Big Gay Closet

Sexuality and love can be different things. I can be attracted to a woman sexually, but it doesn’t mean I want to be in love with a woman. If I’m going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian.
Cameron Diaz in Playboy

Let’s skip over the fact that she ignores the possibility of being bisexual in her reasoning and think about whether it’s desire or emotion that makes us queer.

A while back, OttoKitty talked about coming out as bisexual and noted that,

To be perfectly, brutally honest – I might have a lot of fun with a straight man for a few weeks.  But odds are he’s going to be too steeped in gender crap to put up with for longer than that.

In her case, bisexual men or enlightened straight men are still an option, and she mentions her less promising crushes on gay men too.

But does desire alone dictate our sexual identity? Is it enough that I have been attracted to both men and women to say that I am bisexual? Or must there be the possibility of love with the object of my desire for it to count?

Obviously we use the terms “homosexual”, “bisexual” and “sexual orientation”. Sexual desire does seem to get the emphasis in our terminology, but is it the sex that matters, or the feelings?

Does one have to be transsexual in order to need to have sex reassignment? I know that sounds like one really loaded question, and it probably is. The problem is that I have never considered myself transsexual. In fact, I loathe thinking of myself in that way. Many of my friends and family insist that they’re all but positive that I am, somehow, intersexed at some level but I cannot afford to find out just yet and the doctors do not always too a good job of listening to those suggestions.

Growing up, I had no male identity, and was never pushed to form one. It was as if everything around me was inverted. I was a girl being treated as a boy. I wore boys clothing, but never dropped any of the female body language. It was as if I was living in a mirror. Somehow, I was Alice and I had jumped through the Looking Glass.

[...]

That is where I am. I do not know what to do. All I want at this point is to stop having use the labels transsexual and transwoman and just consider myself a woman from this point on.

via Identity- I Do Not Consider Myself To Be A Transwoman or Transsexual – Lez Get Real.

Thought this was an interesting discussion on identity and labels. She brings up a really important question — who gets to define us?

In response to this post (a quote from Annalee Newitz‘s “Tranny Chasers”) I had a tweet asking me was I not sick of all the bitching and infighting over labels?

My answer? Yes. Bitching and infighting get old very quickly.

I am, however, not finished with discussion. Identity is important. Discussion of identity, I think, keeps us from becoming too complacent, and possibly forgetting the whole point. I don’t want to use labels to target or exclude, but to understand (and most importantly, tags are a really easy way to get around the blog).

Personally, my identity continues to evolve. I identify most comfortably as queer, but more commonly as lesbian, since the word queer can still be upsetting to people (and my identity shouldn’t upset those people, although I have no problem with it upsetting some). I use the word “gay” a lot too, as a catch-all, because it’s small and portable and you all know what I mean.

I don’t know where it comes from, but my old professor used to say the point of preaching was to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” While I no longer have any intentions to stand behind a pulpit, that mission statement sits really easily with me.

So labels… yea or nay?

(I contemplated a poll, but I’d rather a discussion)

If attraction to the same sex makes you homosexual or bisexual, does attraction to people of indeterminate or transfigured sex give you an identity, too? The only word we have for such an identity is the mostly insulting term “trannychaser,” an epithet I’ve generally heard applied to sexually repressed men who suck MTF cock but still claim that they’re straight. This “I’m a straight guy who likes chicks with dicks” scenario is probably what spawned the term trannychaser in the first place, and it’s the bane of every chased tranny’s existence. It seems like all sorts of trannies, from drag queens to transsexuals, have a story about some creepy guy who fucked them or flirted with them and then expected a quiet nod in agreement when he declared his hetero status. “I don’t care whether you’re male or female,” a pre-op MTF told me once, “if you’re attracted to me, you’re not straight.”

via Trannychaser by Annalee Newitz – Nerve.com.

(I actually have nothing to add to this, except to urge you to read it all, and that I’d love to hear what you think.)