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Blogs > MJputergurl > Many Gendered Things

TOP 13 MYTHS ABOUT TRANSWOMEN - #1  

MJputergurl 60F  
57 posts
8/28/2012 9:30 am
TOP 13 MYTHS ABOUT TRANSWOMEN - #1

1. Trans women are just really, really, REALLY gay.

Short answer: sex, gender and sexuality do not have a deterministic relationship to one another.

This one is impressively persistent, and unbelievably common. It was even pulled out recently while Lance Bass, an openly gay man, was guest-hosting Access Hollywood. The truth is fairly simple: gender identity and sexual orientation have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. A fairly common adage used to address this misunderstanding is “sexual orientation is about who you want to go to bed with, gender identity is about who you go to bed as.”

One way to address this is to simply point out the existence of trans lesbians (that is, trans women who are attracted to other women). Problem solved. Let’s go have tea and scones.

A lot of this confusion stems from how strongly we associate behaviour with gender. The cultural assumption of heterosexuality as the norm is so intrinsic, we see gay men as being somehow in defiance of what it is to be a man. They become regarded as female-like or transgender simply by engaging in a mode of sexuality that is more common for women than men, even though many gay men express themselves in an almost hyper-masculine way. This misconception is amplified by our overemphasis of sex and sexuality when thinking about gender and what gender means, so we can end up regarding any expression of gender as being about sexuality. Such as the widespread assumption by men that women dress nice or stylishly or sexily primarily as a means of attracting men, rather than simply an expression of their own identity and feelings that day.

This myth is damaging to both trans women and gay men alike. It also often leads to trans issues being swept aside or subsumed within broader discussions of LGB issues, when this is often the primary thing transpeople are trying to differentiate about themselves as compared to GLB folk.
"Know masculinity, maintain femininity, and be a ravine for all under heaven." - Lao Tzu
MJputergurl 60F  
88 posts
8/28/2012 3:11 pm
    Quoting rm_9orion1:
    Why people even have to judge one another because of sexual preference is beyond me. I have both gay and lesbian friends and I treat them the same as my straight friends. One of the biggest problems we have as a society is the labels we insist on placing on people. So Gay, Strait, Trans-Gender, Lesbian or whatever live your life and let others live the way that makes them happy. MJ this might not be exactly what your talking about but I think if people lived this way your blog would not even need to be written.
Your comment truly does go to the heart of the matter. The reason we have these labels is largely because of the false binary or dichotomy that says people are all either men, or women; and that such division is based on one's external genitalia.

Elementary reproductive biology taught in schools is far oversimplified and biased towards maintaining this false status quo. I could rattle off at least 15 known different ways in which either sex chromosomes or primary and secondary sex characteristics can vary from the assumed "normal" of XX/XY development that most people aren't even aware exist. These are just the ones known to science.
"Know masculinity, maintain femininity, and be a ravine for all under heaven." - Lao Tzu


rm_9orion1 72M
121 posts
8/28/2012 12:27 pm

 Why people even have to judge one another because of sexual preference is beyond me. I have both gay and lesbian friends and I treat them the same as my straight friends. One of the biggest problems we have as a society is the labels we insist on placing on people. So Gay, Strait, Trans-Gender, Lesbian or whatever live your life and let others live the way that makes them happy. MJ this might not be exactly what your talking about but I think if people lived this way your blog would not even need to be written.


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