Bisexual, Pansexual, Polysexual...is it all semantics?

Thanks guys. I've used forums for over five years, so it is taking me off guard that I've seen a few new ones here. I will refer to that topic for future ones if I remember.
 
Okay, so I am curious. I had written in another thread that I am not attracted to bisexual men. I had admitted that, even if there is some initial attraction to a guy, it goes away when I find out he is bi. I said that I think it has something to do with what I consider masculine, and I prefer only to be involved sexually with masculine straight men.

After that, someone PM'd me to tell me (very respectfully) that what I was talking about is homophobia. I feel that I am not homophobic, as I have no qualms or problems working with, living with, or socializing with bisexual or gay people -- I just don't want to hookup with a bi man. The idea of being sexual with a bi man turns me off, I admit it. So, I asked this person, "When is it a phobia and when is it simply a preference?" But then we never followed through with our conversation, so it is still something I wonder about. Even if it turns out that I do have some form of homophobia, however, does the logic then also follow that I should have sex with a bi man to get over it? I'm not being facetious; I am sincerely asking.


Are you also insinuating that people choose what they are attracted to and that if they somehow aren't attracted to everything under the sun then they are being discriminatory?

Discriminatory, probably not. Somewhat brainwashed by our culture, certainly. No, no one is required to be attracted to "everything under the sun," but our choices are probably sent in certain pathways early on by our culture. Either the mega culture or a micro culture, perhaps.

And why must it be that my heterosexuality is a result of societal brainwashing and not simply my preference and the identity with which I am comfortable? Is every straight person actually considered unenlightened, close-minded, and conformist, as if we made the wrong choice against what we really, really want because we do not ID as gay, bi-, pan-, or whatever other choices are out there?
 
The reason I asked this question is because I've read (I think it was on Reddit) that some trans people take umbrage and feel objectified when someone admits they have a "preference" for trans/genderqueer/hermaphrodite/androgynous people. That thread was linked-to from somewhere, and I'm not particularly fond of slogging through Reddit (especially on the iPod), so I thought it was appropriate to bring it up in this thread. I was asking with a specific intent in mind, and I failed to mention that in my previous post.

I was interested in the answer because I have heard/read the same thing. I was told that specifically liking trans people was very transphobic, because if you weren't transphobic then you wouldn't even make a difference between trans and non-trans people, and therefore you would be unable to be attracted to one group more than the other.
 
I was told that specifically liking trans people was very transphobic, because if you weren't transphobic then you wouldn't even make a difference between trans and non-trans people, and therefore you would be unable to be attracted to one group more than the other.

I see the reason as not wanting to be objectified, or fetishized.

Another example: I would not want to be with someone who ONLY dates plus-size women, even though I am plus-sized. I love it when someone is interested in all sizes or doesn't even notice my size, but I don't want to be someone's fetish and sought out only for my size.
 
NYCindie -

I am not attracted to bi-guys either . I've never even experienced much in the "initial attraction" part though (it was only ever later that I found out they were bi) even if they would normally fit my my "profile"). (PS. I don't have the same reaction to bi-girls however - apparently bi-girls can still fit my personal definition of girlie-girl and bi-guys don't fit my personal profile of manly-men...there's no accounting for taste.) Also, straight guys who are homophobic also turn me right off. As to some opposites- I have never been attracted to a lesbian and hetero-hatred also turns me right off.

I consider both of my guys as "straight but not narrow" in that they don't shy away from experiences just because they may be hit on by men - "Thanks for your interest but I'm straight, can I buy you a drink anyway?." works well for them. And they would not shy away from an experience where they might be exposed to another man's penis, even if not involved with it directly (I do like my MFM threesomes).

I like boys who like girls and girls who like boys (and maybe girls) but are flattered by attention by either sex and respond (in my mind) appropriately and with compassion in any given situation, (That's the best summation I can give currently.)

Jane("Still-bi-and-not-Pan")Q
 
I don't have the bi-guy thing, but I've had it with gay people. The usual scenario is that I fantasize over a famous guy, learn he's gay, and become unable to fantasize about hi or be aroused by him. I find it endlessly frustrating because I still want to. It's like my brain is telling me "okay, in that scenario, you meet this super famous guy and he's willing to date you, but now you've learned he's actually gay, so NOW this is unrealistic? Give me a break, brain."

