FtM/lesbian couple refused entry to a lesbian Valentine's dance...

[LenGray]

Here's the link...

http://transmanpartner.blogspot.com/2014/02/banningFTMs.html

So, I read about this today on another LGBT forum and the responses really surprised me.

All of the people on this forum said that the transman was a fool and that it was only right that he got kicked out because he wasn't a woman anymore. That he couldn't have his cake and eat it too, that it would have been different if he was MtF that had gotten kicked out but because he was a FtM that it was alright...

I guess I can see where they are coming from but to be honest....reading those responses made me feel so sad for him and his girlfriend.

Yeah, they could've gone to a straight club but...would they be accepted there as a lesbian dating a transman?

Yeah, he's a man but...was he any less of a man when he had boobs and a vagina and was 'allowed' into these events?

For my transition, I want to take T and have top surgery but I don't want to change anything 'downstairs'. Would I be excluded if I had a girlfriend who was a lesbian and I had made these changes?

I've heard about a lot of transitioned individuals who are denied support from their LGBT communities...why is this the case? And what are your thoughts in this case?

[Shapeshiffter]

Hi. I am afraid that this is the norm. I would not be welcome at most lesbian gatherings for a similar reason. I was not born female. I lost many friends when I started to transition. Most of them were gay and lesbian.

[LenGray]

That's so sad though! We spend our lives being discriminated against because of our birth gender and then we get discriminated against for our chosen gender too? It just seems to me like the LGBT community would be less judgmental and more understanding to their transitioned members, considering all of the prejudice that they already go through :(

[PaulaQ]

I'm not sure how I feel about the dance. But I will say that the author of the article is having real issues dealing with the fact that in many respects, she's a straight girl now. This is hard on the partners of all trans* folks - regardless of their own sexual orientation or gender identity. The gender identity and trans issues their partner goes through reflect back on them - but of course there is nearly zero support for them.

[Persephone]

What makes you think there is such a thing as "the LGBT community?" It is sometimes a convenient generalization for "outsiders," very useful to political groups, but in reality it is little more than that. There is no reason for any mutual love beween these different letters and on several ocassions the 'L's" and the "G's" have been all too happy to throw us under the bus when it helped them get stuff. That's why we've been dropped from any number of Federal laws, executive orders, and regulations.

Think of yourself as a wonderful guy making his way through the world, not as some manipulated member of an "LGBT movement" and you'll faire a lot better.

Hugs,
Persephone.

[Kate Simmons]

Some narrow minded people and places out there I guess. The LGBT club I go to welcomes everyone regardless of what the occasion happens to be.:)

[noeleena]

Hi,

Okay try being an intersexed person and find your not wellcome at male or female outings or do's where do you stand then apart from not being accepted in a GLBT . let alone by lesbain who are hard linners, i know first hand expreance,

You'r not wellcome end of, now im not ftm or mtf its a totaly different set of issues,

If a female to male is to work then why do we have some who say they are yet no surgerys and still give birth to children after they say they are male , this has happened a few times,

And the same for male to female with in its context .

For many of us we dont have that because we are not able to have children ether way,

I allso understand fully would i wont males at one of our do's that are for women = female only born ,

I know for myself i was invited in for a women female only, lesbain, get to gether of 120 of us yet two were dressers they did not stay long and left and there was one trans person. though im intersexed = female, there was no issues, i know quite a few males tryed to get in they were told female only,

at 11 in the evening the gay men were allowed to come join us though i had met a few long before then. it was a gay pride week

For myself its about the venue who's to be there and is it only for men or women or mixed,

I know my difficulty or my disadvantage female body with out my womb and my maleness = facial features, so lesbain hard liners wont accept im female and i know a few others wont, quite a few in fact, lack of an understanding, its that simple

Yet many women have historectomes yet are still women some of us are born with out organs yet still female .

this comes down to class distinction yet we all be human. well i only think we are, so where do you draw the line or should we,

I have found more hostilty with in the GLBT community than any where else, why, this is in New Zealand and Austraila,
its like an undertow hard to work out why and where it comes from, pity,.

