On For The Ride
Okay, so... twice in the past couple of days, while casually listening to a female acquaintance of mine talking (two different acquaintances, not the same one twice), I suddenly noticed that my eyes had strayed to her... um, yeah... that. I mean those. I mean... you know. And I thought... Really?
I wasn't ogling, or leering, or anything. There wasn't anything particularly sexual going on in my mind. In fact, I don't think there was anything going on in my mind at all. (Okay, let me just pause here while half the women I know exchange knowing looks and say, "Yup, that sounds about right..." *sigh*)
I wasn't upset, merely mildly surprised, at finding my attention thus engaged. And I don't think either of the women involved even noticed it. Really, it was pretty innocent, as such incidents go. And geesh, it's not like I haven't looked at women before. On the contrary. Having identified as lesbian for most of my adult life, I have been an appreciative admirer of the female form on many occasions, both close-up and from afar.
But I'm usually a conscious admirer, and of the whole package. (Hark back with me to James Taylor: "Something in the way she moves...") I don't generally find myself randomly staring at boobs when I'm thinking of something else.
Yes, I hear you, ladies: Typical hetero guy, right? Standard testosterone-induced brain lapse? Okay... I can handle that. Guys-born-guys learn to deal with this stuff, right? Then so can I. (It's presumably a survival trait, to avoid early death at the hands of all those mothers and sisters...)
Ah, but (as the late-night infomercials say) wait - there's more!
Because the very next day, ~just~ to confuse things, I noticed a new Facebook pic of another transguy that I know slightly, and suddenly realized that some little subset of my neurons was finding him, well, um (*cough*) somewhat attractive.
At which point the rest of my brain chimed in with a "Huh??" Yeah. Did I mention that I've identified as lesbian for most of my adult life? And I've never really had much sense of attraction to males of any sort. And the guy in this pic looks pretty damned guy-ish; if you didn't know he was trans, you wouldn't know he was trans (if ya know what I mean).
What these oddly divergent experiences are saying to me, I think, is: Welcome to the merry-go-round - or possibly the roller coaster - of transition! Because it's not unknown (in fact it's apparently pretty
common) for the ground of one's sexuality to shift, even to become somewhat fluid, during gender transition.
For one thing, there are the hormones. Hoo boy! Estrogen actually somewhat depresses the sex drive for male-to-female individuals, who may over time become more interested in snuggling and relationships than in sex. Testosterone use in female-to-male persons, however, is linked to heightened sex drive. Did I say hoo boy? Yeah. This is usually politely referred to in the literature as "changes in libido." I assume that's because "you are likely to become increasingly horny
toward anything that moves" just doesn't sound scientific enough.
I've been on testosterone for about three months now, albeit a pretty small dose for an intentionally slow start. That initial dose was finally doubled about two weeks ago. It could be coincidence that this stuff is now suddenly happening. Or it could be, um, not concidence.
But it's not necessarily just the hormones. There's also this whole crazy experience of living outside the boundaries in such a big way. No matter how much I crossed them before - this is bigger! The
decision to actually make a physical gender transition is an owning of one's real identity, on a very deep level - and at the same time it's also an invitation to the Universe to shake up that identity, stretch it and poke at it and play with it and test it. (Wheeee!)
In a lot of ways, it's like stepping onto a carnival ride. No matter how carefully you may have watched it before you bought your ticket, to make sure it wasn't going to unexpectedly turn you upside down or whirl your stomach into a state you'd rather not think about,... once you're on, you're on for the ride, wherever it takes you.
Screaming may help, or it may not. :)
I understood this intellectually (and it's a good thing I did)... but the reality is, well, reality. Abstract knowing never really quite prepares you for the actual experience.
Not that I'm complaining. Not at all. There is, for me, a sort of feeling here that everything is new... and that that's not a bad thing. I'm open to whatever ends up being truth for me - gay or straight or bi or something in between, maybe even something there's no word for (yet). And I'm not trying to figure out in advance where the wheel will stop. It's way too soon for that.
