Negating Homosexuality

by on

Sharing Andrew Sullivan’s tweet about a piece in The Stranger by a person with female genitalia who presents as a man and is outraged that gay men don’t want to have sex with this person. Transgenderism of this stripe is, as Sullivan and others have said, a negation of homosexuality and of gay rights, which is the defense of same-sex attraction and sexual intimacy—same-sex, not same-gender presentation.

5 Comments for “Negating Homosexuality”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    I don’t read the same tone either you or Andrew Sullivan read in the article, though I do find the author a little quaint. I do not think the author condones his own feelings at all, it is simply that he owns them and does not denounce them.

    “I remind her that I am a trans man and ask her if her lesbianism includes trans men. She proceeds to tell me, “It does because trans men are inherently different from cis men.” I’m curious about this framework and don’t want to assume what she means, so I ask her to expand. She explains that “cis men are inherently worse than trans men because of their bodies….// Kate is engaging in something called bioessentialism, which is the practice of assigning meaning and worth to genitalia and sex assigned at birth. ”

    The reason I’m not usually attracted to female-to-male transgender people is because outwardly they look like women–face, height, build. That’s not a turn off, it’s just not a turn on. Body parts are the turn off.

    As soon as I go home, I hop on the apps (Grindr, Scruff) and see these same men. I message a few of them, as I’ve just seen them in public, and they’ve expressed explicit sexual interest in me. None of them respond to me. Why?

    It’s not because I am not attractive—they’re attracted to me on the surface. It’s because I am trans—something I blatantly list on my dating profile. So, these men are suddenly uninterested in me because of my ~perceived~ hole and ~perceived~ lack of a dick.

    I’m old-fashioned enough to assume transgender means transsexual. I’m afraid this only proves my problem with female-to-male transgender people is something a little more unfair. And anyway, I’m assuming the above is such a repeat occurrence that the reason he gets no follow up action isn’t because he was cautious if not coy about how he says yes to one night stands (which I absolutely respect).

    People of every type of presentation who get around have heaps and heaps of complaints and BS to throw around about people they’ve dated or hit on or who have hit on them, 95% of which is quite gendered. The griping sessions serve some kind of useful purpose in influencing the world to be a little more normal and less irritating. We’re better off with one more dumb idiot than without.

  2. posted by Kosh III on

    “outwardly they look like women–face, height, build. That’s not a turn off, it’s just not a turn on. Body parts are the turn off.”

    for many, looking like a woman IS a turn off. The vast majority of gay men want a MAN.

    FWIW Sullivan has lost whatever credibility he once had.

    • posted by Jorge on

      for many, looking like a woman IS a turn off.

      Men! “Always in season.”

      Oh, I’m sorry, was that too homophobic for the horny homocons?

  3. posted by Tom Jefferson on

    “We are told that the homophobia we see coming from the trans rights movement is just a small minority in online spaces only. Yet here is an article from a well known publication where the author says “Cis queer people have a problem with genitals.”

    I do not think that an opinion piece in one magazine equals widespread homophobia/biphobia within the transgender community. Couldn’t it simply be an opinion piece by someone more angry/radical then say, most transsexual and hermathidte people (at least, the ones that I know)?

  4. posted by Tom Jefferson on

    “Some of you assume I’m making this stuff up. He even calls gay men “cis fags”. They’re super sensitive until they aren’t.”

    Secondly, who exactly does Sullivan refer to with the “they’re”? Is he really suggesting that this one opinion piece (in a publication that none of my transsexual friends read) speaks for all or most transgender people?

Comments are closed.