...noeleena...

[I Am Paula]

I have found that the most discrimination comes from within the LBGT community itself.

[Nicole Erin]

What Paula said. Very true.
You see, one's sexual or gender presentation preference is way different than being part of some so-called GLBT community.

Len, it seems you are thinking along the lines of going full time and wanting to live as a man. The bigger goal is to live in mainstream society as your new gender. Here's some reasons -

There are WAY more more straight/vanilla people out there than GLBT people. Right there you have a lot more options for friends and even lovers.

Of the GLBT crowd, about 1/2 of them (from my observation) want to be in the GLBT clique. We already know that cliques don't easily welcome new people. You have to ass-kiss your way in and who wants to do that?

People judge you by the company you keep. Even if a TS doesn't pass, he or she will have better changes at a social life if they are associating with vanilla folks than if they are in some GLBT swarm.

Vanilla folks are not as judgemental as we think. Yes there are bigots but overall, most folks are OK. They might "think" something but who doesn't? We can't hold it against someone cause of a stupid "thought".

So my thoughts in this particular case - Yes they would have had better luck at a straight venue. The FTM in question is now a man, he has successfully transitioned. Why would he even WANT to waste time at some silly event with the ones who are still stuck with GLBT venues as their only option?

Also, you do not have to have surgeries etc to be successful in the social world. Some Ts, like myself, do not pass that well yet live a normal social life.

Reason it is hard to find support within the GLBT community is cause they are often tight cliques full of insecure people. Lesbians and gays will just pick you apart as to where straight folk will more easily accept you.

[Mink]

^fantastic post!

i utterly agree!

[whowhatwhen]

There's discrimination even amongst TSes.
A few times there have been transwomen intentionally misgendering other transwomen they deem not trans enough.

[Mink]

or those "proper" crossdressers that look down upon men who just like wearing the clothes minus the wigs makeup shaving etc

as if they are one to damn judge!

[ReineD]

We spend our lives being discriminated against because of our birth gender and then we get discriminated against for our chosen gender too?

Is it discrimination or is it validation? These lesbians are telling this guy that he is not a woman and therefore not invited to a women's only party. Isn't that what he wants? Seems to me that if they did include him, the message would be that they do not validate his transition … that he is, after all, "still a woman" - just like them.

Also I don't think that he looks at his maleness as his chosen gender. He likely sees it as the gender that he has been since birth and that transition was in fact a gender reaffirming process rather than a gender changing process.

It would indeed be nice if all existing groups were all inclusive, if there was no difference between gay, lesbian, bi, straight, male, female, transmale, transfemale, intersex, agender, and all others, and if everyone were invited to all the parties. But this is not realistic. People do identify themselves as a part of one group more than the other.

The nature of transition itself is a statement that tells the world, "I am not a part of THIS group, I am a part of THAT one".

I'm sure that if this couple had decided to have their own party and had invited all their friends, lesbian and transmen alike, no one would have snubbed them.

[PaulaQ]

Somehow I doubt this was based on "affirmation." There are plenty of lesbians who actively hate trans* people. Mainly trans women, but there are plenty who find trans men plenty creepy and somehow inherently evil.

[Angela Campbell]

I don't understand......they are upset because a MAN wasn't welcome at a women only lesbian dance?

I wonder if any of the other lesbians brought a man as a date?

[noeleena]

Hi,

This is one reason i never said in the begining i was an intersexed female because of the hostility that i found out later, so i said im a transfemale to cover myself had i said intersex i would have as my friend was told dont come back you not wellcome here in the GLBT . yes we live in the real world well i do and i dont get told to dont come back. im very wellcome hence my many lovely neat friends who with out i would have struggled greatly, i know where my friends are, and who they are,

Oh by the way when you know why many of the hard linner women = lesbain are like the way they are you understand where they are coming from i talked with many ,

and yes i have many as friends so its not all of those women . a few hey they are neat friends as well you know, and lovely .
I do have a very wide circle of friends from all walks of life, and pretty much get on well with them,

...noeleena...