I hate that. I've lost very good fantasy out of some self-stopping, like my brain feels like fantasizing about these men is akin to rape since they'd never consent. This is very annoying.

Not a problem with bi guys though, since they'd still be interested in women (although probably not in me. For some reason my brain doesn't care about that).

I'm not sure at what point something is a fetish and at what point it's a preference. If you're plus-size and the person is only attracted to plus-size people, is it really that different from being female and the person being only attracted to females? Neither has anything to do with who you are as a person, they're just chemical attraction based.

Conversations about what is or isn't transphobic are very hard to follow for me. I'm female. I have a female body. I have a mind. My mind isn't female. Give me a male body and I'll be a gay male instead of a straight female. I'm not cis-gendered, I don't have a gender, I don't understand what gender is, how it works, I can't tell what anyone's gender ever is unless they tell me.
I understand the physical aspect and a big part of the conventions. If I see someone in a dress and makeup I'll default to "her" and not "him", although of course they could be a crossdressing man, so that's not foolproof. But otherwise I go by the sex of the person, because the concept of a male and female gender are to me like the concept of an orange or green aura.
Okay, your aura might be orange, it might be green. That means nothing to me, I can't see auras. I totally believe that you can see them, but that's not going to help me.

So I'm all for calling trans people what they want to be called and treating them the way they want to be treated, but I don't think I'll ever understand it. I can't think of a single thing that's specific to every female and no males, or the other way around. To me the concept of "gender" seems to be a mishmash of societal and cultural norms that change from one place to the next, and there is so much variety in every single personality trait that it seems to me there are as many genders are there are people on earth. For every person who finds me extremely feminine there will be one who says I'm "such a guy" or "a gay guy in a woman's body".
And I really don't care if I'm feminine or masculine, or both, or neither. I'm just me. I'm glad I don't have to deal with trans-related problems, because they seem pretty horrible, but I simply cannot identify as cisgendered as well, because saying that my gender matches my sex is implying that I have a gender, which I don't believe is the case. I have a sex, it's female due to my body parts, and if I had been born with different body parts I'd be the exact same person mentally, just not the same physically. I'd be a man. I'd be fine with it. I would be fine on principle if someone was to zap me and turn me into a man from now on. Practically though, that would be a problem since my boyfriend is straight and we'd have to break up. Plus, it's much harder to find guys interested in males than in females.
I would have gone through different experiences as a man, being treated differently both for being a man and for being gay. But would I hate the things I love? Would I be good at the things I suck at? I doubt it. I can't think of anything else that would change with me.

Yet I don't like the idea of saying I'm neutrois or agender either. I'm a woman. I default to the body I have, in the absence of anything else, and I'm totally fine with that. If I could switch from one to the other I'd do it on a daily basis, but I can't and I'm not losing sleep over it.

Anyways, my point is that, I'm not trying to be obtuse here, when being confused about the things that offend you, Magdlyn. I simply can't understand them. My sexual/physical attraction to people is entirely based on the way they look and smell and feel to the touch. My intellectual/emotional attraction is based on who they are as a person. They are two completely independent things. I cannot translate liking someone as a person and a close friend into being sexually attracted to them if they don't "click" for me. Which I can't imagine happening if they have a vagina.

And that's probably the part that was offensive about your sentence. Your either/or option was date them or throw up/beat them up. What if you say "I'm so sorry, I care a lot about you, but we're just sexually incompatible, it would never work" and you develop your relationship without a romantic or sexual aspect, as a friendship? Does it have to be dating or being a jerk? Why can't you reject someone while still respecting them?

I don't know why people would have hangups about the fact they had sex with someone who used to have a penis. I don't understand why it would make a difference for them. The fact is that it does, though, so it seems to me you'd want to know if the person is a jerk before you have sex with them. So telling them afterwards seems... I don't know, I can't imagine doing it. Hell, I can't imagine having sex with a guy without telling him /I/ got operated on, which had nothing to do with gender or sex but still happened. It's just, if you're going to be intimate with it, I'd rather you knew everything first. No bad surprise for either of us this way.

About the example with penises that are unusually small or large, I don't think you have any obligation to reveal it before you take your clothes off (it will be obvious, after all), but I do think it would probably be a deal breaker for some people. If it was me, I'd tell them so that they can reject me while I still have my clothes on.
 
