Sep 02 2008
The Transgender Issue
Sooner or later every openly bisexual guy is asked, or asks himself, how feels about dating or sleeping with someone who is transgendered. Usually when the topic is broached the reference is to a M2F pre-operative transsexual, a “shemale” or “ladyboy” if you will. And on the face of it, to many, it must seem like the perfect match for a bisexual man. I mean what more could a bisexual man want? A feminine beauty, equipped with a penis. Is that not every bisexual man’s dream?
Well, actually no, it isn’t, not always, and to be perfectly honest the whole notion rather arrogantly assumes that the transgendered person’s idea of a perfect date is a bisexual man. Transgender people can be straight, gay or bisexual. They exhibit the full range of sexual behaviour just like non-trans folk. So the chances of finding a mutual match aren’t greatly improved by focusing on the transgendered community.
Furthermore, our perceptions of transgendered people tend to be warped by transsexual pornography and this fuels the stereotypical belief that all transsexuals are wanton sex-goddesses and honey-traps for bisexual and bi-curious men, keen to let us enjoy the “best of both worlds” in a single platter.
What we tend to miss in all of this is that being transgendered is ultimately about gender identity and not about sex. As bisexuals we need to move past the pornographic stereotype and recognise transgendered people as more than just sex objects. After all, just like with any other group of people, there are beautiful, ugly, thin, fat, shallow, deep, intelligent, dumb, kind, cruel and loving transsexuals out there, but our primary exposure is to the ‘porn-star tranny’ and that’s not exactly representative of the wider transgendered community which includes people from all walks of life.
Finally from the bisexual point of view, whilst there are those of us who are naturally attracted to transgendered people, there are many of us who are not. Once again the bisexual falls foul of the misconception that we want to be with a man and a woman simultaneously, (which is rarely the case,) or that we want to be involved a man and a women concurrently, (which frequently isn’t the case either).
In this scenario, a pre-op M2F transsexual is been touted as the “solution” to our presumed polyamorous desires. This I find someone offensive on two levels, not that I have any problems with transsexuals, but the notion assumes that a) we bisexuals are all polyamorous, which we are not, and b) that being polyamorous is something that requires a solution, something that needs to be fixed.
This presumption is equally insulting to both bisexual and to transgendered people who frankly deserve more respect.
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6 Responses to “The Transgender Issue”
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i don’t identify as bi because that eliminates my possibility of falling in love with a trans or intersex person. i just identify as queer, im more attracted to guys, and f2m’s but I wouldn’t rule anyone out that I could possibly fall in love with.
To comment on what queerunity wrote, the main reason I don’t call myself “queer” is that people often assume that means 100% homosexual, which means that it doesn’t do anything to go against the monosexist paradigm that many people use. Even though the label “queer” is meant to do anything but that. It just happens for some reason. That’s the political reason why I don’t identify as queer.
Although if someone who wasn’t monosexist asked me if I was queer, knowing it meant LGBTQAPI[...], I’d say yes.
I identify as “bi” but when going into detail, I say “pansexual”. Or if the people are likely to know what pansexuality is, I’ll just say it. I understand that it reinforces the binary view of sex and gender to call myself bi but I do things to stop that in other ways.
“What we tend to miss in all of this is that being transgendered is ultimately about gender identity and not about sex”
Amen. I think the driving issue behind all of this is that the two are spectrums, and not necessarily related – the point of the queer movement is that our gender does not define who we will be attracted to.
Great post – as a person who has experienced/is experiencing trans issues and identifies as bi the thoughts are right on the button. Great work!
Thank you so much!
I’m transgendered, and it frustrates me the extent to which transgender is thought of as a sexuality, or as a single category to which everyone who doesn’t fit with their genetic sex gets assigned.
And even besides the gay/straight/bisexual/pansexual spectrum, transfolk don’t always fit into a binary male/female dynamic either. Some of us just feel completely the opposite of what we’re born. Some feel somewhere in between. Some become disgusted with the entire concept of gender and create their own set of rules. So that’s yet another spectrum. (With my own crass neologisms ‘blender’ and ‘bender’ for the sharp ends of the spectrum)
Sometimes i wonder how the T got in GLBT.
[...] the ‘T’ get into LGBT?” that was the question asked by Ll in the discussion on The Transgender Issue article. During the article I made the point that being transsexual is about gender identity and [...]