[arbon]

I've heard about a lot of transitioned individuals who are denied support from their LGBT communities...why is this the case? And what are your thoughts in this case?

My thought on this situation if he identifies as a man then they should treat him equally as any other man - if men are not allowed goes for him to.

As for the lgb communities I have not been around it to much being in a small community but all of my gay and lesbian friends have been very supportive of me and other trans people.

[PaulaQ]

TLDR Synopsis: Lesbians be hatin'!

So I know what bothers me about this now, and I can relate to how the woman who wrote the blog entry feels.

I've lived the bulk of my adult life up until August of last year as an uptight, middle-class, white male in the suburbs. I know that world well - I hated it, but I know it. It is a harsh, and relatively unaccepting world. There's lots of rules in this world - most of them implicit. You better know 'em if you want to fit in. (A big one in the world I inhabited was "she who has the most stuff wins.")

Now I'm living as a woman. But not a nice little suburban straight girl with a boyfriend who'd fit right in - but in a lesbian relationship with another transwoman. So I go back to my old stomping grounds from time to time. I am not very welcome unless:
- I pass really well (takes some effort, but I get there)
- my girlfriend passes really well (um, yeah, not so much yet - she can pass, she just doesn't care mostly)
- we don't do something outrageously freaky, like hold hands

When did I stop fitting in to my old world? The second they noticed me. The responses I get are frequently not terribly welcoming. It's OK - I have a thick skin.

On the other hand, I find that now I'm in the lesbian world. The thing is - I don't know the first thing about being a lesbian in the lesbian community. I'm learning, sort of, but I don't know that I really fit in well yet. I sure don't know how to behave. I don't have any close friends who are lesbians.

The world, though, has judged me and put me in that box. Am I ready for it yet? Not really, but the heteronormative world isn't well known for it's support structures for people who don't fit in well. So luckily for me, the LGBT community is way more tolerant and accepting. (I really have had a fair amount of stress though in understanding how I'm supposed to behave, what it means, etc. for me to be a lesbian.)

So let's look at the blogger and her boyfriend. For most of their lives, they'd have been two women in the lesbian community. They know this world. They are likely comfortable in it in a way that they damn sure weren't in the straight world. They were accepted, they found support, they had friends within the lesbian community.

So we put him on some "T" for a few months, he gets some fuzz on his face, and now suddenly they are no longer welcome in the community they feel secure in - "gratz ur str8!" Well, they may not be ready for such a harsh transition. They are no longer welcome in the community they feel part of, and instead get told to spend valentines day with a bunch of breeders.

The problem is the straight world is harsh and judgmental, for the most part. I love transmen - I am lucky enough to know a number of them. And I have to tell you, that ones I know who may pass extremely well physically don't necessarily pass well socially. Having a deeper voice doesn't mean you suddenly talk like a man. Lots of transmen in transition, in fact, sound pretty gay until they have practiced for quite a while. They also need to learn masculine social behaviors. This stuff isn't learned over night.

So if the couple in question had gone to a straight couple's valentine's dance here in Dallas, I can tell you what people who noticed them would likely have thought "wow, why'd that hot chick bring that gay to the dance?"

You can imagine that this might not be a very comfortable environment for someone in transition.

So it seems to me that the problem is that the lesbian community, in this case, isn't really behaving any better at supporting one of their own in transition than the straight population does. The straight world's attitude in Dallas, anyway, is "GTFO tranny!" And that's pretty much what the dance organizers did here.

I know some trans men who have been transitioned for a LONG time. I don't read them as anything but "man." I can't really imagine one of them and their SO wanting to go a lesbian dance - they just don't live in that world anymore. Maybe if a bunch of their friends were there, I dunno. But for someone who hasn't been transitioned for a long time? I can totally see how they'd want to stay in the community where they felt comfortable at least while they internalize the changes they are going through.