If this is confusing, I should perhaps mention that, "common sense" assumptions to the contrary, gender identity really has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual orientation. And in the bad old days, the conflation of gender identity and sexual orientation caused a lot of confusion and difficulty. For one thing, it made orientation into a roadblock; the medical establishment would only okay you to transition if it was assured that, once completed, your orientation wold be straight (i.e. "normal"). This also led to a pair of related and damaging misconceptions: the medicos tended to assume that all gay people were really transgendered, and could be turned "normal" by transition; and the gay community tended to assume that transfolk who chose to transition were really just gay people who lacked the courage to be openly gay, and were instead were caving in to the establishment's insistence that they should be made "normal." These assumptions still linger and cause a lot of bad blood today; they are one of the reasons why the inclusion of transfolk is still resented in some LGBT circles.
Luckily, conceptions of what's "normal" (darn it, I really do need to write that blog entry on "normal") these days are a lot less narrow that they used to be. It's understood, now, that some transgendered persons are attracted to what they perceive as the opposite sex, and others to what they perceive as the same sex - and so in transitioning, some move from gay to straight, and others from
straight to gay, without in any way changing their inner orientation; only the labels change. Still others find it's the inner orientation that does change, while the label stays the same. And, increasingly, some choose no label at all!
My own previous experience - waaaaaaaay back when I was still trying to be "normal" (ha) - was that I can actually be aroused to some extent by a male partner, but at a certain point, it turns off
suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch. I literally go from "Ooo..." to "Eww!" in two seconds flat. (I used to joke that I was "bi-sensual"... and as soon as things turned from sensual to sexual,
it was "bye-bye"!)
As far as I know, this is probably still the case; one moment of cross-orientation attraction does not equal an orientational shift. And it's not something I'll force. True, it does feel a little weird to suddenly be considered "straight" - but not weird enough to make me want to fake it in the ~other~ direction! There may eventually be some... experimentation... but that's another story. ;)
What seems to be required here, as in so many other aspects of this journey, is the ability to let go, to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Even if it turns you upside-down and inside-out.
It may be a long wild run on this roller coaster - or maybe it's the Tilt-A-Whirl - but I knew that when I bought the ticket, right?
And hey, out of of so many possible metaphors for life, broad ones and narrow ones, positive and negative and neutral ones... you know what? Right now I really can't think of one I'd like much better than: Life is a carnival!
I wasn't ogling, or leering, or anything. There wasn't anything particularly sexual going on in my mind. In fact, I don't think there was anything going on in my mind at all. (Okay, let me just pause here while half the women I know exchange knowing looks and say, "Yup, that sounds about right..." *sigh*)
I wasn't upset, merely mildly surprised, at finding my attention thus engaged. And I don't think either of the women involved even noticed it. Really, it was pretty innocent, as such incidents go. And geesh, it's not like I haven't looked at women before. On the contrary. Having identified as lesbian for most of my adult life, I have been an appreciative admirer of the female form on many occasions, both close-up and from afar.
But I'm usually a conscious admirer, and of the whole package. (Hark back with me to James Taylor: "Something in the way she moves...") I don't generally find myself randomly staring at boobs when I'm thinking of something else.
Yes, I hear you, ladies: Typical hetero guy, right? Standard testosterone-induced brain lapse? Okay... I can handle that. Guys-born-guys learn to deal with this stuff, right? Then so can I. (It's presumably a survival trait, to avoid early death at the hands of all those mothers and sisters...)
Ah, but (as the late-night infomercials say) wait - there's more!
Because the very next day, ~just~ to confuse things, I noticed a new Facebook pic of another transguy that I know slightly, and suddenly realized that some little subset of my neurons was finding him, well, um (*cough*) somewhat attractive.
At which point the rest of my brain chimed in with a "Huh??" Yeah. Did I mention that I've identified as lesbian for most of my adult life? And I've never really had much sense of attraction to males of any sort. And the guy in this pic looks pretty damned guy-ish; if you didn't know he was trans, you wouldn't know he was trans (if ya know what I mean).
What these oddly divergent experiences are saying to me, I think, is: Welcome to the merry-go-round - or possibly the roller coaster - of transition! Because it's not unknown (in fact it's apparently pretty
common) for the ground of one's sexuality to shift, even to become somewhat fluid, during gender transition.
For one thing, there are the hormones. Hoo boy! Estrogen actually somewhat depresses the sex drive for male-to-female individuals, who may over time become more interested in snuggling and relationships than in sex. Testosterone use in female-to-male persons, however, is linked to heightened sex drive. Did I say hoo boy? Yeah. This is usually politely referred to in the literature as "changes in libido." I assume that's because "you are likely to become increasingly horny
toward anything that moves" just doesn't sound scientific enough.