A bisexual man I know explained it to me as this:

Bisexual means two-- you like biological men and women.

Pansexual means a gamut--you like men, women, and anything in between. I.e., androgynous, transgendered, intersex, etc etc.

So he says he identified as bisexual and not pansexual because he "likes his men very much manly and his women very much womanly". (His words, not mine.)

So that's what I've been assuming since.

Using the definition of bisexual like that though sadly does send a very transfobic message (also a bit mysognistic (sp?) and perhaps even misandryc (sp?)), even if it is unintentional on the part of the person who uses the bisexual definition like that. It might not be intentional but the underlining patriarchical (sp?)cultural baggage for that kind of definition for bisexual gives unintentionally a very negative and rigid message within it.

If you define bisexual as someone who is attracted to biological men and women, with the add on of only manly macho men and womanly feminine women, then you are defining to others (and other bisexuals) whether you meant to or not what makes a real man and a real woman.

With a bisexual definition like that a real man is someone who is born as a cis-gendered male and who is butch, strong, stereotypically masculine and macho and a real woman is also only someone who is born as a cis-gendered female who is stereotypically feminine, soft, sweet ect.

A definition of bisexual like that basically unintentionally rigidly defines and labels for others what makes a real man and a woman. It wipes out for others a bit more flexible fluid defining of gender.

For example a definition of bisexual like that (only biologically born cis-gendered manly men and womanly women) excludes the existence and even a possibility of there being other bisexuals who are attracted to for example tomboyish women and androgynous looking men, because by definition like that tomboyish women (cis-gendered or not) are not womanly & feminine enough and androgynous looking men (cis-gendered or not) are not manly and macho enough. You are implying for other bisexuals that they must be gender confused in their attractions or label them as pansexuals, even if they don't feel the label sticks for them.

A definition like that basically implies that everyone who doesn't fallow a rigid patriarchic (sp?) stereotypical their born biological sex gender behavior code is not a real man or a woman. That anything outside of the stereotypical gender parameters must be a gender confused person. That is the kind of strictly labeling negative and limiting message a person sends out without meaning to if they use a definition of bisexual like that.

Instead it is preferable to use a definition of bisexual is someone who is attracted to both genders. And that's it! Without adding any other of biological sex or stereotypical manly men and womanly women to the definition. That way you don't define for others and send out a message of what makes for a real man or a woman.

When you define bisexual as someone who is attracted to both males and females without adding anything to the definition you will give people of both genders some breathing room to be simply men and women without labeling them in to boxes or telling them they are gender confused. Gender makes what is between your ears and not what is between your legs.

Pansexual would still be a needed term, because even with a definition of bisexual as simply someone who is attracted to both genders without any add ons, there still would be people who don't subscribe to any gender definition whatever their biological sex is.

Sorry for the rambling and bad spelling. Hopefully I was coherent. English is not my first language.
 
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Okay, so I am curious. I had written in another thread that I am not attracted to bisexual men. I had admitted that, even if there is some initial attraction to a guy, it goes away when I find out he is bi. I said that I think it has something to do with what I consider masculine, and I prefer only to be involved sexually with masculine straight men.

After that, someone PM'd me to tell me (very respectfully) that what I was talking about is homophobia. I feel that I am not homophobic, as I have no qualms or problems working with, living with, or socializing with bisexual or gay people -- I just don't want to hookup with a bi man. The idea of being sexual with a bi man turns me off, I admit it. So, I asked this person, "When is it a phobia and when is it simply a preference?" But then we never followed through with our conversation, so it is still something I wonder about.

I guess, Cindie, there are degrees of homophobia. I don't understand why being bi would make a man less masculine in your eyes. Surely there are millions of extremely masculine bi and gay men out there. Muscled, bearded or stubbled, tall, broad shouldered, into sports, war, politics, tractors, beer, or whatever it is you see as masculine pursuits. Maybe if this certain bi guy was a Top, only into penetrating, you'd find him a masculine guy... if he was into being penetrated you'd see that as too feminine? Otherwise, I don't get it either.

Even if it turns out that I do have some form of homophobia, however, does the logic then also follow that I should have sex with a bi man to get over it? I'm not being facetious; I am sincerely asking.

