[Nomad]

Originally Posted by Beloved

So I have a question for you. If you are with someone who is trans than he must be out to everyone as trans so other people don't think you could be a straight couple?

If the person I am with accepts that I am queer, that is enough for me. My ID isn't dependent on anyone else. I'm really unaffected how others may perceive me based on what kind of relationship they think I'm in.

this kinda pisses me off and i'm not sure why but i'm gonna make myself perfectly clear here: my i.d. isnt 'dependent' on anyone else either. if you re-read the part i highlighted in red in the post Keri wrote you'll see that neither her or my statement was about random "others". it was about the other person in the relationship.

Keri wrote: ... I want my own identity to be acknowledged at least by them. I do not want a ftm to be attracted to me thinking I am a straight women. I want my queerness to be acknowledged....

my statement was an agreement with what Keri said about the person i'm dating not regarding me as straight. if i'm dating someone who happens to be transgendered it had pretty damn well better be clear to them who i am or i havent done my job of getting to know them and letting them know me and we have no business dating. i am not straight, period and end of sentence. my identity and my identifying words are just as important as anyone elses and i wont be negated by them or anyone. having the chutzpah to follow your truth and become who you are isnt the property of transgendered people. why should my i.d. take a back seat to someone elses just because they may i.d differently than i do or because their process of becoming who they are was different or maybe harder than mine? i've had a journey in life too. i'm still standing and still active in my pursuit of that journey and i'm proud of that. i'm even more proud of it because i'm still standing in my truth as a queer femme. if the person i wanted to date (no matter who they are or what their own identity truth is) wouldnt accept who i identify as and wont make room for me to be who i am completely then they get their permanent walking papers and they can sort out their regrets over that on someone elses watch because i wont have it. been f*cking there, done f*cking that and got the f*cking trashed self-esteem!

deep breath

sorry for getting all verklempt Beloved! i'm gonna ask your forgiveness here because i think i'm seriously having a flash back or something!

your question is a valid one it's just not at all what i was trying to convey. i should have been more clear earlier. i had an experience where someone else got to take up all the room when it came to gender identity and there wasnt any room for me. what i mean by that is that they stopped being able to see me when it came to identity because they were so intensely focused on themselves and their own identity that there wasnt room for anyone else in the same space. we couldnt even talk about it without serious tension taking over. i'm not talking about selfishness because i dont think of them as selfish. it just felt like who they were to the rest of the world, identity and character, was more important than who they were to me. writing my response to your post made me recall how i felt when i realized that they'd lost sight of who i am, both in identity and character too. it wasnt malicious or anything. it's just what happened. my friend also didnt see that who they were actually presenting to the world had nothing to do with their identity as they perceived it. there was so much tension around the issue of identity and gender that they didnt really show the world the warm and interesting person they were.