I've been on testosterone for about three months now, albeit a pretty small dose for an intentionally slow start. That initial dose was finally doubled about two weeks ago. It could be coincidence that this stuff is now suddenly happening. Or it could be, um, not concidence.
But it's not necessarily just the hormones. There's also this whole crazy experience of living outside the boundaries in such a big way. No matter how much I crossed them before - this is bigger! The
decision to actually make a physical gender transition is an owning of one's real identity, on a very deep level - and at the same time it's also an invitation to the Universe to shake up that identity, stretch it and poke at it and play with it and test it. (Wheeee!)
In a lot of ways, it's like stepping onto a carnival ride. No matter how carefully you may have watched it before you bought your ticket, to make sure it wasn't going to unexpectedly turn you upside down or whirl your stomach into a state you'd rather not think about,... once you're on, you're on for the ride, wherever it takes you.
Screaming may help, or it may not. :)
I understood this intellectually (and it's a good thing I did)... but the reality is, well, reality. Abstract knowing never really quite prepares you for the actual experience.
Not that I'm complaining. Not at all. There is, for me, a sort of feeling here that everything is new... and that that's not a bad thing. I'm open to whatever ends up being truth for me - gay or straight or bi or something in between, maybe even something there's no word for (yet). And I'm not trying to figure out in advance where the wheel will stop. It's way too soon for that.
If this is confusing, I should perhaps mention that, "common sense" assumptions to the contrary, gender identity really has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual orientation. And in the bad old days, the conflation of gender identity and sexual orientation caused a lot of confusion and difficulty. For one thing, it made orientation into a roadblock; the medical establishment would only okay you to transition if it was assured that, once completed, your orientation wold be straight (i.e. "normal"). This also led to a pair of related and damaging misconceptions: the medicos tended to assume that all gay people were really transgendered, and could be turned "normal" by transition; and the gay community tended to assume that transfolk who chose to transition were really just gay people who lacked the courage to be openly gay, and were instead were caving in to the establishment's insistence that they should be made "normal." These assumptions still linger and cause a lot of bad blood today; they are one of the reasons why the inclusion of transfolk is still resented in some LGBT circles.
Luckily, conceptions of what's "normal" (darn it, I really do need to write that blog entry on "normal") these days are a lot less narrow that they used to be. It's understood, now, that some transgendered persons are attracted to what they perceive as the opposite sex, and others to what they perceive as the same sex - and so in transitioning, some move from gay to straight, and others from
straight to gay, without in any way changing their inner orientation; only the labels change. Still others find it's the inner orientation that does change, while the label stays the same. And, increasingly, some choose no label at all!
My own previous experience - waaaaaaaay back when I was still trying to be "normal" (ha) - was that I can actually be aroused to some extent by a male partner, but at a certain point, it turns off
suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch. I literally go from "Ooo..." to "Eww!" in two seconds flat. (I used to joke that I was "bi-sensual"... and as soon as things turned from sensual to sexual,
it was "bye-bye"!)
As far as I know, this is probably still the case; one moment of cross-orientation attraction does not equal an orientational shift. And it's not something I'll force. True, it does feel a little weird to suddenly be considered "straight" - but not weird enough to make me want to fake it in the ~other~ direction! There may eventually be some... experimentation... but that's another story. ;)
What seems to be required here, as in so many other aspects of this journey, is the ability to let go, to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Even if it turns you upside-down and inside-out.
It may be a long wild run on this roller coaster - or maybe it's the Tilt-A-Whirl - but I knew that when I bought the ticket, right?
And hey, out of of so many possible metaphors for life, broad ones and narrow ones, positive and negative and neutral ones... you know what? Right now I really can't think of one I'd like much better than: Life is a carnival!
I've always said that sexual orientation is a spectrum. And, just because you sometimes look at a guy every now and then and find yourself momentarily arroised doesn't mean that you would be inclined to follow through. Then again, someone might have the right combination of physical and mental appeal at some point to inure a little experimentation. I for one have drooled a bit over a number of women in my life but have (thus far) not been inspired enough to go an inning playing for the other team. :). I am however open to the idea that the inspiration could be out there.
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