If you feel you are beset with a degree of homophobia, examine it and see what you find. No one is obliged to have sex with anyone they aren't attracted to.

I like bi guys a lot, because I am bi/pan. We click in that way, there is an area we don't have to explain to each other. We can both check out hot guys on the street together and share that, etc.

And why must it be that my heterosexuality is a result of societal brainwashing and not simply my preference and the identity with which I am comfortable? Is every straight person actually considered unenlightened, close-minded, and conformist, as if we made the wrong choice against what we really, really want because we do not ID as gay, bi-, pan-, or whatever other choices are out there?

Well, our culture IS overwhelmingly hetero based. You may be wired hetero though, if you've never ever had a fantasy about kissing or having sex with a woman. IMO, some people really are straight, some people really are gay. It's the people in the middle who would suffer from the het culture, trying to force themselves into the straight box on a daily basis.
 
I was interested in the answer because I have heard/read the same thing. I was told that specifically liking trans people was very transphobic, because if you weren't transphobic then you wouldn't even make a difference between trans and non-trans people, and therefore you would be unable to be attracted to one group more than the other.

As I understand it, some transwomen like being fetishized. But more allow themselves to be fetishized as "she-males" and become paid sex workers. It can be very hard for transwomen to get and keep jobs because of our transphobic culture, so a large percentage of transwomen (as compared to cis gendered) do become sex workers.

Some men do get off on the fantasy of having a "she-male." They love the kinky idea of having a sex partner who has breasts and a cock. However, these men may not care about the person inside, just the kinky feeling of having sex with someone who has parts of a man and parts of a woman on one body. This, of course, is disrespectful, to be reduced to your body parts alone, leaving your psyche and heart out of the relationship.

Personally, I can be attracted to a drag queen, a cross dressing male, a butch woman, a femme woman, or a transperson, for their personality. The body parts don't really matter. It's all good. However I do have a special place in my heart for those that don't fit into "manly man" or "womanly woman" boxes, as I do not either. I can feel an instant bond, be simpatico, with them. There is much that is understood without needing to be explained, unlike here in this thread.

I am quite willing to admit that my attraction to femme women comes from early conditioning. Peeking at my dad's Playboys, watching movies and TV of the 1950s and 60s, big bosomy women with small waists and full skirts, gartered stockings, lots of makeup and "done" hair. This was presented to me as the way "real" women should look.

However, for me, when I first saw Dr Frank N. Furter in his garters and stockings and corset and makeup and hairdo, I also got turned on. Go figure! I guess I was 18 and by then aware that "real women" in all their frippery were as fake as can be. It takes hours of work to look like a real woman! Fuck that shit. Those "real" women, at the end of the day, take off their tight corsets and shapewear, their crippling high heels, their sticky makeup, with much relief. Then, they are actually real.
 
Not a problem with bi guys though, since they'd still be interested in women (although probably not in me.

Why don't you think certain bi guys would be interested in you?

I'm not sure at what point something is a fetish and at what point it's a preference. If you're plus-size and the person is only attracted to plus-size people, is it really that different from being female and the person being only attracted to females? Neither has anything to do with who you are as a person, they're just chemical attraction based.

Chemical attraction based? Or maybe some kind of conditioning. The old nature vs nurture argument.

Conversations about what is or isn't transphobic are very hard to follow for me. I'm female. I have a female body. I have a mind. My mind isn't female.

Actually, if you're a woman in your body and feel like a woman in your brain, you do have a female brain. Modern science is finding out much more about the brain these days. There are female brains, male brains and brains that fall somewhere in between. Gay men have brains with more female characteristics than straight male brains have.

My gf was born with a penis but has a female brain. Research has shown that there are 2 washes of androgen to a fetus during gestation. One affects the body of the fetus, one affects the brain. She got the androgens to her body, but then her mom's hormones didn't fire out the 2nd wash and give the same message to her brain to also be male.

Despite having a boy's body, her body language, voice inflections, interests, desire for long hair, clothing choices, etc., were always so feminine. She looked around, saw that women in our cluture plucked their eyebrows, shaved their legs and painted their nails, and she started doing it. She had a desire to shop for cute girl clothes and when her parents went to thrift stores, she wanted to shop for housewares, not tools. She pierced her ears and started carrying a purse and buying girl jeans. Her parents were constantly complimented on what a cute little girl they had. Her parents would correct those people, and also tell miss pixi she was a boy... she grew up extremely confused. EXTREMELY.