So how about some support from their former community maybe? Because transition isn't a discrete event. It takes time, and during that time, we're in a weird place where we often don't fit in well *anyplace* - and this goes for our SO's too. The blogger pretty clearly wasn't ready to be part of the straight world. Her partner, at least, gets some support in all likelihood during transition. She probably doesn't get any! Suddenly, she has to go from a world where she feels like she can be herself, to a world where she feels she has to hide herself. Never mind that in that world's eyes, she's dating a man and belongs there - SHE hasn't internalized that yet.

People's lack of compassion astounds me sometimes.

The party organizers got it wrong, and should be ashamed of themselves. It's sad that people who've been stigmatized and marginalized feel the need to do it to others, in turn.

[melissakozak]

The gender police exist in both the cis, gay/lesbian and trans communities. I sometimes think people forget we are all human...Namaste.....Melissa.

[FemPossible]

I hope I don't offend anyone but I kinda agree with what they said. It's kinda like a ftm going to ladies night at a bar and trying to get the perks. Is that really fair?

[flatlander_48]

The S**t we do to ourselves and our kind is unbelievable. It's like people don't understand that we are ALL on the fringes with respect to the rest of society.

[Chickhe]

...being a community of experts on gender, it is really hard to understand rigid boundaries like that... but, you often see it in any group...you get one person who doesn't understand compassion and they blindly enforce rules thinking it makes the world a better place, when really they are hurting people.

[Jenniferathome]

Is it discrimination or is it validation? These lesbians are telling this guy that he is not a woman and therefore not invited to a women's only party. Isn't that what he wants? ....


My thought on this situation if he identifies as a man then they should treat him equally as any other man - if men are not allowed goes for him to. ...

:thumbsup: Reine and Arbon got this right. This isn't a DNA test they are taking and it's not just presentation either. He's the man he wanted to be. I am shocked he wanted to attend a "woman only" event. When you can use the words, "I used to be ...." it means you are no longer THAT! Come on, be practical.

[PaulaQ]

When you can use the words, "I used to be ...." it means you are no longer THAT! Come on, be practical.

You realize transition isn't a discrete instant in time, right? And just because they were now a straight couple, it doesn't mean they were socially at a point where they were ready to go to a dance in hetero city, home of manly men and feminine women.

Perhaps the woman was a stone butch, and wasn't going to look *at all* right at a party with the breeders! They might make a rather odd looking couple, indeed.

[Angela Campbell]

So, is it the general consensus that Lesbians should never have female only parties......and if they do..."they be hatin"?

Unless you agree that lesbians should not be allowed to have a party with only women invited, there is no problem here. A person who is a man would not fit into that description. This person describes himself as a MAN. Doesn't matter what they "used to be".

No one was denied support from a LGBT community. This was not a support group it was a lesbian only dance.

"Yeah, he's a man but...was he any less of a man when he had boobs and a vagina and was 'allowed' into these events?"

What are the first 4 words of that sentence?

[PaulaQ]

And what about the spouse - did she suddenly lose her lesbian card when her partner said "I'm a man?" I bet she doesn't feel much different.

Do you seriously think there were any MtF's in attendance at that party?

You do realize that there are a fair number of lesbians who intensely dislike trans*, right?

[Angela Campbell]

And what about the spouse - did she suddenly lose her lesbian card when her partner said "I'm a man?" I bet she doesn't feel much different.

Do you seriously think there were any MtF's in attendance at that party?

You do realize that there are a fair number of lesbians who intensely dislike trans*, right?


The spouse....did she ask if she could go? Was she turned down, or just her partner?

I expect there are a number of all kinds of people who do not like trans people,Yes some do not like men, whether you are one or used to be one. Sad isn't it. I probably wouldn't want to be a part of such a group.

I also would have invited the couple since it seems they knew them for a long time, but I really do not know the dynamics of the group. They seem to be non inclusive just by having a "lesbian only" dance, but that was their choice.

[PaulaQ]

She didn't want to go without her partner.

The whole thing seems like a TERF exercise, that's my main problem with it. BTW, the TERF's wouldn't want an MtF at the dance either, as we only exist to promote rape culture from within the ranks of women.

I think it's just bs to take a pair of women - consider them members of the community, and then wait for one of them to go through this incredibly hard transition, and then kick them to the curb.