This Transgender is Not Your Transgender } "I am a sexual anthropologist"

Gay Socialites.com   

 I live my everyday life as a straight man. Over the past ten years, I’ve only had long-term relationships with women. Your potential curiosity and skepticism are natural: Why should you care what I have to say in a sex column on a gay website?       

Here’s my f****** resume.

Over the past ten years, I’ve had sex with straight men, gay men, transgender women, transgender men, queer women, and straight women. More significantly, I have had sex with them as a woman, as a genderqueer, and (for the past few years) as a man.

If you already know exactly what I’m talking about, it probably means that trans identities are on your radar. Here’s a cookie for you. If you haven’t put two-and-two together, let me spell it out: I’m a transsexual man (female-to-male), and I’m here to open a door that you will never regret walking through.

A necessary disclaimer before diving in: My experiences and views certainly don’t represent those of all trans people, though I like to think I can speak to some common experiences. And one of those is this: Though everyone in the contemporary United States arguably has a complex relationship with sex, trans people often have a particularly complicated one. Not only do we frequently grapple with cognitive dissonance (the disconnect between what’s going on in our heads and what’s – sometimes – going on in our bodies), but we have to constantly dodge misunderstandings and ignorance tossed at us left and right. Transgender women are hypersexualized and fetishized – transgender men are often desexualized.

Frankly, many trans people I know have had particularly tenuous relationships with gay male communities. Take, as an illustrative example, the recent experience of a trans male (FTM) friend of mine at a popular NYC gay bar. The guy he had made out with for most of the night invited him back to his place, around the corner.

“Sure,” my friend said. “Before we go back there, though, I just want to give you the heads up that I’m trans.”

The guy paused, confused at first, and then gave a big smile. “Ha ha ha. You’re kidding.”

That kind of disbelief is loaded for a trans person like him, or like me. On the one hand, it affirms how well we pass as male. On the other hand, it can sometimes sound like “I don’t believe you because you look too convincing to really be trans” – which displays ignorance by implying that the other person expects to “know” when people are trans, and that in turn turns the statement into an insult to trans people on the whole.

“No, I’m not kidding. I’m a female-to-male trans person. It doesn’t change anything, I just wanted you to know.”

The gay cisgender guy became visibly uncomfortable, shifting his weight and looking my friend up and down.

“Oh, sorry… I’m just not into trans guys.”

This, after having demonstrated that he was very into my friend for the entire night, rang a little hollow. My friend, having moved past the stage of self-loathing that might compel him to continue pursuing this man, just looked at him and calmly stated: “Then you simply don’t have any clue what I could do to you.” And he walked away.

This assertion resonates for me. To anyone who likes men but says things like “I’m not into trans guys”: I won’t go out of my way to hold your ignorance against you – but if you’re smart, you’d want me to.

After all, versatility has been my forte. I have fucked as though it were my job. I have fucked while embodying a wide-array of role-playing “characters.” I have fucked after flogging someone – or getting flogged – senseless. I have fucked out of self-loathing and a desire to escape myself. I have fucked multiple people at the same time. I fucked my ex-girlfriend’s roommate. I have fucked as though boundaries do not exist; and, alternately, I have fucked to illustrate the significance of my love and desire for simply one person. I have fucked people because I thought they might be the last person on earth to find me desirable. I have fucked as a panacea for all problems in a relationship. I have fucked sober; I have fucked high and drunk. I have fucked to feel powerful. I have deliberately fucked people I’ve found disgusting and abhorrent. I have fucked people to be put in my place and humiliated. I have fucked to cheat, and fucked because I was cheated on. I have fucked out of boredom. I have fucked monogamously; I have fucked polyamorously. It is possible that I have not gone more than three weeks without fucking since I started when I was sixteen years old. If I haven’t done it, I have voyeuristically watched it happen.

I experience the world through a lens of sexuality – for better or worse. Sex infuses everything I see.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that for the vast majority of humans sex is overwhelmingly psychological. Once I understand what is in someone’s head (how you think, what words turn you on, what makes you feel powerful, what you fantasize about), nothing – not body parts, not venue, not identity, nothing – will get in the way of me blowing your mind.

This is what I call sexual fluency. It is a skill I possess in an array of sexual languages, and which results from an immersion in a diverse span of sexual cultures and communities. I am a sexual anthropologist, and my approach is qualitative. Each week, I will present an anecdote or experience to illuminate my experiences – and, if you’re lucky, you’ll learn more of the details about who, what, how, and where in the process.

Welcome to my Master’s thesis.

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Damien Park writes what he knows.  Every Sunday at GaySocialites.com.