Anyways, my point is that, I'm not trying to be obtuse here, when being confused about the things that offend you, Magdlyn. I simply can't understand them. My sexual/physical attraction to people is entirely based on the way they look and smell and feel to the touch. My intellectual/emotional attraction is based on who they are as a person. They are two completely independent things. I cannot translate liking someone as a person and a close friend into being sexually attracted to them if they don't "click" for me. Which I can't imagine happening if they have a vagina.

Then you're straight. I don't find that offensive.

And that's probably the part that was offensive about your sentence. Your either/or option was date them or throw up/beat them up. What if you say "I'm so sorry, I care a lot about you, but we're just sexually incompatible, it would never work"

Actually I addressed other options in a further post. I guess you didnt see it. However, be aware that it happens all the time. The puking followed by the beating up, or even murder, when a straight guy ends up unexpectedly attracted to a transwoman. Or maybe... the ones that have the extreme reaction of puking and violent assault are not all that comfortable in their masculinity, and not as straight as they think they should be. So, if they get in a clinch with a transwoman, it makes them feel "gay," and they are so used to hating that part of themselves (because of our hetero, gay hating society, especially in red states, but not limited to there) they are actually beating themselves up when they beat up their date.
 
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For the record, while, as I said, I think it's pointless and even counter-productive to tell someone they shouldn't be offended by something, I don't necessarily think there was anything wrong with RfromRMC's friend's initial statement about manly men and womanly women, taken at face value. Sure, you could take it to mean "I only want partners who strictly adhere to the gender binary and anyone who bends it is inherently unattractive" but you could also just take it to mean "I find myself attracted to people who ID as male and are butch-presenting and people who ID as female and are femme-presenting." That doesn't rule out trans folks and it's not in and of itself a bad thing, as long as the person making that statement is cool with people who don't have those combinations of identification and presentation.

Of course, I can also see why someone would want to challenge someone who made that statement because, unfortunately, all too many people who base their interest in prospective partners on an adherence to the gender binary are *not* cool with binary-bending folks and trans folks. But, as has been pointed out, a bi guy would be more likely than most to not have such hang-ups. On the other hand, RfromRMC went on to explain that his friend was only interested in "biological" men and women, which brings us to...

The fact that there are some other things that I'm *really* not so ok with. One is the "I only want to date "biological women", i.e. women who were born with vaginas" thing (or "biological" men who were born with penises, but let's stick with the one example to keep things simple). There's just no possible rationale for this that comes down to anything but transphobia. I can understand not wanting to date anyone, male or female, with a penis... maybe penises just irredeemably squick you out. But would you consider dating an XX woman who had been born without a recognizable vagina and had had genital reconstructive surgery in infancy to create one? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it was functional and gave her pleasure and looked and felt like the other vaginas with which you'd interacted. If not, seriously, that's messed up, what is your problem with anyone born different??? And if so, ok, it's not being born with a vagina that's the issue. So, is it chromosomes, hormones? Would you consider dating an XY woman who'd been born with a functional vagina and plenty of estrogen and was shocked to discover later in life that she also has internal testes? Would you consider dating an XX woman who had had a hysterectomy and needed estrogen therapy? I could go on, but you get the point. When it comes down to it, I can't see how it's not just about prejudice ("not a *real* woman") and/or fear ("that'd make me gay"). I would welcome having it explained to me.

I also have a really hard time figuring out how "bi guys are less masculine so I don't date them because I only like masculine men" could possibly be about anything other than prejudice. As Mags said, there are bi guys who fit every single definition of traditional masculinity aside from liking the cock. So... how is it about anything other than having a problem with men who like the cock? I truly am not trying to say that you have to like everyone, or that you have to like the same types of people that I like, but I just can't see a rationale that isn't based, at least on some buried, deep-seated internalization level, on the part of our culture that says "ew, gays." I wish I could. :/

To bring it back around to the original topic, ID'ing as bi rather than pan is fine, that's a semantic choice that I often make myself, BUT... I think it takes a LOT of soul-searching to make sure that your preferences are not actually just prejudices. It *is* possible to purposefully set out to discard one's prejudices, and I wonder if, in many cases, people who ID as bi might find themselves leaning towards pan as they did so.
 
