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Pre-op Transexuals
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01-06-2006 5:39pm#1
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Perhaps I can add my experience. I would see myself like Sam in some ways in that is I am transexual. Not gay but arguably bisexual. Although the way I'm attracted to men and women is different. I am attracted to women in the usual male way, (I believe) and men in a typical female way as I understand it. So there is a duality. I don't pretend to understand. I just run with it, life is too short. I see myself as essentially female although I denied it to myself for a long time. Interestingly other people were not fooled but I alway ignored their hints.
I can't speak for Sam but I don't see this as a means of isolating myself or as a defensive measure. It is simply how I am. I believe I think like a woman and would be better off had I been born female. If there was an isolating effect or a defensive reaction then it's due to the fact that I know myself to be different and tended to hide away and avoid confronting the fact.
Now you can argue that by dressing and presenting as a woman I am hiding behind the mask of make up and frills but in fact I feel more exposed as a woman. As a man I'm anonymous. The real me is hidden. There is a difference between transvestites/crossdresser, transexuals and drag queens. Transvestites in my experience play at being women or have a fethishistic attitude to womens clothes. In fact I found transvestite groups to be basically a club where the men happen to dress as women. They even talk about football. People like me were regarded as odd. Drag queens are of course gay men hamming it up.
My experience with men is interesting. I would say 80% of the men I was with, saw themselves as essentially straight, perhaps bi. All were married. Some had children. I usually found out this after I met them. I had a couple of gay relationships. They were not interested in seeing me as woman. When I met one as a woman, he admitted he didn't find me attractive because all he saw was a woman, much like the guy in Big Brother. I was pleased with that reaction in one sense as I see myself as a woman. But it doomed any possible relationship.
On the other hand the 'straight' men I met only wanted to see me as a woman. If I met them dressed as a man, they would hardly speak and direct me somewhere to change. One, giving me a lift made me sit in the back of the car. Most wouldn't dream of dressing in womens clothes.
So quite different reactions.
I don't know what those men really wanted from me. You could argue that the attraction was the little 'extra' I have that most women don't have. But often they steered clear of it, to my relief. Perhaps in their own mind there is no gayness involved when the 'man', doesn't see himself as a man and looks like a woman.
As for me, what did I want? Sex, yes but I also wanted a relationship. I wanted to be with somebody who accepted me for what I am and saw me as a woman. The gay guys didn't. They wanted a man. The straight guys wanted a woman with a penis and in true unfaithful married man style, they lied and smooth talked their way into getting what they wanted. But afterwards they didn't call or answer emails. I fell for it every time.
My experience with women is quite different. I have a lot of women friends, not surprisingly. I told a few good women friends and they immediately accepted me as a woman even in my male persona. Most to be fair knew for a long time although they suspected I was gay. The immediate difference in our relationship was striking. Most men have no clue as to the intimacys women share. I think many men would freak if they knew what their wives or girlfriends told their friends about them.
That is perhaps why many transexuals pre or post op end up in relationships with women or other transexuals.
It's pretty much a universal experience among people like me, at least those I have been in contact with.
I don't know if this helps. It just probably adds to the confusion
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teemm wrote:Perhaps I can add my experience. I would see myself like Sam in some ways in that is I am transexual. Not gay but arguably bisexual. Although the way I'm attracted to men and women is different. I am attracted to women in the usual male way, (I believe) and men in a typical female way as I understand it. So there is a duality. I don't pretend to understand. I just run with it, life is too short. I see myself as essentially female although I denied it to myself for a long time. Interestingly other people were not fooled but I alway ignored their hints.
I can't speak for Sam but I don't see this as a means of isolating myself or as a defensive measure. It is simply how I am. I believe I think like a woman and would be better off had I been born female. If there was an isolating effect or a defensive reaction then it's due to the fact that I know myself to be different and tended to hide away and avoid confronting the fact.
Now you can argue that by dressing and presenting as a woman I am hiding behind the mask of make up and frills but in fact I feel more exposed as a woman. As a man I'm anonymous. The real me is hidden. There is a difference between transvestites/crossdresser, transexuals and drag queens. Transvestites in my experience play at being women or have a fethishistic attitude to womens clothes. In fact I found transvestite groups to be basically a club where the men happen to dress as women. They even talk about football. People like me were regarded as odd. Drag queens are of course gay men hamming it up.
My experience with men is interesting. I would say 80% of the men I was with, saw themselves as essentially straight, perhaps bi. All were married. Some had children. I usually found out this after I met them. I had a couple of gay relationships. They were not interested in seeing me as woman. When I met one as a woman, he admitted he didn't find me attractive because all he saw was a woman, much like the guy in Big Brother. I was pleased with that reaction in one sense as I see myself as a woman. But it doomed any possible relationship.
On the other hand the 'straight' men I met only wanted to see me as a woman. If I met them dressed as a man, they would hardly speak and direct me somewhere to change. One, giving me a lift made me sit in the back of the car. Most wouldn't dream of dressing in womens clothes.
So quite different reactions.
I don't know what those men really wanted from me. You could argue that the attraction was the little 'extra' I have that most women don't have. But often they steered clear of it, to my relief. Perhaps in their own mind there is no gayness involved when the 'man', doesn't see himself as a man and looks like a woman.
As for me, what did I want? Sex, yes but I also wanted a relationship. I wanted to be with somebody who accepted me for what I am and saw me as a woman. The gay guys didn't. They wanted a man. The straight guys wanted a woman with a penis and in true unfaithful married man style, they lied and smooth talked their way into getting what they wanted. But afterwards they didn't call or answer emails. I fell for it every time.
My experience with women is quite different. I have a lot of women friends, not surprisingly. I told a few good women friends and they immediately accepted me as a woman even in my male persona. Most to be fair knew for a long time although they suspected I was gay. The immediate difference in our relationship was striking. Most men have no clue as to the intimacys women share. I think many men would freak if they knew what their wives or girlfriends told their friends about them.
That is perhaps why many transexuals pre or post op end up in relationships with women or other transexuals.
It's pretty much a universal experience among people like me, at least those I have been in contact with.
I don't know if this helps. It just probably adds to the confusion
Thank you for that teemm, that's a very interesting post, and just because I'm a psychoanalyst I don't mean it in an "I'm analysing you way". I've done a small amount of work with people in "similar situations" [for want of better words]and just thought that you encapsulated it whe you said "it is simply the way you are".
Often in therapeutics we get caught up in diagnostic terms, from my perspective and a lot of the people I trained with, when we use such terms there is nothing negative in them [for some there is:mad: ] it is simply another way of being in the world. Best of luck.0 -
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