Frohes Neues '07
I hope everyone’s New Year 2007 is off to a wonderful start. My 2007 promises to be a very interesting year. I rang in the New Year at the Randolph Country Club, in yep you guessed it, Randolph, MA. I was mostly alone there aside from new friends that I had met over the few convoluted nights I went there. It was fun for the most part, but I was reminded several times in different places over my vacation that a lot of ignorance exists as to what it means to be transsexual. I found that most people make automatic assumptions about me and those like me, largely based on ill-formulated stereotypes.
I was confronted with my fears about my sexuality relative to my present physical characteristics in mid-December. I had taken an ad out in a gay and lesbian dating site back in August when I was very lonely. Once I had actually thought it through to the eventualities of actually dating a female, and what that could mean sexually, I had some fairly traumatic visions. I was thankful that no one seemed to be interested in me, so I just tried to forget about the ad. Then, in one day I received two responses to my ad. Both were American women, and both were connected in some way to the US Military here in Germany.
One of them seemed a bit suspect by her messages to me. Then she asked me what a transwoman was. She turned out not to be interested in the end, so whatever. The other woman is a bit younger than me and of Afro-American descent from Detroit. She is an Army soldier stationed in Darmstadt. We met for a couple of hours the night before I flew to the states. We went for dinner at Haso for some kebab and then hung out at my place for a bit. It went well, but I was unfortunately feeling exhausted from work and therefore wasn’t very much fun to be around. We have been emailing here and there while I was in the states.
Even if the possibility of a relationship with my soldier friend turns out to be nothing, I have made the decision to start working on accepting and understanding my sexuality. I identify as a gay woman. Some people that I have admitted this to have been a little confused by it. That feeling is a result of the ill-formulated stereotypes that serve to misrepresent me and how I feel. Most people automatically assume that because I am a transwoman I am interested in dating men. Society for the most part still doesn’t make the distinction between sexuality and gender. I even found this to be true of the gay scene that I dabbled with in Mass. I was hoping to meet some new women friends while out at the bars, but in the end, two guys came on to me, to whom I quickly clarified “I like girls, sorry.” They of course tried to occasionally convince me to go home with them throughout the night. I stuck to my guns and went home alone every night.
I met some TV’s at two of the three bars I went to, and one of them also tried to take me home. I felt isolated and therefore frustrated because I was the only transwoman at all of the places I went to, and all of the gay women assumed I was into men. I was skeptical before going, and my suspicions were reinforced. I decided to just have a good time by myself and enjoy being in a place where I felt relatively safe. I did meet some nice people, like Mario the DJ at RCC, Shady in NB, and Stephanie and Phyllis at RCC. I had some interesting experiences at RCC that I will elaborate on further in my next post.
Over my vacation in the states I began to enrich my mind with literature. I decided that I should confront my fear and resentment of feminism by educating myself about it. The first book I read was more directly related to my sexuality, “Stone Butch Blues” by Leslie Feinberg. Hir novel opened my eyes to masculine females and what the paradigm stone butch means. I was able to relate to much of what the main character Jess went through. I am now reading “Transliberation”, written by hir also. Another book I picked up is “The Female Eunuch” by Germaine Greer. It is a second wave treatise that was first published in 1970. I am trying to use it merely as a historical reference to help me understand the different phases if you will, of the women’s liberation movement. I found the first derogatory statement about transwomen on page nine. The second I found on page thirty three. Instead of letting the comments get to me I have decided to note them in the back cover and continue to read on. I know that attitudes have somewhat evolved since then, so I am taking them with a grain of salt. They hurt nonetheless.
More later…
I was confronted with my fears about my sexuality relative to my present physical characteristics in mid-December. I had taken an ad out in a gay and lesbian dating site back in August when I was very lonely. Once I had actually thought it through to the eventualities of actually dating a female, and what that could mean sexually, I had some fairly traumatic visions. I was thankful that no one seemed to be interested in me, so I just tried to forget about the ad. Then, in one day I received two responses to my ad. Both were American women, and both were connected in some way to the US Military here in Germany.
One of them seemed a bit suspect by her messages to me. Then she asked me what a transwoman was. She turned out not to be interested in the end, so whatever. The other woman is a bit younger than me and of Afro-American descent from Detroit. She is an Army soldier stationed in Darmstadt. We met for a couple of hours the night before I flew to the states. We went for dinner at Haso for some kebab and then hung out at my place for a bit. It went well, but I was unfortunately feeling exhausted from work and therefore wasn’t very much fun to be around. We have been emailing here and there while I was in the states.
Even if the possibility of a relationship with my soldier friend turns out to be nothing, I have made the decision to start working on accepting and understanding my sexuality. I identify as a gay woman. Some people that I have admitted this to have been a little confused by it. That feeling is a result of the ill-formulated stereotypes that serve to misrepresent me and how I feel. Most people automatically assume that because I am a transwoman I am interested in dating men. Society for the most part still doesn’t make the distinction between sexuality and gender. I even found this to be true of the gay scene that I dabbled with in Mass. I was hoping to meet some new women friends while out at the bars, but in the end, two guys came on to me, to whom I quickly clarified “I like girls, sorry.” They of course tried to occasionally convince me to go home with them throughout the night. I stuck to my guns and went home alone every night.
I met some TV’s at two of the three bars I went to, and one of them also tried to take me home. I felt isolated and therefore frustrated because I was the only transwoman at all of the places I went to, and all of the gay women assumed I was into men. I was skeptical before going, and my suspicions were reinforced. I decided to just have a good time by myself and enjoy being in a place where I felt relatively safe. I did meet some nice people, like Mario the DJ at RCC, Shady in NB, and Stephanie and Phyllis at RCC. I had some interesting experiences at RCC that I will elaborate on further in my next post.
Over my vacation in the states I began to enrich my mind with literature. I decided that I should confront my fear and resentment of feminism by educating myself about it. The first book I read was more directly related to my sexuality, “Stone Butch Blues” by Leslie Feinberg. Hir novel opened my eyes to masculine females and what the paradigm stone butch means. I was able to relate to much of what the main character Jess went through. I am now reading “Transliberation”, written by hir also. Another book I picked up is “The Female Eunuch” by Germaine Greer. It is a second wave treatise that was first published in 1970. I am trying to use it merely as a historical reference to help me understand the different phases if you will, of the women’s liberation movement. I found the first derogatory statement about transwomen on page nine. The second I found on page thirty three. Instead of letting the comments get to me I have decided to note them in the back cover and continue to read on. I know that attitudes have somewhat evolved since then, so I am taking them with a grain of salt. They hurt nonetheless.
More later…
Labels: learning
posted by Christine Cormier @ 11:22 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:27 PM,
sweet trini said…
if it's any consolation, think of all the literature considered classic that contains negative and derogatory references to black people- and that's taught in school, so there's no choice but to face it...walk good.
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