I definitely agree with most of what you said in the last post, AM. Some of our turn offs (if not necessarily the turn ons) are likely rooted in deeper prejudices. I would be very interested in exploring or discussing that topic.

I guess my whole thing from the start of the explosion was how Magdlyn chose to word her responses. I absolutely think that people should be able to address things that they find to be wrong/uncomfortable/offensive with what others say, but I am very much a proponent of respectful and rational discourse. I don't see how immediately responding with combative speech like "is he going to puke and beat them up" is going to help the trans-person cause or educate anyone on the issues at hand. Even still this late in the topic, she is writing that she has imagined the horrible things this man would do if he encountered a transperson. To me, a lot of her posts have felt antagonistic or lecturing, rather than trying to point out something insensitive and discuss. This has even happened in the face of people trying to tell her that no one is advocating against transpeople in this topic and that they don't think there was any malicious intent in the original post.

This is actually quite an unusual argument/discussion for me because I am usually the one on the side of "respect diversity, show sensitivity, pay attention to your word choice" so it is quite new to me to experience what I feel, in my opinion, to be a bit of an overreaction on a topic like this and be on the side of "I don't think it was meant to be that offensive, why are you lashing out like this?"

My problem is not with questioning the original post. It could be interpreted many ways, and is kind of ambiguous. My problem is with attaching this very ugly and violent picture of this man without asking for clarification or something first. It may be common for horrible things to happen to transpeople, but it is not okay to assume that this man will be like this based off of an expressed non-attraction to transpeople. Like you said, bi men are probably far less likely to have these hangups than straight men. There is nothing about that statement that really educates people about trans issues or does anything than stir up a giant swarm of hornets, which it has successfully done. I would love for the hornets to be smoked out of the topic though, because I really do think sexuality and gender identity are some of the most fascinating topics to discuss.
 
Fascinating topic!

I have identified as Bi since i was around 5 or 6 (very open parents - although i assume i just overheard the word and went 'yeah, thats what i am', rather than having them sit down and explain it to me), and have only encountered the term pan recently.

I am kind-of transitioning over to using pan, because in a way i do feel that bi limits me to 'two' rather than 'all'. That said, i'm not actually sure if i've met anyone who was trans/intersex etc IRL (i may have, but i wasn't aware of it), so any interest i would have around making friends with or dating one - well, i worry that i'm straying so far away from the heteronormative that i'm entering fetish land, which i also don't want to do.

So its interesting.
On the topic of types i go for - i actually quite like androgyny in some people, and in others i really like the super masculine/femme. *shrug* do what suits you and i'll either be attracted or not. :p
Ironically i usually have a thing for 'big' guys (not masculine per se - just broad shoulders, possibly on the heavier side of normal), and male DP is quite lean, not much taller than me - but overly macho - which i find irritating as buggery. :p
 
Why don't you think certain bi guys would be interested in you?

Oh, what I meant was simply that I don't expect everyone to be attracted to me, even if their orientation matches. Obviously there is more to attraction than just orientation, I'm not attracted to every single man ever, and I don't expect someone to be attracted to me just because they like females. Nothing deeper about it.

Chemical attraction based? Or maybe some kind of conditioning. The old nature vs nurture argument.

That's possible, although there are also many fetishes that seem to pop out of nowhere. It's probably a mix.
What I meant about chemicals is that my ex was a big guy, and I wasn't attracted to him, and for the longest time I thought maybe I just wasn't into big guys. But then I met Seamus, and he's even bigger, and I'm very much attracted to him. He's hot, and I know he'd be hot at any size. I don't know why he's hot to me, so I'm thinking that pheromones are playing a part. I hear we tend to be attracted to people whose immune system completes ours the most.

Actually, if you're a woman in your body and feel like a woman in your brain, you do have a female brain.

