Is Sexual Orientation an Issue? (All Can Answer)

[Valeria]

I've been reading the umpteenth thread in the MtF section about whether it's "bad" or incorrect to label crossdressers gay. It's a never-ending discussion there, with people commenting on all sides of the issue, and it made me wonder why it doesn't seem to be much of an issue with us. I'm guessing it might have to do with the difference between most FtMs and MtFs.

I agree, but I think that my reasoning is somewhat different than yours.

There are far more male-bodied "crossdressers" partly for sociocultural reasons.

The fact is that a male that wears any exclusively female garment is perceived as a crossdresser, whereas females have to dress pretty much entirely in male clothing before getting considered a crossdresser (and even then, not necessarily - no one I know in real life considers butch lesbian women that wear masculine clothing crossdressers).

Ironically, the increased social stigma associated with males wearing female clothing probably contributes to the number of males that feel a need to do so. Also, the higher testosterone levels in males do tend to contribute to higher sex drives, which does tend to contribute to higher degrees of fetishistic behavior.

So I think that there are a lot of reasons why MTF crossdressers are far more common, and it's hard to say what the results would be if we changed some of these factors.

When the crossdressers are removed from the mix, I don't see such a difference. I can't recall ever seeing a thread on whether or not it's "bad" to label MTF people as gay on a more ts-specific forum. Honestly, it wouldn't even have occured to me to ask the question. More than half the women on the forum I post at most frequently are lesbian, bisexual, or otherwise queer-identified, and a lot of them are queer activists, so it's almost a meaningless question. I proudly march in the dyke march during gay pride week.

However, the homophobia associated with being perceived as gay is certainly dangerous, and it contributes to hate crimes and discrimination against non-passable trans women.

In other words, it seems a lot of FtMs do not identify as crossdressers - and there may be a larger diversity in our group: bi-gendered, genderqueer, TG, TS, and people born female-bodied who don't quite feel female, but don't attach a label to themselves.

Within the MTF spectrum, there also seem to be a lot of bi-gendered, genderqueer, TG, TS, and people born male-bodied who don't quite feel male, but don't attach a label to themselves. Some people who were originally male-bodied see their gender as very fluid. Some believe that they are a "third" gender, or reject binary gender. Others, not so much.

Anyway, my point is that our group here (which I believe is representative of transmasculine people everywhere) doesn't seem to have much of an issue with sexual orientation, other than to occasionally question whether we may be open to switching teams.

I see lots of discussion among trans women about what their orientation is, or whether or not they are switching teams. But no one has an issue with it - they are just trying to figure it out. I've also participated in some similar discussions with cisgendered women.

Now maybe we women do care more about labels. I don't know. I'll admit that I tend to be very interested in subjects like gender, queer theory, and feminist topics - and so are a lot of my cisgendered girlfriends. But then, I've met several trans guys at discussion groups about such subjects at a feminist book store, so I'm not so convinced that it's just us women that care.

I think your belief about the transmasculine group here is the real key. This forum is not (IMO) representative of transfeminine people everywhere. The vast majority of the MTF that post here are crossdressers, or at least once considered themselves as such. On rare occasions (I know of at least 3, counting myself), a trans woman will hear that there is a forum for transsexual people here and will wander over to see if she can contribute (but most don't stay long). In general, I'd say that very few male-bodied genderqueer people and transsexual women ever even look at this forum - the name makes it sound irrelevant, and we are used to having our voices drowned out by crossdressers whenever we share a space with them.

There are a *lot* of types of voices I never hear here, and the topics have remarkably little in common with certain other forums. I'd be real skeptical about anyone making any generalization about trans women and queer male-bodied individuals with gender issues based on this forum.

Also, Trey and I had a discussion recently about how fluid gender and sexuality are, and the numerous combinations that can come about because of this. Aren't we limiting ourselves if we apply sexual orientation tags to ourselves also? Isn't there an almost limitless combination between all the different gender roles and forms of attraction?

That's all true, but I think that there are a lot of trans people (not just women) for whom their gender and sexual orientation is not that fluid, and they identify pretty exclusively with one of the two traditional genders. So for a lot of us, the traditional labels really do work well.

Also, many people go through genderqueer phases as part of transition, and then later realize that they are becoming more comfortable in one of the traditional gender identities. The most talented trans woman feminist writer that I know of has written that she thought of herself as genderqueer at one point, and she was actually very out and proud about being genderqueer, but she's since become much more conventional in her outlook. I've heard variations on that story more than once (I myself went through a phase of my life where I considered myself genderqueer).