some kind of 'Don't Take My Queer Card Away...Seeeeeeeeeeeee he's not a man man...he's a TRANNNNNNNSman'...and I wonder this, because I tend to see this particular behavior more online than I do in real time. I don't see the over usage of TRANSman the way I do online. I hear partners just say, "My boyfriend/guy/he/etc". No one in my real time circle of friends over uses trans to the extent I see online.

I don't know if that makes sense, because this conversation in this particular thread is missing a lot, because some posts are missing from the original conversation, and some posts are taken without the context of the original conversation.

And yeah, I've known (of) some people who insist their guy is 'formerly female' or who see their guy as (formerly) female first...then trans. Again, their partner(s) is/are expected to be female when it's convenient and male when it's convenient, but it doesn't seem up to the guy...it's up to the partner and the partner's situation. Again, I have no idea how the actual guy(s) feel about this, because I don't really talk to these people, I just know what I see/hear.


Dylan