I don't know, I don't really "feel like a woman in my brain". I feel like neither a man nor a woman, but just someone who has a female body, and so I'm fine with people calling me a woman, and I'm fine with saying I am one, but I'm only talking about my body. When I was younger and people mistook me for a boy, I was neither offended nor happy, I just didn't correct them because I didn't see why it would matter. I didn't see the point of shaving or wearing make-up, so I didn't. I played videogames and card games and board games and roleplaying games, and the other players were all male, but that didn't make me a guy either. I was never confused because I never felt I had to do what other girls did to be a girl too. I was a girl because of my body, and I hung out with boys because on average boys were cool and girls were weird.
I had a few female friends too, the ones who had similar tastes to me. Now as an adult I get along better with females than I did then. For a long time I just couldn't relate to them, it felt like it was always about drama and scheming and stuff with most girls. But I knew not all girls were like that, since I wasn't.

Despite having a boy's body, her body language, voice inflections, interests, desire for long hair, clothing choices, etc., were always so feminine. She looked around, saw that women in our cluture plucked their eyebrows, shaved their legs and painted their nails, and she started doing it. She had a desire to shop for cute girl clothes and when her parents went to thrift stores, she wanted to shop for housewares, not tools. She pierced her ears and started carrying a purse and buying girl jeans. Her parents were constantly complimented on what a cute little girl they had. Her parents would correct those people, and also tell miss pixi she was a boy... she grew up extremely confused. EXTREMELY.

This is the part that I find most interesting in your post. Because there is not a single thing you mentioned that matches me as a kid, or me as an adult for that matter. Does that make me a trans guy? I don't think I could be one without knowing it, and I assume you'd agree with that.
But if not a single one of the things that make your girlfriend a female are something I share with her, can we both be females? And if so, what are the rules? There is obviously not a set list, and if we take all the things that made your girlfriend know she was a girl, I'm sure we can find men who match all of her tastes, likes and dislikes and are still men, cis or trans.

I get that your girlfriend is a woman, and that she was a little girl. But I don't get the part when you say I have a female mind. Because to me, a female mind makes as much sense as a green mind, or a salty mind. To me, male and female just aren't characteristics that can be applied to the mind. And I know it works differently for most people, and that makes it very hard to understand their struggles. The closest I can come to understand is the body thing. Feeling like your body isn't your own, that I can get, because I struggled with body image a lot as a teen, and because I got surgery and it immediately made me feel like I was the way I was always meant to be. But then you have trans people who are fine with their own bodies, so I don't know.

Actually I addressed other options in a further post. I guess you didnt see it.

Sorry, the thread moved pretty fast, and my computer has been laggy. I noticed that people had posted things before some of my posts, things that weren't there when I started writing. I'll have to read through the thread again.

It is sad that it happens all the time. I don't have much experience with trans people (that I know of), so I'm not familiar with their experiences.

About the "being afraid they're gay", that's just a society thing. There is that whole thing about being gay meaning being less of a man or something, which is stupid. But as a result guys feel like anything will make them gay. If they like anal play, or nipple stimulation, they worry they're gay. If they like dancing, they worry they might be gay. I'm waiting for some guy to go "I like touching my own penis, does that make me gay?" because it's really the next step at this point.
So if it is their perception that the woman they had sex with was "actually a guy", and the sex has happened and they can't prevent it, I guess it can have a pretty strong effect on some people. However, you'd have to be a colossal jerk to become violent over it. The throwing up, while offensive, is a bit different in that you can't really control it. It's possible that some people who throw up when they hear about it also feel mortified that they hurt the woman's feelings, but throwing up is a reflex and not something you control. And it's possible to throw up as a reaction to strong emotions other than disgust.

Now, the throwing up as a story point or a gag, that is most definitely discriminatory and offensive. But I think it's a little bit different when it happens in real life, in that the person might be a total douche, but then again they might not.

About the study of brains, I'm aware of the studies, although I've also heard about studies that contradict it, and say that brains are shaped throughout our whole lives, and that they change, and so what happened during pregnancy, while it affects how we are, isn't the whole story. Basically the conclusion was, females have a brain that's different from males because they are more likely to participate in activities that shaped their brain that way, and not because they were born with different brains.

I don't know enough in biology, especially neuroscience, to know what is true and what isn't, but it seems to me it's another nature vs nurture thing, and as always in my opinion the answer is "a little bit of both".
 
Wow! So can not catch up with this thread! Lol.

I happen to have grown up with several well known trans people in our community (as in, from small childhood on in my case). I never had a thought pro or con regarding dating a trans person. I wouldn't date either of them, one was my bf (in hs) older brother, roughly 15 yrs my senior when I was a young teen. The other is about 20 yrs my sr. Shrug.
Currently I am getting to know a transman at school. Very cool person. We met thru the death of a mutual friend. But, again, age difference comes into play. He is my oldest daughters age. I am not comfortable dating someone in her age group. But he gives AWESOME HUGS and I enjoy our conversations.

I think there is a fine line between knowing what does or doesn't 'get your motor running' and allowing deep seated fears to hold you back. But, there is a line. I am not generally attracted to orientals or Alaskan Natives. But, I have dated an Alaska Native and my boyfriend is part Chinese. I don't turn away from the oportunity BECAUSE of someone's race, nor do I choose to take the opportunity BECAUSE of someone's race. Likewise, I have not dated a trans person, not because I am opposed, but because the opportunity hasn't occurred.
I identify as bi primarily because I was exposed to the term, whereas I first encountered the term pan on this board. Noone in my real life knows the word pan. Shrug.
 
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I have a related question. What do you call a person who identifies as androgynous, but is only attracted to one gender? I have historically been only attracted to males, although I'm not ruling anything out for the future. My first impulse is to describe myself as heterosexual because I have "girl parts", but if I'm not female-identifying, does that become inaccurate? Is there a word that means specifically attracted to men?

Basically it is just masculinity or butch-ness that attracts me. I'm not sure whether the actual genitalia would make a difference (although the absence of male pheromones might).
 
I had always heard that pan meant being attracted to the person, not the body. And while I am attracted to the mind, I'm definitely attracted to both males and females. I am not attracted to androgyny. . . . maybe it's because I was molested as a child, but androgyny to me screams child and therefore off limits. I like my men and women developed. I enjoy curvy women and cuddly men. In either gender, I find too much muscle to be a turn off.

I'm a tomboy and have always had more male friends than female friends and of my female friends 85% of them are bi. I have been told that I possess more stereotypical male traits than some of my male friends. In college, I was attracted to Eve, my dorm neighbor. Eve had long curly brown hair, gorgeous eyes, and was curvy but not terribly busty. Eve was a lesbian and only attracted to butch dykes (her words, not mine). I wasn't and still am not attracted to that type, though I am attracted to gay and bi men.

One of my oldest gay male friends is a drag queen and his persona is fierce and from the neck down, very attractive but something about his make up in drag makes his face less attractive than it is without. Maybe I just don't like the angry look and sharp angular features that are accentuated when he is she.
 
I do give some thought to the idea that we may be attracted to our "complements" - people who express what we lack. I did see a study (sorry, no reference handy) that suggested that we identify our immunological "complements" via pheremones.

Perhaps I am attracted to "manly men and girley girls" because they express traits that I lack. The men I am attracted to are tall, muscular, protective types. Perhaps this is because I am short, scrawny, vulnerable (physically - under 5'3" and, until recently, under 110#). In women I like curves (I never had ANY until a few years ago). I don't wear makeup, jewelery, uncomfortable shoes, or fashionable clothing - and have been fascinated by women who could pull this off without looking like they were dressing up in "grown up" clothing.

Physically I am female - even if almost pre-pubescent (despite being in my late 30s). Mentally - intelligent, aggressive, and cutting. I don't consider myself a "gender" in my head but am happy with my body, it pleases me to be living in it (even if I wouldn't be attracted to myself if I were standing outside of me). (My husband teases me that I am 'my father's oldest son' - hunting, fishing, fixing stuff...yeah, homemaking and girlie stuff...not so much)

JaneQ
 
I have a related question. What do you call a person who identifies as androgynous, but is only attracted to one gender?

You might ID as gender fluid or gender queer. And you're sounding hetero in your sexual preference in partners.

There are 2 different issues. Identity and sexual preference.
 
You might ID as gender fluid or gender queer. And you're sounding hetero in your sexual preference in partners.

There are 2 different issues. Identity and sexual preference.

Right, I've played with the genderqueer label a bit. What is gender fluid? Maybe that's accurate. Because I feel like I am mostly "right on the line," but can swing more female or male depending on the situation.

My question was mainly due to the prefix "hetero," since it basically implies "different than you are." So heterosexual vs. homosexual has to do with actual body parts? What do you call a male-identified trans with female parts who is attracted to men? Just curious about all the semantics of this.
 
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